Chapter 18 #3
“Huh,” she says. “It’s on my Yosemite bucket list of hikes. I mean, who am I kidding, all the trails are on my list, but in the time I have here, there are a select few battling it out for number one. Some people have Tbrs, or to-be-read lists, while I have TBHs, to-be-hiked.”
“You going to share your top ones?”
There’s some rustling, and I imagine her pulling out a notebook with a handwritten list inside.
It’d be messy, if my glimpse at her notebook in the hospital was any indication.
I remember it—the sprawling jagged lines, swooping across the page like her words couldn’t keep up with her thoughts.
I’ve noticed it on the grocery list she wrote last week, too.
The first few lines of items will be pristine, quickly devolving into letters awkwardly spaced, some barely decipherable.
For example, she’d written spinach, and somehow, I read it as spaghetti.
Focus.
I listen to Lily share her top hikes, carefully explaining her plan for each considering the season she’s here.
She even mentions coming back in the summertime to attempt some hikes impassable in the winter, resulting in a hollow pit in my stomach at the thought she’ll leave and the premature worry she won’t come back.
Woven curtains hang over a single-pane window swishing in the slight draft, and I fixate on the thick fabric as it sways back and forth.
Lily continues on, and I’ve never heard her say so much in one breath.
I nod in time with her passion, wishing I could see her face as she’s talking about this.
Would her eyes be lit with zeal? Her eyebrows raised as she desperately tries to organize her hikes into her next five, or would she gesture wildly, anticipating the future trails she’s planning?
Max wanders in, his snout drenched from his water bowl, and he rubs his nose over the worn oval rug covering part of the wooden floor.
“I’m sorry,” Lily finally says. “I just word vomited to you, and you’ve probably heard this all before.”
I have—I meet many tourists and visitors, and they usually always ask my favorite places to hike, the safest, best for beginners, and on occasion those overzealous hikers prepared for anything—the hardest, most grueling hike they could possibly do.
I nearly snort remembering Lily’s first reaction to me—she wanted to put as much distance between us as possible.
“I like hearing what you have to say.” I sit up, scooting off the bed to grab a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt from the dresser sitting to the right of the door threshold.
The photo of my mom and me when I was seven years old at my first minor league baseball game tips over, and I right it.
She’d taken off of work to surprise me with tickets and a Fresno Grizzlies jersey for my birthday after school.
The memory is one of my favorites, especially now knowing how much extra money we didn’t have growing up. It makes it more meaningful.
A dish in the shape of a paw print my mom gave me last year for Christmas sits near the photo, and I empty my pockets—loose change, the receipt from the groceries, and my utility knife.
“I’m sorry. You’re busy. I can let you go,” Lily tells me, her words slower and with a subtle hesitation, like she might be masking an undertone of sadness. Especially compared to the energy she had explaining her hiking plans.
“No,” I blurt out. “I was going to change into my pajamas and climb into bed is all.”
She sighs, and that tiny noise, the miniscule hitch at the end, has heat flooding my body.
She finally tells me about the dinner she made my mom—turkey burgers with sweet potato, and kale salad. I picture her beaming when she tells me she got my mother to eat several bites of her burger and the whole kale salad, though I’m still baffled by how she’s handling it.
We talk while I’m in the bathroom, brushing my teeth and washing up.
It’s strange and intimate, especially for her not being here.
When I strip down to her explaining how she used to go four-wheeling with her brothers, I can’t help my mind conjuring her and I getting ready for bed together, after we’ve been out hiking all day.
I’d peel each article of clothing off her petite frame, allowing it to drop to the floor, her labored breaths increasing as I trail kisses up her thigh.
She’d grasp at my head, her own tilting back as her eyes roll behind her lids as I tease and taste the exhaustion of the day from her, wring pleasure that rivals any euphoria she’s ever experienced on a tumultuous hike.
I blink. Ashamed that I missed her last words due to my fantasies.
Folding back my blanket, I climb in, the chill from the cold sheets causing me to shiver. “Dang it’s cold. I just got in bed, and I feel like my toes are going to catch frostbite.”
She laughs. “Well, your bed here is toasty warm.”
I internally groan at the thought of her in my room from my awkward high school years, but then it morphs, twists into something bitter and sharp as I wish she were here instead.
First my dog, now I’m jealous of my old bed.
“I tend to settle into the dip on the side of the mattress you used to sleep on. It’s comforting.”
Yep. Making it worse. I chance the chill to bring a knuckle between my teeth, gnawing it so I don’t blurt out all the things I want from her out in a single sentence.
“Yeah?” I ask instead.
“Yeah,” she whispers back.
I find my hand drifting, fighting urges stirred by her timid inhales and the rustling beneath the sheets, my old sheets.
I bite my lip, imagining her.
“Welp, I can barely keep my eyes open anymore …” Lily’s words make me wrench my hand away, throwing it across the bed, far away from the throbbing I can’t control.
I squeeze my eyes shut, picturing the pine trees, mangled animal carcasses, and every other disgusting thing I’ve witnessed during my time as a ranger.
Anything to scrub the scene I was shaping in my mind.
I’m scum of the earth right now. Even though she doesn’t know the darkest desires of my thoughts, it feels as though I’m betraying the friendship we’ve worked to establish.
“Yeah, me, too. Big day tomorrow.”
She snorts, then ushers in a yawn. “Good night, Noah. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Good night, Lil.”
She hangs up, and I berate myself for using the nickname she asked me not to.
It’s natural to use it, and the familiarity with which I want to experience her, to know her …
Lil feels right. There’s a trickle of hope in the fact she didn’t call me out.
Maybe she’s too tired, perhaps half asleep and not truly paying attention to me.
It’s ridiculous, my body clutching these little moments and hidden signs like they’re proof of something more.
I groan, rolling over, and ignore the need coursing through me.
Max snores from his gigantic kennel at the end of the bed. I keep the door open so he can come and go as he pleases, but it’s still the place he prefers to sleep.
As I drift off, there’s another ding on my phone, and I glance at the 10:28 p.m. time before checking the message banner.
Morgan
Hey You up?
I push the phone off my bed, hearing it clank on the floor, and shove my head under my pillow.