Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
LARAMIE, WY
I hated nature, but not nearly as much as Dex did.
“Fuck,” he said, stumbling over a tree root. Regaining his balance, he threw it a dirty look. “How much farther?”
A mosquito buzzed insistently around my head and a bead of sweat slid between my boobs. Up ahead, Phoebe shouted over her shoulder, “Half a mile!”
Phoebe wasn’t the outdoorsy type, but our dad was.
He loved camping and fishing and hiked every worthwhile trail in the Northeast. I figured a hike in the gorgeous Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest was a homage to him, so I ignored my burning hatred for the supposed great outdoors, put on a sports bra, and feigned enthusiasm.
Meanwhile, Dex spent the last two miles grumbling under his breath and scowling at birdsong.
My heart hummed with fondness.
I ignored that too.
“You okay?” I asked him, slowing my pace so he could catch up.
He nodded, swiping a hand across his sweaty forehead.
Instead of his usual uniform, he’d opted for a white tee, shorts, sneakers, and his Ray-Bans.
Several times, I’d deliberately allowed him in front of me so I could commit every angle to memory.
“I hate this.”
“Shocker.”
“Hiking,” he added belatedly. “I hate hiking. It’s pointless.”
“I think there’s supposed to be a pretty amazing view at the end,” I replied, to which he rolled his eyes.
“There are hundreds of photographs at our disposal. We don’t have to work so hard for it.”
“You’re such a whiner,” I said. “I had no idea.”
“I’m not whining.”
“I don’t like this any more than you do,” I said, lowering my voice even though Phoebe charged ahead, out of earshot. “But it’s a beautiful day. The sun’s out. We’re in Wyoming and it’s gorgeous. Not much to complain about.”
On cue, a mosquito landed on my arm and I slapped it hard enough for the sound to echo through the surrounding trees. Dex looked at me, my own thinly veiled skepticism reflecting back in his sunglasses.
“Right.”
We kept moving. Phoebe wheeled around, eyes alight, and exclaimed, “Guys, look at the hole in that tree! It’s shaped like a heart.”
My face broke into a smile, watching as she lifted Dad’s camera and snapped a photo. Then I glanced at Dex to find him already facing me, and I could feel his eyes beneath the dark lenses.
We made it another few feet before Dex let out a sharp sound—something in the realm of a shriek—and flailed, hands blurry as he swiped at himself, flinging off his sunglasses in the process. Phoebe appeared beside me to watch with her mouth hanging open.
“Oh my god,” she said. “What happened?”
“There was…” Chest heaving, he scanned the ground as he rubbed at his arm. “Spider.”
Phoebe snickered. A flush swept up his neck, staining his cheeks.
“Wow. That made this whole thing worth it,” she said, turning to continue down the trail. I bent to retrieve Dex’s Ray-Bans, now missing a lens.
“What a fucking calamity,” he groused as I handed him the glasses. I half expected him to toss them in the woods, but he hooked them from the collar of his shirt to deal with later.
“So,” I said. “Flying and spiders.”
He clenched his jaw and kept moving. “It’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m curious. I’ve never seen you so vulnerable.” Outside an elevator, I didn’t add.
“I walked through a spiderweb with a huge-ass spider in it and it was gross. The end.”
“You shrieked,” I pointed out. He picked up the pace and I had to jog to keep up, careful to avoid tree roots or loose stones. “Imagine if there were flying spiders. That would be your worst nightmare.”
He shot me a dark look. “This is you not laughing at me?”
“Sorry.” He slowed slightly and I managed to catch my breath. “It’s not bad to be scared of things, Dex. Tell him, Phoebe.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t even turn. “Fear is in the eye of the beholder or whatever.”
“Beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
She considered this. “I like mine better.”
At the end of the trail, we were treated to a view of a piercing blue lake and a wide open sky.
Phoebe snapped a picture of the view, and then forced all of us together, holding the camera at arm’s length to take a selfie.
Dex even smiled. We ended up staying for nearly two hours, drinking in the sunshine and telling stories about other beautiful views we’d seen.
Phoebe and I reminisced about a trip we took with our dad to Acadia National Park.
Dex let it slip that he’d been to Greece and Phoebe and I proceeded to sing the entirety of “Mamma Mia.” It felt like discovering a new appreciation for nature, at least until a swarm of gnats descended on us and we headed back down the trail.
Phoebe hummed an unfamiliar tune, leading the way. Dex and I stayed together, close enough that every few steps our hands or elbows brushed.
“You’re quiet,” he said. I glanced at him, finding his eyes locked on me, and I wondered what percentage of my rapid heart rate had to do with the cardio.
“I’m not always talking.”
“No,” he allowed. “But this silence seems louder than most.”
He probably thought I harbored hurt feelings over the elevator, despite having dumped every bit of water under the bridge.
“I’m thinking,” I said. He tilted his head as if to say, Go on. “She seems different, doesn’t she?”
He tore his gaze from me to regard Phoebe curiously. “Less bite, maybe.”
“Is this a turning point? Or am I na?ve for thinking that?” I exhaled and palmed a handful of sweaty hair out of my face. “I know grief isn’t linear. But is this the part where it stops being so exhausting?”
“I don’t know.”
“It feels different,” I told him, my voice low. “Kids bounce back quicker, right? That’s proven by science?”
He smiled, almost indulging. “Sure.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What am I doing?”
“That.” I waved my hand at his face. “It’s condescending.”
“My face is condescending?” he asked, not sounding entirely surprised. I doubted it was the first time he’d heard it.
“Very.”
“I’m not trying to be condescending,” he said. “It’s interesting to hear how your brain works.”
I froze, a twig crunching under my foot. Dex paused, swiveling to face me.
“What does that mean?” I asked, my voice quiet. Something about his tone dug under my skin, or maybe I was simply desperate for an excuse to feel anything other than fondness for this man. Maybe I wanted an excuse to drain the water from under that bridge.
“You’re an optimist.”
He said it so plainly, the same way someone would say the sky was blue. I was taken aback by how easily he came to that conclusion when I’d spent the last year grappling with my slippery beliefs until all I had was reciting three measly things to keep my head above water.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I challenged. Hurt me, I begged silently. Hurt me now so it doesn’t hurt so much later.
“I’m not insulting you,” he said quietly, snuffing out the emotions roiling in my chest. “It’s admirable, Violet. Not many people can retain that sort of optimism, especially in grief.”
I studied him for a moment. “Right. And you’re the pessimist.”
“I’m nothing. Life sucks most of the time,” he said. “That’s just how it is. I try not to think about it so I don’t go out of my mind.”
I inhaled sharply. This man who’d flinched when we found out where he went to college was now admitting a devastating truth that surely stemmed deeper, Marianas Trench deep, protected by booby traps. But he’d said it out loud. To me.
I stepped toward him. “I’m not an optimist because I’m impervious to negative emotions.
” Overhead, birds twittered and tree branches creaked in the wind.
Dex’s shoulders sank in a small exhale, his eyes so much warmer in this light.
“It’s a survival tactic. I have to look on the bright side.
I have to believe things get better or else what’s the point?
I don’t want to live in a universe where everything sucks and only gets worse forever, the end. ”
“Sounds like our universe to me.”
“Except it’s not! Twenty minutes ago you and Phoebe laughed over a dumb joke on top of a mountain. For a minute, things were good.”
“For a minute,” he said, widening his eyes.
“Yeah, and there will be a thousand more like it this week. Billions in our lifetime,” I said, watching as his eyes softened. “Things get fucked, but there’s always something good. Even if it’s just another minute.”
“Is that enough?” he asked softly.
I shrugged. “It has to be.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “You’re dangerous.”
“Because I haven’t let life beat me into hopelessness?”
“You make me want to be an optimist.”
He was already turning as he said it, following Phoebe’s speck in the distance.
My mouth went dry. Damn him for coming up with a string of words that would tie my heart up for good—someday maybe I’d be senile, but I would remember those words.
I’d remember the reverent look on his face.
And I understood the danger he mentioned, the curse that plagued optimists for all their days.
Hope. It spilled over, rushing around me in a steady, uncontrollable current. There was no stopping it with Dex existing beside me. Maybe there was no stopping it at all.
“Maybe,” Phoebe said gravely back in our room at the inn, hands on her hips after our fourth consecutive tick check, “there was something seriously wrong with Dad.”
“Oh, there was definitely something wrong with him,” I agreed.
I shuddered at the thought of those bloodsucking creepy crawlies lurking in the woods, ready to strike at any moment, whereas Dad, fearless or out of his mind, laughed anytime he plucked one off his skin like it was a dandelion seed.
A fellow traveler, he’d say. Real-life vampires, more like.
“Like, that was so fun,” Phoebe went on, shuffling over to her bed. She sat at the edge and stripped off her socks, giving her feet another glance. “I would spend all day outside. But the ticks. I don’t think it’s worth it.”
“All bugs, really.”