Chapter 15
“I thought you were in better shape than this,” I tell Jack midway through our hike up The Mountain.
There’s a fire tower known only to the locals with the best views around.
It’s a popular hangout for troublemaking teens, but on the weekdays there’s never anyone there.
It’s my favorite place to get away when I need to think or just exist somewhere.
“I thought you said this was an easy hike,” Jack huffs, his breath coming in short bursts. He’s holding his sides, eyes squinted against the bright autumn sunshine, chest rising and falling fast as hummingbird wings.
“I think I said moderate.”
He shoots me a glare. “You said easy.”
I shrug, filling my lungs with the crisp air. “Easy enough for me.” When I slant my eyes in his direction, I can’t help but laugh at the look on his face. “I thought it would be easy for you. You go for a run every morning. And you’ve got all that…”
He lifts a brow. “All what?”
I gesture at his body. He’s not thick and muscled like he spends hours in the gym, but he has the figure of someone who takes care of themselves, who moves because they love it and not because they’re trying to achieve a specific physique.
He’s lean, and his legs are toned. The slivers of stomach I’ve caught glimpses of are tight.
He still stares at me like he has no idea what I’m talking about, and for some reason, a flush that has nothing to do with exertion steals up my neck and into my cheeks. “I just mean that you at least look like you’re in shape.”
A smirk tilts one corner of his mouth then the other, and I roll my eyes.
“Don’t get a big head.”
“Tell me what else you’ve noticed about my body, Stevie.”
“Very little, Jeremy.”
He bumps his shoulder with mine, and I can hear the self-satisfied smile in his voice when he says, “Doesn’t sound like it.”
“Well, regardless, it’s all for show since you’re dying on a hike that teenagers do drunk and high on a regular basis.”
“Have you been a drunk, high teenager on this trail?” He looks around. “If you can call it a trail.”
It’s a trail in the loosest sense of the word. There used to be one, when the fire tower was in use, but when it fell into disrepair, the trail was no longer tended to and started to grow over. Now, it’s overgrown with grass and weeds trodden down by hundreds of boots.
“Of course. There’s not much else to do in Fontana Ridge as a teenager.”
“And as an adult?” he asks.
“Well, at least I can get my liquor at Matty’s instead of smuggling it from my parent’s cupboards.”
He laughs, breathless, and the sound echoes through the mountains. “How much farther?”
“Not long,” I tell him. “Just around the bend up there.” I point to where the trail disappears, and he nods to himself.
We’re quiet the rest of the hike, and I have to suppress a smile at the way Jack clutches at the stitches in his side and heaves.
I’m more out of breath than I’d like after the weeks I took off from work.
Still, I relish the way the sun feels on my skin, how the grass feels brushing against my pant legs, how the chilly air burns my lungs.
I knew I needed this, but I haven’t found the time, and I feel a wash of gratitude to Jack for pushing me to do it anyway.
There’s a restless, anxious energy that’s always pulsing beneath my skin, and out here on the side of this mountain is the first time I’ve felt it dissipate in months, maybe years.
It’s still there, lingering at the edges, but it feels less, and that’s not nothing.
We finally round the bend, and Jack lets out a relieved sound at the sight of the fire tower up ahead, looming tall against the clouds. It’s rusted and old, but still in surprisingly good shape.
Beside me, Jack looks around, taking in the view now that the trees are thinning around us. “Wow,” he breathes. “It’s beautiful.”
I nod. “It’s my favorite place.”
I wasn’t sure what he would think about it, if my little fire tower in the Appalachian mountains would pale in comparison to all the places he’s been, the things he’s seen, but when I look at the wonder on his face, it makes something thick swell in my chest and clog my throat.
When we reach the base, I point to the stairs that lead up, up, up to the top. “You think you can manage a bit more?”
Jack slants a look in my direction. “You didn’t tell me you were a masochist."
I let out a breathy laugh, wiping at the sweat gathering on my hairline. “It’s not so bad. C’mon.”
He follows behind me. The stairs creak beneath us, but I assure him they’re solid, even though I haven’t been up here in long enough to know that for certain.
By the time we reach the top, my thighs are burning and my breath is sharp in my chest. Jack is cursing beneath his breath, and I’m smothering smiles so he won’t see them.
But then we’re opening the hatch and letting ourselves in and we’re both struck silent by the view through the floor-to-ceiling paned windows.
I’ve seen it more times that I can count, in every weather imaginable, but fall is my favorite.
From here, you can see all the different colors on the trees—russet, crimson, bronze, copper, amber.
The stunning blue of the river winding through the mountains.
The hazy horizon typical of the Smokies.
It’s an image I could paint by memory if I had the talent, one I can see imprinted on my eyelids when I close them and try to sleep.
I know the world is big. Vast. And I’ve seen so very little of it.
But still, I think this specific spot on earth will always be my favorite.
“This is…” Jack trails off, speechless.
“Worth it?” I ask, and his eyes connect with mine.
He nods.
I lower myself to the floor in one corner and lean against the windows. They’re shaking with the wind, and they’re cold against my sweating back. Jack does the same in the opposite corner, stretching his legs out. He knocks my boot with his.
“Thanks for bringing me here.”
I hold his gaze. His eyes are so blue, especially in the natural light pouring through the windows. There’s a smudge of green in one of them, a fleck of dark blue in the other. I wonder if he knows it, if anyone else has ever pointed it out, or if I’m the first to notice.
“Thanks for coming with me.”
His eyes flick to the view, and I watch as they dart around, taking it all in. “You bring people here for work?”
I shake my head. “No, we try to keep this place just for the locals.”
He looks at me. “You’re breaking the rules by bringing me here.”
My shoulder lifts in a shrug. “Making an exception.”
“I can see why you all would want to keep this place for yourselves.”
“It’s probably selfish of us.”
“I can’t imagine you being selfish.”
I turn from the view and let my gaze settle on his. “Why do you say that?”
“I saw how you were with your family today.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Seems like you do a lot for them.”
For some reason, the words don’t feel pointed the way they do when Wren says them. From him they just sound curious, like he really wants to understand our dynamic, like he wants to understand me.
“I was going to leave.” The words slip out and it’s a relief.
I haven’t talked about it in so long, the dreams I had that never came true, the ones I put aside out of fury and responsibility.
I don’t often regret it—I don’t really believe in having regrets—but there are times when I long for it so fiercely the ache feels physical.
“I was always going to leave Fontana Ridge,” I say.
“Everyone knew it. But then the summer after my senior year, my dad hurt his back, and he had to have surgery. He couldn’t work on the farm for months, and things were already tight.
I needed to stay to help out with his recovery and pick up the slack. ”
Jack doesn’t say anything, only holds my gaze. His eyes are so soft right now it hurts to look at them, so I fix my gaze on the mountains again, the hazy smoke rolling through them.
“And then it just kept happening. It was always something. There was always some reason I needed to stay. And then…” I trail off.
“I don’t know. At some point, staying became easier than leaving.
All the things I wanted to do, the places I wanted to see, felt so far out of reach that even dreaming about them felt fanciful.
“So, I bought land. Then the Airstream, because even then, when I knew I wouldn’t ever have the courage to leave, I still couldn’t bring myself to build something permanent. And I stayed. I’ve always stayed.”
“How does that make you selfish?”
I look at him then. He’s drawn up one leg, an elbow resting on his knee. He’s watching me with those inquisitive eyes, the same way he did in the hospital, like he’s trying to figure me out, read the lines I’m not saying.
“Because sometimes I resent them for it, for needing me.”
I’ve never said that aloud. Because who would I say it to? Wren would tell me to put up boundaries, to do something for myself finally, but I don’t want to hear that. I don’t want to be more selfish than I already am, quietly resenting this life, wishing for something different.
Jack is quiet for so long I think he isn’t going to say anything.
“I’ve been avoiding home since my mom died,” he finally says.
“I wasn’t there when she died. I was away at college.
Evan was the one who stayed close, who took care of her.
I told them I’d come home, but Mom wouldn’t let me.
So I wasn’t there when she took her last breath, when she left this world and slipped into the next one.
I came back for the funeral, but it was…
” He blinks, like he’s lost in a memory.
“It was too hard to be there. She was everywhere. So I left and stayed away. I left my brother to grieve alone, to clean out her house, and put flowers on her grave.”
His eyes finally fix on mine, and there’s pain in them, deep and aching. “That’s selfish, Stevie. Staying isn’t. Staying is possibly the most selfless thing you could have done.”