Chapter 14
If there’s anything that should distract me from the events of the past twelve hours, it’s the landscape stretched out before me at nine a.m. the following morning.
Ben and I drove up to the peninsula at Dyrhólaey to view the dramatic cliffside rock formation that creates a circular arch as it juts out into the ocean.
There’s also a lighthouse to explore, as well as sweeping views of the black sand beaches far below.
I roam the hillside paths as Ben searches for the best location for his shots, the salty ocean wind stinging my cheeks, the scent of brine hanging thick in the air.
Gulls soar through the sky overhead before circling back to the rocky cliffs where they’ve nested, and tall green grasses sway with the breeze, a vibrant contrast to the coal black shoreline below and the white-capped waves that crash and recede, leaving their outline on the sand only for the next roll of the tide to wipe it away.
I might as well be standing in an ASMR recording, but instead of feeling peaceful, I’m miffed.
I can’t get Calvin’s dismissive, indifferent, cavalier email out of my head.
For one goddamn line of text, he sure managed to get to me.
So instead of enjoying the early-morning views of this picturesque location most people would kill to see in their lifetimes, I’m silently fuming.
One little sentence and he manages to wipe away any confidence I’d started to build.
A sprinkle of words and he’s reinforced the fact that this trip, this article, has nothing to do with me and everything to do with Ben.
Which brings me to the other thing keeping my peace at bay. After debating it over and over while I did anything but sleep last night, I’ve accepted a hard truth: I am the problem.
I’ve acted unprofessionally this entire trip.
I have allowed myself to not only give in to my attraction to Ben in the first place, but then I yelled at him in public for something that happened fourteen years ago.
The humiliation of knowing he knows how much our past still haunts me made it very near impossible to face him this morning.
So far, the only acknowledgment I’ve gotten out of Ben today was when we met up at the car and I pasted on my affable smile and said, It sure is a lovely morning out, isn’t it?
Ben’s response came in the form of an eye roll and a mumbled, Christ. Are we really back to this? We’ve coexisted in silence since.
I have to fix this. Calvin’s email served as a stark reminder that I’m here to do a job, and I can’t recruit Ben if he isn’t speaking to me.
Therefore, I’ve made up my mind; I will take responsibility and apologize for my actions.
I’m just waiting for the right moment (and some courage), and then I’ll recruit the hell out of Ben Carter.
My courage doesn’t come in the very long, very silent two-hour drive as we leave the southernmost part of Iceland behind and head northeast to Vatnajokull National Park.
But the rain does. And so does the wind.
Along with some thunder for added fun. And like most Americans who don’t know shit about the metric system, I gravely underestimate the “moderate” 1. 5 km hike to Svartifoss waterfall.
The brutal winds and torrential rain aren’t helping matters.
As if it’s not enough for my muscles to struggle against my own body weight on the uphill trail, I must also struggle against the sudden blasts of air that pitch me off-balance and the raindrops that mix with my sweat and drip into my eyes, inhibiting my view.
All I can think of as I pull my hood tighter at my chin, thunder cracking overhead, is that this is it, this is where I give up. Yesterday’s confidence and accomplishments feel completely out of reach today, washed away by the monsoon currently pelting us. And a one-line email.
We round a zigzag in the gravel trail, and another steep incline looms in front of me, confirming my self-doubts.
“I can’t do this,” I say in a winded burst, coming to an abrupt stop and doubling over at the waist.
Ben turns at my voice, rain dripping from his eyelashes. “We can take a break.”
He slides his backpack off his shoulders, sighing as he sets it to the side of the trail, and it’s not lost on me—again—that Ben is doing this wet, merciless hike while carrying around equipment that probably adds at least thirty pounds to his shoulders.
I’m carrying a water bottle.
“Sorry,” I say when I’ve recovered enough to stand upright again. “I’m slowing you down and forcing you to be out in this rain longer than necessary.”
“It’s fine,” he says without looking at me. “I’m used to working in the rain.”
While that’s probably true, I guarantee he’s not used to slowing his pace to that of a snail to accommodate a partner in over their head. “I don’t think my body has recovered since day one.”
“Day one was the Blue Lagoon.”
“True, but they could’ve had the courtesy to warn me then that there aren’t enough healing minerals and silica in the fucking universe to prepare my body for what was to come.” I swipe the rain and sweat off my forehead. “These Icelanders don’t fuck around.”
“There you go.” Ben finally meets my gaze as a hint of a smile looms at his lips for the first time today. “A lovely quote for your article already.”
I smile, too, and maybe this start of a conversation is the opening I need to repair the damage I caused last night. “I’ll finish, I swear. I just need a minute.”
“Take your time, this is hard shit.” Just as he says it, a shirtless guy with rippling muscles jogs by us and offers a friendly smile and wave, his long, wet hair flowing behind him like a horse’s mane.
“Okay, maybe it’s not hard for him,” Ben says as the man leaves us in his wake, “but fuck that guy.”
“I bet he does CrossFit,” I add, annoyed by someone who has their life together.
“Absolutely,” Ben agrees. “Probably at four thirty in the morning before he goes into the office to get an early start on the day.”
“I almost feel sorry for him. What an empty personal life he must have.”
Despite the humor in my voice, Ben’s almost-smile fades. “Yeah, poor guy.”
I don’t know what nerve my words struck, but I’m not willing to fumble this opportunity now that I have him talking again. “Look,” I timidly start, “I need to apologize for the way I acted last night.”
“No, you never need to apologize.” He wipes the rain from his brow. “I’m the one who fucked things up between us. Not you.”
A clap of thunder shakes the ground beneath us.
“Maybe so,” I shout to be heard over the elements. “But I shouldn’t be letting our old history affect me now. I know this is an odd situation we’re in, but it’s no excuse for how unprofessional I’ve been.”
“If you’ve been unprofessional, so have I,” he retorts. “Like I told you before, I don’t know if we have the ability to be purely professional, Ems. There’s too much between us.”
I think of Calvin’s one-sentence email, and my cowardly response: Recruitment’s going great! No worries here, sir!
“I think we have to find a way to be,” I tell him. “Trying to do my job and sort out our past, it’s too much.”
Ben watches me through the heavy downpour. “So, we’re what? Colleagues?”
In the question, I hear all the unspoken contradictions.
But we held each other in the dark…
But we kissed in the ravine…
But I know you better than anyone else ever has…
“Friendly colleagues,” I amend with a head nod for extra assurance.
I’m just not sure whose doubts I’m trying to assuage, his or mine.
* * *
By the time we drive another hour to make it to our last stop of the day, Glacier Lagoon, the weather has done an abrupt one-eighty.
For the first time since we arrived, the sun makes a full appearance overhead, and the calm, icy blue water softly lapping at the black sand shore reflects the pillowy white clouds above.
Icebergs ranging in an assortment of sizes jut from the surface of the water and glitter in the unexpected sunshine, the mountainous rise of a glacier looming in the background.
Ben and I walk the water’s edge, stepping around washed-up chunks of ice that decorate the shoreline like sparkling jewels.
An inner peace finds a way to settle my worn-out soul as the sun heats my face, fresh air filling my lungs. I shift my gaze just in time to spot three seals surface in the lagoon not far from where we stand, the water swishing over their slick, leathery bodies.
“Ben, look!” I grab his arm and point to the cute sea creatures with their scrunched-up faces and whiskers, but then I realize these three fellas aren’t alone.
There are dozens of them: some gliding through the water effortlessly, some disappearing below the surface as soon as I spot them, some lying out on the icebergs, soaking up the rare sunbeams.
“Guess I better get some sea-life photography to complement all my sheep photos,” Ben says. And it’s true. He’s taken approximately five thousand photos of sheep so far because they are everywhere.
Ben kneels to the ground, dropping his camera low to get an angle of the lagoon with a jagged piece of washed-up ice on the black sand in the forefront, a seal napping on a chunky iceberg in the distance. I cannot wait to see how these photos turn out.
“Hey, can you hold this?” Ben twists a lens off his camera and holds it up to me.
“Oh my god, are you finally trusting me with your camera?”
Outwardly, I take the lens from his hand like it’s no big deal.
Inwardly, I turn into one big bundle of nerves because a fancy lens like this can cost thousands upon thousands of dollars, and I don’t have that kind of money just hanging out in my bank account for funsies.
Before he unzips his backpack to retrieve another (also expensive) lens, he tilts his head back, squinting against the sunlight.
“What are you talking about?”