31. Natalie
Natalie
Idrive down the mountain to Le Fou and park along the opposite side of the street.
When I enter, the bell on the door chimes as the scent of freshly ground coffee reaches my nose.
Quiet music plays, and a few people sit at tables with open laptops or books.
I scan their faces until I find Juliet near the window with Ali.
Ali leans over a mug, talking quietly to Juliet, who sits across from her.
Juliet’s dog, Dax, lies under the table, his chin on his paws.
When he notices me approaching, he raises his head.
“Hey,” I say, reaching them.
Juliet looks up at me. “Oh, hi.” She scrambles for her phone and looks at the screen. “Sorry. I must have lost track of time.”
“No, you didn’t. I’m just a few minutes early.” I look between Ali and Jules, worried I’ve interrupted something. “Sorry. I can wait in the car if you want.”
Jules smiles and shakes her head. “No, that’s okay. You know Ali, right?” She motions to her best friend.
I wave. “Yeah. Hi. It’s nice to see you again.”
Ali’s round glasses frame her face nicely, and her dark hair is pulled back in a sleek ponytail, which ends in a mop of curls at the back of her head.
She smiles warmly up at me. “It’s nice to see you too. Jules told me you’re hiking today. It’s the perfect weather for it.”
I glance at the sunshine outside. “I haven’t been on a proper hike in … forever,” I admit. “I’m afraid I’ll be a little out of shape, but I’m ready for it.”
With no hints as to where Juliet planned for us to hike, I chose sneakers, pink running shorts that have built-in yoga shorts underneath, and a white athletic top. I also brought my camera and an extra battery.
“You’ll be fine,” Jules says. “It’s nothing hard. A little bit of an incline, but the trail’s not long.” She gathers her purse and phone and stands. “It’s worth it for the view, though. You brought your camera?”
“It’s in the car.”
“Perfect.”
Ali stands, and they hug each other. Ali whispers something to Juliet, but it’s too low for me to hear.
Jules smiles at her as they pull apart. “Thanks.”
Ali turns to me. “Bye, girl. Have a great hike. And don’t worry if you can’t keep up with Jules—I can’t either.”
This makes me laugh, and I feel a little better about my lack of stamina. Dax follows us out to the car, and the drive is spent in silence with the windows down for fresh air and music playing on the local radio channel.
At the trailhead, Dax jumps out of the car. Juliet doesn’t leash him, but he doesn’t run away. He roams around the dirt parking lot, sniffing the ground, then coming back before he gets too far away.
“How do you know he won’t run away?” I ask.
“Dax?” She looks at him. He paws at a stick on the ground.
“He never goes too far. He knows I’ll keep him safe, and he knows I need him.
” Her eyes drop to the ground, and she pulls out a water bottle, taking a drink from it before tossing it into a little backpack and closing the car door.
“So, we start right there”—she points at a path leading into the woods—“and the lookout is only two miles away. We can rest there and take photos, and then we come back the same way.”
“Sounds good.” I bounce on my toes, ready to get going, with my camera bag slung across my chest.
The trail has been marked by orange paint swiped on trees. So far, I haven’t seen any other paths that connect with this one, so getting lost is probably low on the list of possibilities.
“How many times have you hiked this trail?” I ask, following on Juliet’s heels as she steps over logs with ease.
“This one? I don’t know. Maybe fifty times.”
I gawk at her. “Fifty times? Do you hike all the time?”
“Pretty much. When I’m not working, or when we can go out as a family.” She looks back at me. “Watch out for this rock; it sticks out a little.”
“Thanks,” I say, maneuvering around a sharply pointed stone in the path.
The path itself isn’t very difficult, but the incline is what tests me. I grab onto thin trees that frame the trail, using them to pull myself upward and forward. And as of this moment, I plan to start doing glute workouts at home.
Dax bounds ahead of us, shooting into the trees and racing back. He seems to be enjoying the freedom. Each time he comes back to us, he nudges Juliet’s hand with his nose and circles behind me before bouncing off again.
It feels like the hike is a million miles long thanks to my lack of athleticism.
I never would have called my body weak, but now I’m hardcore judging myself for not getting to a gym.
When I’m just about to tell Jules that I can’t go any farther without a short break, she stops ahead of me, a smile spreading across her rose-tinted face.
“We’re here,” she says, looking back over her shoulder. She stands with her hands on her hips, like a superhero without her cape. “I know it’s hard, but just a few more steps, Nat. You got this. Believe me, this view is totally worth it.”
I pant, hands on my knees as I hike the slope to catch up. “What makes you think this is hard? Is it the way I’m gasping for air or the redness in my face that gave it away?” I joke. Juliet chuckles, and when I bridge the ten-foot gap between us, I’m instantly rewarded for my hard work.
We stand at the top of a cliff, one that would very much kill us if we were to fall.
But beyond that is a magnificent view of green trees that stretch on for miles.
The sun dazzles from a clear sky, and I’m grateful that we hiked under the shade of the trees.
A rolling green mountain reaches the tree line in the distance before touching the baby blue sky beyond. There isn’t a cloud in sight.
Juliet points. “If you look really closely, you can see the Kittappy River down there. And over there, you can see town.”
I squint, taking it all in. I can indeed see shadowy blue water, but it disappears behind a curve in the landscape.
Maple Lake looks quaint and empty from way up here.
It’s a small town, even smaller than I really remember it, but it’s charming.
Rustic and wild as it nestles into the mountain, but tame and comforting at the same time.
A lot like the ocean, I realize.
I pull out my camera and uncap the lens, snapping photo after photo, zooming in on the town and the water, then going wide and snapping some more.
It’s beautiful—so perfect I won’t have to edit these at all.
I wouldn’t even want to; the raw images are breathtaking.
Everything but the view fades around me until I lower the camera, holding it against my chest. I breathe in the warm summer air and exhale, the cheerful trill of birds on the faint breeze encouraging me to relax and enjoy the moment.
“I never thought I’d actually be here again, seeing this exact view,” I say.
“You remember it?” Juliet asks.
I nod at her. “Not vividly. But now that I’m up here, I remember seeing it before. The same view, from this exact angle.” I raise the camera between my hands. “These photos will be perfect for the cabin.”
She smiles, and I turn back to the view.
There are plenty of trails and tons of outlooks from which you can see Maple Lake.
But I remember this one specifically, with the river on the left and town on the right.
The lake by Juliet’s house sparkles—just a dot of blue in a sea of green.
Main Street stretches between the trees, an opening in the leaves where everything else is dense woods.
“I used to dream about Maple Lake when I first left,” I admit, meeting Juliet’s eyes.
Her brows tug downward. “Really?”
“Yup. They weren’t good dreams, though,” I say, shaking my head. I look away from her, falling into a memory of Luke.
“I’ll stay with you,” he’d said the first time he woke me from a nightmare. “If the nightmare shows up, I’ll fight it. Nothing will happen to you.”
Juliet slides her backpack to the ground, shaking me from the scene.
“What were the dreams about?” she asks. She pulls out a water bottle and hands it to me.
“Thanks.” I take a few long pulls of water, savoring the crisp liquid as it cools me from the inside; then, I sit down on a large rock.
“The dreams were mostly foggy. I couldn’t see much, like everything was fading, turning black.
I could never really explain them, even when I’d just woken up from one.
But, you know how sometimes in a dream you can’t see someone’s face, but you still know who it is? ”
She nods.
“They were like that,” I say. “I couldn’t see where I was, but I knew I was here. Somewhere in Maple Lake. It was just something I knew subconsciously. But as much as I wanted to see beyond the fog, I just couldn’t. My dreams never cleared up. It was always black.”
She sits on the dusty ground, folding her legs under her. Dax leans against her body, and she reaches out to pet his neck. “It sounds like you had this dream a lot.”
I chuckle darkly, remembering how I never slept through the night, how the dreams felt like I was falling down a black hole, how I didn’t think I’d ever sleep soundly again. “It was at least once a night.”
“Once a night?” Her eyes widen in shock. “You had a dream like this every single night? For how long?”
“For a long time.” I crack a twig between my fingers.
I hate the way she’s looking at me—like I’m broken. But I had to do something to open up to her. She thinks my life has been a dream since I left, like everything’s been perfect without her. Maybe that’s why she resents me.
Well, I want her to know it was also a nightmare.
“What did you do?” Her voice is small.
“I started seeing a therapist, and that helped. I took medication for a little while to help me sleep.”
And when that stopped working, I resorted to strong drinks. The blur of the alcohol made my world spin, but it kept the dreams away. I hate that it’s the only thing that helped back then.
I don’t tell her that, of course. I don’t tell anyone that part of my life—only Luke and Emma. But Luke is the only one who knows how bad my dreams really are, how they affect my waking moments.
I look at the dirt on the ground, wishing I could bury my guilt and shame under the stones. I’d like to walk all over it, stomp on it, and leave it here behind me for good.
“I’m sorry you had to deal with that.” Jules’s voice is gentle—the most gentle I’ve heard it since I was a child. “Life wasn’t easy for me either when you left.”
My head lifts and I look at her. She’s watching Dax as she smoothes his white fur down his back. He closes his eyes against the sunshine, tongue lolling to the side in the most doglike show of contentment.
“When Tyler left first,” she says, “and then Mom and Dad not long after, I was alone. I had Ali, but I didn’t see a way forward for a long time. I thought I’d be by myself, waiting for—” She fidgets with her shoelace. “Waiting for something to happen. For something to come along.” She smiles sadly.
“Is that when you saw Cam again?”
Her smile turns warm. “That’s when he moved back from Washington. And the funny thing is, he saw my sadness and he wanted me anyway. Not at first.” She laughs and shakes her head at a memory. “He actually tried very hard to not like me.”
“What? Why?” I grin.
“His own baggage got in the way for a while.”
I exhale, letting my lips flap loudly as the wind passes them. “I guess we all go through crap.”
She tilts her head, stretching her legs in front of her. “We all just handle it differently, but yeah. We all have crap. Bags and bags and bags of crap.”
“A shit ton of crap,” I agree. We laugh, and it feels good to laugh with her. Like she’s my friend again. Like maybe we have a chance at really repairing the cracks in the walls and removing the stagnant water that seeped in.
She takes another swig from her bottle. “Well, are you ready to head back? You can come over. Archie’s been asking about you.”
“He has?”
“Both the boys have. They ask to see you every day. Come to think of it, even Dad’s been bugging me to have you over.” She rolls her eyes at the sky.
“Really? I didn’t know they—if you …” I swallow the lump gathering in my throat. “I’d love to come over.”
“Alrighty then.” She stands, wiping the dust from the back of her shorts. “Let’s get going. After this heat, a jump in the lake actually sounds nice right now, doesn’t it?”
“That sounds amazing.” I jump up from my rock and take one more look out at the trees and mountains we came to see. I pull out my phone and snap a photo of the view, sending it to Emma.
Me: The hike’s been good, but the view is amazing.
After being up here, I feel more at peace than I have in a very long time.