Until It Hurts To Stop

Until It Hurts To Stop - Chapter 15

Fifteen

We’re halfway up Crystal Mountain. The day has turned unseasonably hot, a last blazing gasp of summer. Sun bakes the rocks. Moisture collects on my scalp, under the straps of my backpack, and at the bottom edges of my bra. A hot wind swirls around the boulder where Nick and I sit munching fistfuls of trail mix. We’ve climbed high enough that the valley below us has shrunk to toy size, with miniature trees and matchstick light poles and a steely ribbon of river. But there’s still plenty of mountain above us.

“I should’ve brought my own trail mix. Without raisins,” I say.

“Yeah, can you leave something for me besides raisins? I’m going to take all the ones you’re picking out and stick them in your backpack when you’re not looking.”

We squabble, laughing, the way we have on a dozen other hikes. On the outside, it’s as if we’re back to normal.

But all morning, the party has loomed between us. I went there worrying about Raleigh, but came out worrying about Vanessa. The fact that Nick’s been smiling to himself all morning hasn’t helped. Everything I say feels like I’m pushing words against a barrier between us. But I keep trying.

“I need fuel,” I say. “Look at those ledges ahead of us.”

“Up there? We can do that.”

I gulp water and hop off our boulder, whose surface is starting to burn me even through my shorts. “Well, let’s go. Crystal isn’t going to climb itself.”

“If it did, that would sure save us a lot of trouble.” Nick stuffs the bag of trail mix into his pack. I stretch and shake out my legs, waiting for him to buckle his pack straps.

We pick our way over ridges of burning rock. Skinny, twisted trees grip the mountain with their roots, but none of them casts enough shade to shield us. I can almost feel my skin reddening, and we stop at the bottom of the next steep section to slather on sunscreen.

We can’t see our own faces, so we usually smooth off the excess gobs of sunscreen for each other. Sliding my finger down the side of his cheek, closing my eyes as he wipes my forehead, I tell myself it doesn’t mean anything. I rub my hand on the bottom of my T-shirt, wishing I could rub off my discomfort as well. It’s so much easier to keep Nick in the friend category when we’re not stroking each other’s faces. . . .

I need to concentrate.

For the first time, looking up at the narrow ledges where we’ll be climbing on the very rim of the mountain, I shiver. I’m not exactly afraid of heights, but I’ll be putting my feet inches from a thousand-foot drop. That could make anyone gulp.

The blazes, paint blotches marking the rock, lead up into the sky. They wind around the left side of the mountain, where there’s a rim just wide enough to walk on. We’ll have rock rising on our right, a steep drop-off to our left, and then we’ll reach a point where we go up the face of Crystal. From here it looks blank and sheer and impossible, but I know that when we get there, we’ll find bumps and imperfections in the rock that will allow us to move up. Still—

“I forgot to bring my wings,” I tell Nick. When in doubt, make a joke.

“Didn’t I tell you you’d need them today?”

He leads, and I ignore the quivering in my legs.

Be strong, I tell myself, moving one step at a time, drawing comfort from the solid rock on my right as the edge of the world creeps ever closer on my left. The empty air over there sings with the strange magnetic pull that heights have, an invisible downward pressure.