Beyond This Moment

16 Day Seven- 10:41 A.M.

Elias is pretty serious about keeping his internet-found discovery a surprise until the taxi is actually pulling up to the park. The signs say that we're at "The Rimrocks" and although I don't know what that means, it looks like a beautiful park and I'm excited to explore it.

"It's kind of a hike," Elias tells us as we start walking up the path. "But the website that I saw said that there's a view that overlooks the entire city."

"That's so cool," I grin with excitement with Mac wagging his tail beside me, clearly excited about the sense of adventure. After JD picked up the room key and we stuffed all of our stuff into the taxi, we dropped our luggage off at the car garage and they put our stuff in a back closet. I'm not sure if that's the safest but I guess we'll see how that goes when we get back. I have all of my important stuff in my backpack hanging on my shoulders so I'm not too worried.

And now we're here, at the Rimrocks, to go on a hike while we wait for the car to finish getting repaired. We have pretty much all day to kill so we might as well stretch our legs while we can because once we get back in the car, I'm sure Gabe will be forcing us to drive way more than we're actually willing to drive.

"This is really cool," Cassie decides as we all start down a path. There's a few paths to take through this rocky, forest-y area but we obviously have no idea where we're going so we just choose one and go for it. "Good choice, Elias."

"I'm glad that you think so," He replies. "It said that it's a small hike so hopefully, it doesn't take too long to find the overview of the city."

"I brought food and water for Mac so he should be fine for a hike," I say. It's summer so we're all already wearing warm weather clothes, shorts and t-shirts, so a day in nature will be fun and hopefully at least a little bit relaxing. That is, until my phone starts ringing and I know that it can't be good.

Considering the only people who call me nowadays are Gabe, Kellan, and Heidi, I'd say that Gabe isn't calling me right now considering he's standing right beside me. It could be my dad but that's not much better than talking to Kellan or Heidi. I pull my phone out of my pocket and see that it's Kellan.

I see Elias glance over at the screen too, also seeing that it's Kellan that's calling me, but instead of answering, I just ignore his call and put my phone back in my pocket.

"We'll have to lose reception eventually, right?" I ask him, trying to sound joking.

"No stress," Elias tells me. "Don't even think about that right now."

"Okay, no stress," I promise him with a nod.

We walk for about fifteen minutes, enjoying the scenery and not stressing about anything, until Cassie worries that she's getting too sweaty in the summer heat so we take a break. I sit down and pour some water into the back of a Frisbee for Mac to drink. It's hot out and he looks thirsty.

"You know, you guys can go ahead. I'm not really much of a hiker, I think I'll just slow you guys down," Cassie says as she finds a rock to sit on herself. Gabe insists on staying with her, being the good boyfriend that he is, so after Mac is finished drinking, I put everything back in my bag and I continue up the path just with Elias.

"She probably just wants to go fuck behind a boulder," I mumble to Elias when we're far enough away for them to not hear us. "She's more athletic than I am, this hike should be nothing to her."

"They didn't get their privacy last night," He reminds me. "And they're in love, you have to cut them some slack here."

"Disgusting," I say with a frown. "How much farther do you think the view is?"