Chase You

48; camping V [The End]

Hiking, as I remembered, was never fun for me. We trekked as far as our feet could take us, taking in the beautiful scenery, chatting about university mostly, chores, food, and pets.

Ben was insistent on having Ember and Ash live with us in our flat at university, but piling that together with all the workload we'd have, plus all the chores, I didn't know if it would've worked out. I did feel sad just thinking about Ember, and I know that Ash was getting quite old so he wouldn't be too difficult, so I was torn.

"Look at the view!" Ben said. I had seemed to enthused in my thoughts that I didn't realise he had already managed to pass me and reach the peak a few meters ahead.

I caught up to him eventually, having to reluctantly drag my feet across a few more rocks. It wasn't an extremely steep mountain, but it was just so tall, so I was tired.

"Can we just... settle here?" I said breathlessly, balancing myself by holding onto a tree. I couldn't even look up, my entire body was totally hunched over.

"Yeah, let's have lunch. I'm tired too."

"If you're tired, then imagine how I feel!" I retorted. He burst out in laughter. Collapsing on the ground, I pulled my rucksack off, and took out the picnic mat, then lazily unfolded it.

He sat down beside me, and then I finally managed to look up.

We were sat facing the final zip lining course, but still fairly far from it, and below us was the same huge lake that we had crossed over. I feel giddy with all the memories coming back to me.

There was a gentle breeze that passed us, tied in with the sounds of birds chirping around us. It felt extremely peaceful.

In the distance, pairs of zipliners dropped from the cliff, and swung at racing speed to the other side. We could very faintly hear their screams and shouts from where we sat.

I sat cross legged and faced him after I had managed to catch my breath. I took out all the food and snacks; which was only a couple sandwiches and drinks, nothing too extravagant, but having Ben in front of me heightened my emotions and I had to hold back my squeals once I noticed how dashing he looked right at this very moment.

His hair had grown slightly since the last time he had it cut which was right before the wedding, it was gelled up at the front slightly sideways so that the wind didn't mess it up, but some wisps of hair still managed to fall out and flop in front of his forehead. He wore plain black joggers and his favourite dark blue fleece which he liked to wear when he did sports, it was a simple outfit but I always thought blue looked nice on him.

I slipped my phone out of my pocket and held it out in front of me, turning it landscape, I took a photo of the view in front of me. After, Ben scooted closer to me, nudging me to take a selfie of us.

Then I realised, I had never actually taken a photo with Ben, I've only ever take a photo of him when he's stood in front of me, when he's not looking usually. For some reason, I just felt really nervous at the moment.

"What?" He raised a brow.

"Oh. Nothing." I mused, wiping the palm of my spare hand on my joggers.

"Just give me the phone." He snorted, grabbing it from my hands and raising it in the air. He scooted even closer to me and ever so casually tossed his arm around my shoulders, letting it droop down on the other side. I plastered on my best smile.

"3..2..1..."

Click

"See, it ain't that 'ard." He said.