“The marks humans leave are too often scars.” —The Fault In Our Stars, now in theatres!
Chapter 1
If her father weren’t already dead, she would have killed him. He was the reason she was in this predicament in the first place. Backpacking through the wilderness was not her idea of a vacation. Neither was watching almost all of her hiking party hop into a national forest emergency helicopter.
It had been an unfortunate accident. One of ladies had rolled her ankle after stepping into a ditch covered by foliage. Immediately, her ankle started swelling. She couldn’t even put any pressure on it without howling in pain. It had been pure luck that a forest ranger with a walkie-talkie had passed by. Otherwise, they would have been by themselves, alone in the middle of a national park while their hiking guide went for help.
She felt a pang of remorse watching the helicopter disappear into the sky. She would miss the group of middle-aged women. All recently divorced, they’d celebrated their newfound freedom by going on a backpacking trip. They had been friendly to her. Easily accepting her into their folds even though she was half their age.
“Are you ready?”
Alexis looked over her shoulder. Her current crush and hiking guide, Graham Neelson was swiftly snapping his pack into place. His nimble fingers moved with ease that came from years of experience.
He was wearing his usual outdoor uniform. A plain, wicker t-shirt and a pair of waterproof khaki pants, that had several pockets along the sides. They were stuffed with various things like a bag of beef jerky, a compass and sunscreen.
When she first met the 28-year-old guide, she had been wary. He seemed too young to be leading the seven-day backpacking trip that summited a 14,000-foot mountain. She was not a skilled hiker and didn’t feel comfortable placing her trust in a man who was only a year older than her. It negated the whole reason of why she finally agreed to participate in the first place!
Reach the Top, the company Graham worked for, had a special program catering towards inexperienced hikers. For six months, it was a rigorous schedule of weekly PT sessions, monthly hikes and various wilderness survival classes—all to prepare the mind and body for the task of ascending the mountain.
When she approached Reach the Top about her concerns, they assured her of Graham’s competence. He was an experience hiker and rock climber who had tackled some of the hardest climbs in the world. In the end, despite her doubts, she had agreed to stay.
Now, all these months later, she recognized just what a capable leader he actually was. He handled every situation in a cool, calm collected manner. His knowledge and leadership abilities had earned both her trust and her admiration.
Somewhere along the way, she wasn’t sure when, she’d developed feelings for him. Maybe, when he insisted on walking her to the car after every hike. They would linger in front of the car, talking and laughing till the sky turned dark. Or, maybe the moment came when she’d him about her promotion at work. His face beamed bright, as if her accomplishment was his own. He’d even bought her a cupcake to celebrate her achievement. Either way, she had started to like the young hiking guide.
Out of the corner of her eye she watched him adjusted a strap. His arm and chest flexed as he gave a short, quick tug. A small sigh of longing escaped her lips. Oh how she wished he wasn’t wearing a shirt! He had a lean, hard body, the kind she found attractive. She hated men who were too bulky. There was nothing worse than cuddling up to a lumpy, mass of muscles.
Strands of mahogany hair spilled over a red bandana tied around his forehead. Her fingers itched to brush the thick locks aside so she could see his face better. Graham wasn’t handsome in the classical sense. His features were too sharp and angular. He had an almost hawk like look. High cheekbones, pointed chin, and a long, thin nose.
What really drew Alexis to him though, were his piercing eyes. Rich, dark amber that looked like aged whiskey. One of the ladies said his eyes were cold and shrewd, but she disagreed. There was nothing cold about him. When he fixed those eyes on her, sparks flew. He ignited her heart and made her feel alive.
If only he returned her feelings. At times, it seemed like he felt the same way. The stolen glances and heated looks, but he never made a move. In fact, he had never even touched her! It frustrated her to no end. She didn’t know whether to throttle him or kiss him.
“We need to head out,” Graham said, interrupting her thoughts. “We have a lot of ground to cover if we are to stay on schedule.”
Silently, she groaned as she followed behind him. It seemed this was her lot in life. To pine after men she could never have.
A part of her wished she had left with the ladies in the helicopter. It would have made her life a lot easier. There were still three days left of this trip—including reaching the top of a ridiculously high mountain. However, she couldn’t jump ship. Not when this had been her father’s dying wish—even if they were estranged.
Seven months ago, she received a call from Mr. Werthington, her father’s lawyer. In a cool tone, he politely informed her that her dad passed away in the night. Shocked, she asked what he died from.
“Cancer, if you had bothered to pick up the phone.”
His words still made her seethe with anger. Who was he to judge? Her father had stopped being active in her life a long time ago. Why would she answer his calls when for most of her life, he had ignored hers?
Oh sure, when she was little he had been a great dad. Her earliest memory of him was laughing in the park as he chased her around calling her ladybug. They even had a routine of brushing their teeth together before bed. They would make funny faces in the mirror and see who could go the longest without laughing.
She had been daddy’s little girl, until he started hiking. As his love for nature grew, the time he spent with her and her mother dwindled. It caused an enormous rift between her parents. He couldn’t understand why she wasn’t supportive and she couldn’t understand why he loved it so much. Finally, they divorced.
In vivid clarity, she remembered the day he packed up his belongings. She was nine at the time. He knelt before her and gently drew her into his arms. As he brushed away her tears, he promised that everything would be okay. When she got lonely, all she had to do was pick up the phone and dial his number.
“I love you, ladybug,” he said tenderly. Then, he kissed her on the forehead and drove away.
At first, they did talk on the phone. However, as time passed, he grew more and more distant. Longer, more adventurous hikes took him away for weeks and sometimes even months at a time. Each unanswered phone call and broken promise marred her young heart.
Finally, on her twelfth birthday, as she sat by the phone, waiting for the call that never came, she acknowledged the truth. His love for the wilderness was greater than his love for her. From that day forward, she stopped calling. She stopped leaving voicemails. She no longer held any expectations of him.
That was why she was surprised when he started calling again. He left her numerous voicemails asking her to call him back. She had ignored every last one and now he was dead.
Her father’s last request had been for her take a backpacking trip. He had everything set up and paid for. All she had to do was agree. Maybe it was the guilt that pushed her or the fact that it was his dying wish, but for whatever reason, she consented. After all, how hard could it be?
Looking back, she laughed at her own naiveté. Her shoulders and hips ached as she moved. Hiking for hours at a time with a twenty-pound pack was a grueling task. She cursed every extra energy bar or sock she had packed. Graham had warned her to pack carefully, but had she listened? And to think she had laughed in his face when he told her to cut off the end of her toothbrush. The joke was on her.
The sun beat down on her as they steadily hiked up a small mountain range. The trail zigzagged in a row of endless switchbacks. The incline was steep and her lungs labored to suck in air. At only 9,000-feet she dreaded what it would feel like when they summited the 14,000-foot mountain. Not only was the ascent going to be harder, but there was also going to be less oxygen up there.
Panic started to set in as she thought about it. She was not equipped to handle this. Regardless, of the hours spent conditioning her body. What had she been thinking? She should have ignored her father’s request. The great outdoors might have been his one true love, but it sure as hell wasn’t hers.
“You okay back there?” Graham asked.
“F-fine,” she choked out, trying to catch her breath.
“Let’s take a breather.”
“No, no. Let’s keep going,” she insisted. He had promised a break once they reached the mountain pass. “We have to be close.”
“We still have another two miles,” he informed her.
Her head fell back as she whimpered in dismay.
The noise caught his attention and made him backtrack to her. His eyebrows drew together as he did a full body scan. “How are you feeling? Experiencing any headaches? Dizziness? Feeling sick to your stomach?”
She waved away his concern. “I told you I’m fine.”
“Altitude sickness is a serious condition. If you go too high, too fast, your body can’t get enough oxygen. It can not only affect your lungs, but your brain as well.”
“I know what it is and I don’t have it,” she said testily. She wasn’t in the mood for a lecture.
“You looked like you couldn’t breathe back there.” His face darkened as shadows filled his eyes. “We’re taking a break,” he ordered, leaving no room for argument.
Grudgingly, she acquiesced. She moved over to a large boulder and rested her pack against it. Instantly, the pressure on her shoulders lifted. It felt like heaven.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as he skillfully climbed a boulder till he was perched on top. He held his head high as his eyes gazed out into the horizon. To Alexis, he looked like a hawk surveying his land.
A light wind blew by and ruffled his hair. He closed his eyes, basking in the cool reprieve from the scorching sun. His expression was serene. The hard line of his mouth had softened into a small curve. It made him look younger, almost boyish. Whatever thoughts had been plaguing him earlier had disappeared.
“It’ll be easier once we reach the pass,” he said conversely, after taking a large gulp of water. “Three miles downhill will seem like nothing and then we can set up camp. I’m looking forward to watching you set up the tent now that Mary’s gone.” He grinned at her, a flash of white teeth against tanned face.
“It’s not my fault. That tent is out to get me!” Every time she tried to pitch the tent it ended in disaster. The first night, the whole thing collapsed. The second night, she ended up snapping one of the poles in two and they had to duck tape it together. By the third night, Mary, her sleeping buddy, had taken the poles out of her hand and threatened to fill her pack with rocks if she so much as touched it.
“Good thing you won’t be setting up that tent.” He winked. “You’ll be setting up mine.”
“I-I….” She had forgotten that with Mary gone, she would be sharing his tent. Three nights of sleeping next to a man she was secretly crushing on? Thank god she had brought extra strength deodorant.
Amusement flashed in the depths of his amber eyes. “Worried?”
The playfulness in his voice threw her. She couldn’t figure him out. He ran hot and cold. One minute he was smiling and flirting with her and the next he was acting like she just another hiker. Even the other ladies in the group had commented on his mixed signals.
“No,” she lied. “Are you?”
“You’re tiny. You won’t take up much room.”
Tiny? Standing at 5’9” very few people called her tiny. Although compared to his 6’4” frame, she guessed she was tiny. “I just hope you don’t snore,” she sniffed.
“I haven’t had any complaints so far.”
“Share your tent often?” she asked. The thought of him sleeping with another woman set her teeth on edge. She knew that he was currently single, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t seeing other women.
He gave her an all too knowing grin. “Jealous?”
Annoyed that he seemed to be enjoying this, she replied coolly, “Not in the least.”
“I think you are,” he taunted.
“Just making sure I’m not stepping on any toes.” She stood up and brushed the dirt off her pants. “Ready to go?” she asked, ready to end his teasing and start hiking again.
He took the hint and put his water bottle away. “You want to lead?”
She shook her head and stepped to the side so he could pass. She liked it when he was in the front. He had a knack for setting a pace that was perfect for her. It was fast, but it wasn’t too demanding that she couldn’t keep up.
“I haven’t you know,” he said as they began walking.
“Haven’t what?”
“Shared my tent.”
She ducked her head as a huge smile broke out over her face. She would be the only one female to have ever been in there. The thought made her giddy with joy.
“Have you?” he asked, throwing a quick glace over his shoulder.
“Have I what?” she asked, still caught up in her own bubble of happiness.
“Shared a tent?"
“Well yeah,” she said, clearly with the sound of ‘duh’ in her voice, “with Mary.”
“No, I mean have you, you know, shared a tent?”
Her nose scrunched. Was this some type of weird camping metaphor? “Are you asking me if I’m a virgin?”
“No! I—You...” He let out huff of frustration and started again. “I mean have you ever let someone in? You know, been in a relationship? Loved them?”
Silently, she chuckled. That was what ‘sharing a tent’ meant? He was too cute.
“Once,” she said, thinking back to her ex-boyfriend. On paper, he had seemed perfect, but in real life? She shook her head. “Or at least I thought I loved him.”
“What happened?”
“Turned out my knight in shining armor was really just a loser in aluminum foil,” she admitted ruefully. He’d been an executive at the bank she worked for. Smart, kind, dedicated and loyal—all the things she looked for in a man. She thought she’d finally met someone who she could trust, who would put her first above everything else. Unfortunately, the loyalty she so greatly admired, only extended to the bank. He canceled dates and forgot their anniversary all in lieu of work. The irony of the situation was not lost on her. She fought so hard to find a man who was the exact opposite of her father and he ended up being the mirror image.
“What about you? Ever been in love?” she asked, guiding the conversation back to him.
“No. Never met anyone who was worth it.”
Alexis thought his answer was odd. What did worth have anything to do with love? “What if you fell in love with someone who wasn’t worth it?”
“If they weren’t worth it, I wouldn’t be spending my time with them to begin with,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact.
“What about love at first sight?” she asked, thinking of her parents. Both claimed to have fallen in love the moment they set eyes on each other.
“How can you fall in love with someone without knowing a thing about them? Love is about more than just a couple of looks and a feeling.”
“But love is a feeling. You can’t control that,” she argued.
“Maybe not, but I can choose what I do with that love. Let’s say two strangers meet and they instantly fall in love. What’s the next step?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean do they exchange phone numbers and arrange a date or do they ignore each other and leave?”
“Arrange a date,” she said, not sure where he was going with this.
“But that next step is their conscious choice, right? They could just as easily walk away and leave. True love has to be a combination of loving someone with our feelings and loving someone with our actions.”
“It’s not that easy,” she insisted. Some people were drawn to each other like magnets. Her parents were complete opposites, but there had been some magical force that had attracted them to each other. They had been inseparable till her father had decided it wasn’t enough.
“I never said it was easy. In fact, I think loving someone and keeping that love alive is hard. It takes work.”
“If love takes so much effort, then why be in love at all?” she wondered to herself. It wasn’t until Graham suddenly stopped walking that she realized she had said it out loud.
He turned and looked straight at her. His face was solemn yet his words were soft and intimate like a gentle caress. “Because the person you love and choose to be with will make it all worth it.”
An unknown feeling rose up inside and latched onto her. She rubbed her chest, willing it to go away, but it clung on. Feeling unsettled, she forced out a weak chuckle. “Sounds like you have it all figured out. Guess you just need to find the lucky girl.”
His amber eyes melted into a stunning gold. They shone brightly from a source deep within. Even the harsh rays of the sun couldn’t compete with his radiance. “She’s out there,” he said with a quiet confidence that made her heart pound. Then he turned around and began walking again.
Three hours later, they reached the small clearing where they would be spending the night. It was situated between a small hill of dirt and a meadow with a large stream running through it. Tall blades of grass and wild flowers covered the flat terrain. She welcomed the sight, the bright green and purple breaking up the monotony of rock and dirt.
As she rummaged through her bag, she saw the white envelope she had hastily tucked in while packing. It was a letter from her father. Mr. Werthington had sent it along with a box of her father’s possessions. She tried opening it several times before, but each time something stopped her.
She didn’t know what had changed, but something compelled her to pick it up. She stared at it for several seconds. There was a slight bulge in one of the corners and it was dirty and crinkled from the hours of abuse it had gotten in her pack. Delicately, she opened the envelope and took out the letter.
My dear Ladybug,
You are probably wondering why I asked you to take this trip. I know you hold no great passion for hiking, but I’m hoping once you finish this trip, you’ll understand why I enjoyed it so much.
This trail is the first major hike I ever went on. It was where I fell in love with nature. It gave me a sense of freedom I had never experienced before. There was no judgment, no expectations. All I had to do was be myself. It made me realize how unhappy I had been.
I know you won’t believe me, but I did love your mother. In fact, I still love her very much. However, she wanted me to be someone I wasn’t. I’m a simple man, who likes simple things and she never understood that. Looking back, I know I could have handled the situation better. I took the coward’s way out and for that I am sorry.
I don’t know what your life is like right now, but I hope this trip will embellish it. Give you a richer and deeper understanding of who you are and what you are capable of. You can do anything you put your mind to Alexis—the key is knowing what you want.
I hope one day you will be able to forgive me. In this envelope is a necklace I always wore. Just know that wherever I went, I always kept you close to my heart.
Love always,
Dad
Unceremoniously, she dumped the contents of the envelope out. A familiar leather cord fell into her open palm. She had seen many pictures of him with that brown cord hung around his neck, but the bottom had always been tucked under his shirt. Now, she knew what he had hiding: a small silver ladybug complete with little black dots.
A mass of emotions swirled inside her as her hands closed around the necklace, making a tight fist. What was she suppose to do with this? Be grateful that he hadn’t forgotten about her? Be happy that finally acknowledge his mistakes? Anger pulsed through her veins.
This trail is the first major hike I ever went on. It was where I fell in love with nature.
She hated it all. The mountains. The trail. The dirt. The stupid rock. She swung her foot back and kicked it across the clearing.
“Whoa,” Graham said from behind her, “What did that rock ever do to you?”
A humorless laugh passed through her lips. It stole the heart and soul of her father. It took and took and left nothing in return. Nothing, but broken promises and forgotten phone calls.
“Might feel better if you talked about it. I’ve heard I’m a pretty good listener.” He walked over to a large tree that offered plenty of shade and sat at the base of it.
She ignored him and kicked another rock. Focusing all her anger, all her hatred on the small pebble. She didn’t want to talk, especially to Graham. He wouldn’t understand.
“All right,” he said after awhile when it was clear she wasn’t going to respond, “Let’s begin with an easy question. Who was the letter from?”
She took a few deep breaths trying to calm herself. Finally, she said, “My father.”
Graham paused, surprise written across his face. “Are you on good terms with him?”
“He’s dead,” she said shortly.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” His words were kind and sincere. No trace of pity. It cut through her anger like a knife. She felt her shoulders sag, all the fight drained out of her.
“I wasn’t close to him,” she said, feeling an inexplicable need to explain.
“Did you want to be?”
The question put a sudden lump in her throat. Battling her emotions, she closed her eyes and tried to swallow past the restriction. She had not shed tears over her father since she was twelve and she certainly wasn’t going to start now.
“It’s a moot point now, isn’t it?” she asked, after locking it down.
“Maybe,” he conceded, “but you didn’t answer my question.”
“No good comes from dwelling on the past,” she said firmly, praying he would let the subject drop. “Time to move on.”
She could see he didn’t want too. He paused for a couple seconds, at war with himself. She held her breath. Finally, he moved from the tree and she let out a sigh of relief. Eager to get away, she picked up her water filter, but before she could escape, he snagged her hand.
“Alexis,” he murmured, drawing her closer to him. The sound of his low voice caused her stomach to flutter.
“Yes?” she whispered. She tried to block out the feeling of his hand wrapped around hers, but it was hard. His skin was so warm and rough.
“Don’t forget that in order to look forward, you need to deal with your past.”
“Wha—” Her spine stiffened as his words registered. “W-Who said I haven’t?” she asked defensively.
His gaze softened and he squeezed her hand. “Just know I’m here if you want to talk.”
She gave a jerky nod and pulled away. Immediately, she missed the contact. Her skin felt bereft without him. She looked down and noticed she was still holding onto her father’s necklace. Her fingers were clenched tight, like a child holding onto a precious treasure. She would have been that child at one point in time, eager to have a small memento of her father, but that young girl was gone.
Resolved, she marched over to the edge of the meadow. She raised her fist and threw the necklace. It arched high into the sky and fell silently into the grass. She felt no remorse. The necklace was nothing but an ugly reminder of dreams that would never come true.