f i f t e e n
*
In the van on the way to the Grand Canyon, two hours after the incident in the shop – during which time I still haven’t tried a s’more, which will have to wait until our next campfire – Arjun is still muttering, his hands clenched in angry fists. He exploded the moment we left the store, still gripping my hand as he ranted about that ignorant fucking cunt, and he didn’t let go of me – or the issue – until we made it back to our tent.
My hand’s still tingling.
I’m not sure if he’s mad only on my behalf, or on his too, and the thought is almost too much. Either he’s a great ally, or he’s not straight.
Once we got back, it took a while for him to accept my insistence that the guy was not worth so much anger, that it was a waste of emotion and we’ll never see him again. Eventually, Arjun acquiesced with a huff and a roll of his shoulders.
Now it’s reared its head again, thanks to Brannan asking where we went and, then, why Arjun seems so mad. I put my hand on his knee and give him a look when I can feel him getting all riled up next to me.
“Yes, we encountered a pig of a man, but we got the ingredients for s’mores, so it’s not a total loss,” I say, partly because I just want to stop thinking about it. I don’t want my mind to linger on the intolerant words of some random American hick I don’t plan to ever see again, but it’s hard when the two words he chose are two that struck with such force.
There I was, thinking we were getting the stink eye for the colour of our skin – which was part of it, I’m pretty sure, else why would he ask where we were born? – and instead, he had decided we were a couple and that was too much. How dare a couple of gay brown boys have fun with his stupid fucking hats, right?
“It’s not ok,” Arjun says, still grumbling. We’re halfway to the canyon now and I’m ready to enjoy what Sam promises will be a spectacular sunset.
“I know, god, trust me, I’m well aware that he’s a fucking ignorant cunt,” I say, borrowing Arjun’s words, “but I just want to stop thinking about it, ok?”
I don’t intend for there to be an edge in my voice but one slips in and I pull my hand back, recoiling at my own harshness. Arjun snaps his head up, looking affronted, eyebrows furrowed.
Fuck. All he’s trying to do is be nice and supportive and all I can do is snap. The van is silent and my throat gets tight and ugh, I shouldn’t have said anything.
I love his rage. I love that he is so outwardly incensed by that awful man’s awful words. I love that he cares so much. But there’s only so much I can dwell on something before it’s too much, and I don’t want to end up down a dark path.
Adedayo breaks the silence by putting on an upbeat playlist and eventually, Kristin and Klara start talking and Young-mi leans forward to chat to Brannan, and Arjun and I are left to stew in the back in my awkwardness.
“Sorry,” I say when I’m sure no-one else is listening. My voice is quiet enough that only Arjun can hear me anyway. “You’re totally right and I really appreciate you, but I just ... what he said hurt, and I’d rather just forget about it.”
Also, I think, now I’m as good as out to everyone in the van, and while part of me doesn’t care who knows that I’m bi – especially now that the cat’s out of the bag with my parents – another part is acutely aware that I’ve only known them a few days and they’re essentially a bunch of strangers. God knows what their views are. How am I supposed to know that one of them isn’t a raging homophobe?
After a moment, Arjun says, “I’m sorry, March. I put my foot in it. I’m sorry. I just get angry about shit like that.”
“Me too. Obviously.”
“I don’t want to upset you. I’m really sorry I did,” He holds my gaze, those dark, intense eyes boring into mine. I swear they have their own gravitational field, pulling me towards him, and it’s hard to blink and break that connection.
But I do.
“It’s fine,” I say. “It’s not like you’re trying to. I really, really appreciate everything you did and said. I just ... I don’t want to talk about it.”
He nods and presses his lips together, gives me a sympathetic smile, and we slip into silence. It isn’t uncomfortable. It just feels contemplative. We’re both lost in our own thoughts, and I wish I knew what he was thinking.
*
We pull up in a parking lot, still yet to catch a glimpse of the canyon, and Sam gives us all a conspiratorial wink as he leads us to a path that seems to head into the forest, rather than towards a massive crater in the earth. I was expecting to be able to see the canyon from miles away, but we have to be close by now and there isn’t the slightest hint.
As we’re walking, Brannan comes up to me. He tucks long brown hair behind his ears in a self-conscious move and gives me an awkward smile. We’ve hardly spoken since the first night – even in our small group of ten, we seem to have fractioned into factions. Adedayo spends most of his time with Carrie; Brannan tends to hang around with the twins and Sam; Young-mi flits between that group and Arjun and me.
“Hey, March,” he says, and he continues before I can greet him. “So, I know you said you don’t wanna talk about it but I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about what that arsehole said to you.”
It’s the most I’ve heard him talk so far, and his heavily-accented words – not that I can speak – are not what I was expecting. That’s on me for slightly judging Brannan based on where he’s from. Ireland doesn’t have the best history with tolerance; I didn’t expect him to stand up for me. “Oh, thanks,” I say. “I appreciate that.”
“My dads are gay, and if someone said that crap to them, I would kick the shit out of them. If I’d been there, I would’ve given that bigot a piece of my mind,” he says, the aggression of his words at odds with his lilting leprechaun of an accent, and his appearance. Looks may be deceiving, but he has a soft, gentle look about him, as though he’d cry if he hurt a bee.
“Thanks, Brannan. It’s nice to know I’ve got allies,” I say. He gives me that awkward smile again, and I get the impression he’s just really shy. That would explain the nail biting.
“Yeah, anytime,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “Uh, if that happens again – I hope it won’t – then just, uh, I don’t know, send me their way.”
His tone doesn’t inspire much confidence, neither does his lanky frame, but I nod and thank him again. He claps me on the back and squeezes my shoulder before picking up his pace to return to the front of the group. Arjun, who I now realise hung back so Brannan and I could talk, is at my side in seconds.
It’s probably just in my imagination, but I feel like there’s a flicker of awkwardness between us. I feel bad for snapping at him when he was only trying to help, when he was only mad on my behalf. I want to say something to rebreak the ice, but I don’t know what. Until he pushes up his sleeves and walks with his thumbs in his pockets, and my eyes are drawn back to those leather bands he wears.
“I like your ... those,” I say, nodding at them. He lifts up his hand and smiles.
“Oh yeah? Cheers. My mum made them,” he says, turning his wrist so I can see that they’re not plain, but inscribed with careful detail and clasped together around a hoop that looks like a silver polo mint. “And this.” He pulls out his necklace from under his shirt – three thin strips of brown leather connected to a similar inscribed silver circle, faint, precise lines that I can’t make out.
There’s something strangely sexy about the fact that he wears jewellery, but that may just be because I find everything about him irresistible.
“What does it say?”
“When I was little, Mum always used to say to my sister and me, you will be who you are meant to be,” he says, “so when she started making jewellery, I asked her to make me something that said that.” He holds up the end of the necklace. “She engraved it in Hindi, and told me that the person I’m meant to be is someone who practices his second language.”
I laugh and peer at the tiny inscription. “That’s so cool. You speak Hindi?”
“No. Hence her disappointment,” he says with a chuckle. “And why it took my sister’s translation for me to find out that this”—he holds up his wrist and hooks a finger under one of the bracelets—“says I can’t be bothered to learn my mother’s language.” He shakes his head, grinning.
“Wow. I guess that’s one way to get the message across.”
“She’s so dramatic,” he says. “Her first language is English too. She was born and raised in Sussex. The only reason she speaks Hindi is because her parents forced her to go to classes that she hated, and she said she’d never do the same to my sister and me – but she’ll gladly shame us for not making the effort.”
“I like your mum. She sounds feisty.”
“Oh, she is,” he says. “A fire cracker in a five foot frame.”
Then the trees part, and I gasp.
I actually have to catch my breath when it’s stolen by the vista before me. Just beyond the path we’re on, the ground drops away down the craggy, crumbling ravine that is the Grand Canyon. Young-mi squeals with glee and Brannan takes a step back as though he could fall down.
He could. There’s no barrier in this spot. People are dotted all over the edge, enjoying the waning sun, and one man even has his legs dangling over the ledge. Just a quick nudge from what is probably certain death. It’s not a straight drop, but the rocks are lethal and my stomach twists at the thought.
Sam stands in front of us all with his arms spread as wide as his grin. “Welcome to the Grand Canyon.”
“Holy shit,” I say at last when I get my words back, my eyes bugging out at the view. It’s impossible to comprehend. I can’t judge the immensity of this gaping chasm in the earth when it’s beyond any scale I know. I can just about see across to the other side, but it’s literally miles away, and I can’t see the bottom. Not from here, anyway, a safe distance from the ledge.
“Wow.” That’s all Arjun says. He holds a hand up to shade his eyes from the setting sun, and he looks like he belongs on the cover of a magazine, standing like that with one hand in his pocket.
“Now, you guys make yourselves comfortable,” Sam says, gesturing at the rocks leading to the edge. “I’ll be back in a few.”
He leaves without explanation and we follow his orders, the eight of us claiming a spot on a relatively flat rock. Adedayo, apparently a risk-taker, scoots as close to the edge as he can get, leaning forwards to look down at the brambles and sharp rocks.
“I swear to god, Ade, if you get any closer, I’ll fucking scream,” Carrie says, tentatively shifting forwards to grab his shirt and tug him backwards.
“Death would really put a dampener on the evening,” Klara - I think - says. “Let’s try to stay alive long enough to appreciate the sunset.”
I haven't spent much time with the twins yet, aside from the occasional snapshot of conversation in the van or on the campsite, and somehow we've been together for a few days and I still can't tell them apart.
Arjun sits next to the twins and I sit beside him, misjudging the distance and almost landing square in his lap.
Mortification clouds me, but he merely laughs and says, “Save that for later.”
He’s such a fucking tease and it gets me every time. Young-mi glances at me and I swear she’s seeing my thoughts, the way her gaze seems to probe me until I can’t bear it any longer and I have to turn away. She comes to sit next to me, but her expression has changed and I know she’s not about to quiz me.
“I’m not used to shorts,” she says with a groan, stretching out her legs and tenderly poking her thighs, where they’re red and raw from rubbing together. “So painful.”
Carrie digs into her bag without a word and throws over a stick of deodorant. “Try this,” she says. “Chub rub is a curse; deodorant is a godsend. It helps to stop the chafing.”
“You have everything,” Young-mi says as she follows Carrie’s instructions. “Your bag is like supermarket.”
“You know it. Got to be prepared for any and every situation,” Carrie says. “So, let it be known, if any of you ever need pretty much anything, come to Mama Carrie and chances are, I can hook you up with the goods.”
She’s halfway through a demonstration of just how much stuff she carries at all times when Sam returns and a cheer goes up before I turn to see that he’s carrying five boxes of pizza. On cue, my stomach growls as though I haven’t eaten all day and the thought of a hot slice of pizza right now just can’t be beaten.
“I like to change it up each trip I lead,” Sam says, “but pizza during sunset at the Grand Canyon is one thing I’ll never stop doing. What’s better than marvelling at Mother Nature and basking in a few slices of man’s greatest creation?”
I can’t argue with that. He lays out the boxes amongst the group and I can’t get my hands on a slice quickly enough, letting out an unintentional groan when hot cheese hits my tongue. Young-mi makes a near orgasmic sound as she bites into hers, muttering something about it being the best pizza she’s ever had.
She’s not wrong.
It may not, technically, be the best pizza ever, but the circumstances in which it’s being eaten add a ton to the appeal, and I can’t remember ever enjoying dough and tomato sauce and melted cheese as much as I am right now.
Silence strikes when the sun begins its descent. The sky is an intoxicating mix of reds and oranges that bleeds into the rugged horizon, as though the rust of the rock is blending into the rich blood of the sunset. The vista is a watercolour in live action, colours shifting on the palette and melting together as the sun lowers itself for the night.
My photos can’t possibly do it justice. There’s no depth perception in my pictures, no way to portray the epic vastness of the crater before me; the colours reproduced on my screen don’t hold a candle to the rich hues I can see right before my eyes. It’s pure magic, and nobody speaks a word to break the spell that we’re under.
"So beautiful," Young-mi. I didn't hear her come over but she's right next to me with a dreamy look in her eyes.
"Incredible."
We lean against each other, lost in the changing colours of the sky, and I sling my arm around her shoulders. I'm an affectionate person, whether I'm with friends or family or someone I'm dating, and it's hard to hold that back with Arjun but every touch feels so weighed down with everything I'm not saying. With Young-mi, I don't overthink contact, the two of us draped together to watch the sunset.
When the sun has disappeared and the bright burning colours have transformed into the blues and purples and greys of a fresh bruise, I let go. I feel as though my body becomes one with the world in that moment, as though I have just witnessed a miracle – one that takes place every single day, without fail.
This is why I’m here. Moments like this. The magic that happens all around the world while I’m wasting my days heartbroken over someone who doesn’t deserve my time. My shoulders feel loose, my head free, and I let it go.
*
the grand canyon is a crazy place and it's pretty awesome to eat pizza during sunset - I highly recommend! below is a tiny selection of some of my evening photos (as well as my sunrise/sunset mashup) and there'll be a lot more in the next chapter, featuring the canyon during the day! Keep your eyes peeled as the next chapter may well go up later today ;)