Page 61 of Double Exposure

“It makes sense now,” she says and presses her head against my chest. She slips a hand under my coat and rubs the small of my back.

“I don’t know what to say,” she says, replacing the buttons.

“You don’t need to say anything.” Her hand drops and I take it, bringing the inside of her wrist to my lips. Then I set the box back and roll the rock in place.

Jade watches, her brows knitted. “And no one knows this?”

“Just us five—and now you.”

“Maybe you should have had me turn my back around so I couldn't see where you were hiding things,” she smiles.

I shake my head. “This is part of who I am. I wanted you to see it.” I take her hand in mine.

I can love her.

I was fifteen when my father died. Since then, the fear that something is going to happen to someone I love has remained hard to manage. But this feels different.

I watch her hiking beside me. This feels like life.

How do I walk away from this? How do I protect myself from this? And then the question arrives so clearly, I see how wrong I’ve been.

Why would I protect myself from living?

“Hey,” she says holding up a concave rock the size of her fist. “Put it to your ear.”

“Oh so—”

“You can hear the sound of the ocean, yes,” she says. “It reminds me of home.”

All I know is that she grew up blocks from the beach.

“I just love this,” she says, tossing the stone to the ground again. “I learned that no matter where I was, I could always get home.”

“Jade,” I start to say, then grasp her hard, pulling her close to me. I hold her tightly. The cold breeze wraps around us, and tendrils of her hair stroke my cheek. This, right now, feels like home.

“Are you going to—” she starts, and then I have to kiss her, my lips pressing to hers tenderly, eagerly, and I stroke her face with my finger before we pull apart again.

“You know every time you kiss me, you lift me off my feet. I’ve never quite had this experience.”

“Perfect” I say.

We hike further and in fifteen minutes we hear the gurgling of water. It sounds a lot heavier than it usually is.

“The thaw came early this year,” I say. “I hope the icicles are still there.”

“Icicles?”

“Yeah, you know the limestone here is so porous that we get these huge teeth coming down from the ledge from underneath the waterfall. It's beautiful.”

Just as we come around the corner, the falls come into view. The creek, about ten feet wide, is swollen with snow melt and it tumbles over a ledge, about two stories high. Green moss clings to either side and icicles glisten in the sunlight in the underbelly of the falls.

“Oh my god,” she says, “this is spectacular.”

She reaches for the camera around her neck. After scouting for the best angle, she stops, squats for a moment, and takes several shots. She snaps a series of shots of morning light, the rows of foot-long icicles, and the sun breaking through trees. Then she sets up again and does a series of shots of the falls.

“We needed to get here at sunrise,” she says tucking strands of dark hair behind her ears. Glancing up to smile at me, she promises, “Next time.”

She finally finishes and I’m disappointed. I have no idea what she's doing, but I love watching her.