Page 18 of Fragments of the Lost
“We’re here?” I asked.
We pulled off the road at a sign with an arrow, a hiking trail name, an icon for picnic tables. Caleb eased slowly into a small circular lot made of dirt, where another pair of hikers were loading up supplies from their trunk.
He shifted into park. Twisted in his seat for his hiking boots, changed out of his sneakers.
This was my second indication that hiking was not going to be what I thought it was. My first indication being the six a.m. start time.
It didn’t take me long to realize that the sneakers were a mistake. The rocks were slippery with morning dew, nearby moisture from the stream trickling down beside us. I stayed on the dirt path, feeling blisters forming at my heels, even though I’d run in these shoes up and down hills and dirt tracks before. There was something to the motion that was different, and at one point I threw my backpack to the ground and let out a huff.
“Come on,” Caleb said, unamused.
“Maybe I should leave the bag and just try running.”
He checked his watch, looked up the trail again, tapped his heel against a rock while I adjusted my socks. “Anything that will make you go faster,” he mumbled.
I swatted him with my bag as I hooked it back on my shoulders, and he grinned, relenting.
I kept my eyes on his boots while we moved, trying to step in his steps, breathe when he breathed. Within minutes, I was in perfect sync with Caleb, and I felt close to him, even as he was facing away, looking away, in silence.
Eventually his steps sped up, and he was scrambling up the rocks, and I fell out of sync, silently cursing both the lack of traction on my shoes and Caleb for not waiting. Then, abruptly, he stopped. I almost ran smack into his back. He was frozen in a clearing made of boulders, and we were on the top of the mountain. There was a drop-off beyond, and the valley and the river stretched below us, in endless green and blue.
“Oh,” I said as I came to rest beside him.
Caleb’s mouth was slightly open, and his eyes had this faraway look, and I thought, in that moment, that he was heartbreakingly beautiful. Without looking, he reached a hand over for mine, lacing our fingers together—both of our hands pulsing hot from the hike, a sharp contrast against the cold of the breeze on the exposed overlook.
He didn’t take a picture, and neither did I, because I understood. You couldn’t really capture it. Anything we did, forcing the look and feel into a flat two dimensions, would strip the moment for the both of us.
I sat on the rock behind us, and Caleb looked down at me. “We’re not done,” he said.
I scrunched up my face. Thought about the length we’d already walked, and would most likely have to walk back. “You were right,” I said. “About the sneakers.”
He reached a hand down and pulled me up, pulled me close, so it was just us and the trees and the sky. “It’ll be worth it. I promise.”
The trail snaked downward this time, down off the mountain, into the trees, the path turning back to roots and dirt. The sound of birds calling, insects crying, and the hint of something more, in the distance.
We were making our way toward something—what had started as a faint hum was slowly becoming a roar. Eventually we reached a clearing, which gave way to a wide river trailing between large, flat rocks, and a waterfall streaming down from the rocks behind us. Close to the shore, the mist rose up off the water, coating everything.
On the other side of the river, there was a group of people having lunch, and a few others swimming. In the distance, through the trees, there were a scattering of tents, a makeshift campground. Caleb sat on a stone at the water’s edge, used a stick to try prying a rock from the sole of his boots.
“This is the end,” he said.
“Of the hike?”
He grinned. “That. And New Jersey.”
“Ohh,” I said, raising my hand to my forehead, as if surveying a foreign territory. “The fabled land of Pennsylvania? I’ve heard stories of such a place.”
He laughed, extracted a larger section of mud from his shoe, and tossed it into the river. Then he fell silent. He was watching the group on the other side of the river—a father, a mother, children. There were other adults, presumably relatives. A few people were swimming, independently, closer to the waterfall. I wondered if he yearned for something, if he saw what was lacking in his own life. Or if he was just hungry for their food.
“We should’ve done the picnic thing,” I said.
He seemed startled by me standing there beside him. The sound of the water was hypnotic, making the nearby voices fade away.
“Oh, and who would’ve carried that?” He shook his head and pulled out his camera. “Come on,” he said, unlacing his shoes.
I did the same, glad track season was over, because my feet were pretty beat-up looking from the hike, and my coach would have a fit if I came to practice complaining about blisters.
Caleb waded out a little into the river, holding my hand, and I was unprepared for the shock of cold. But he kept moving, until we were as deep as I wanted to go, in clothes. The water was up past our knees, touching the base of his shorts, and mine.
