“This is the place you found?” My voice sounds tiny as I look around me.
“Yep.”
The fir trees have thinned out in this tiny area, thickening again as they reach up toward the cloud-tipped mountains. Large rocks and boulders break up the thick grass and wild plants growing on either side of the stream raging along in front of me, and the water breaks every now and then making a detour around the smaller rocks that have naturally fallen away from the mountains and made their way down to here. Along the side of the stream tiny trees stretch up bare of leaves or really any life, their gnarled branches curving around each other.
“Where are we?”
Kyle steps up next to me, his arm brushing mine, and shrugs. “No idea. We really did just find it on a hike one day. If you walk up the mountain another five minutes you can see the gorge. Takes you close to Cape Horn.”
“Huh.” I lean against a boulder and lower my eyes to the water rushing past. “It’s beautiful here.”
“Yep. It’s pretty much perfect.” He rests next to me. “I wanted to show you something important to him – probably the only thing about him you didn’t know about.”
I turn my face toward him and sweep my hair to one side. “You didn’t have to. This was yours to hold on to.”
“And I wanted to give a piece of it to you. I thought you’d maybe need a place to come away from prying eyes sometimes.” His eyes meet mine when he tilts his head. “And because I think you need something to hold onto a lot more than I do.”
I swallow, needing to look away but not wanting to. He’s right and he knows it. Damn him, he’s so right.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” he says softly.
The moment lingers between us, our eyes fixed on each other, my fingers itching to reach out to him.
“Let’s walk up.” I need to break this between us. I can’t keep imagining things that aren’t here. “I want to see the gorge.”
“I thought you were tired.” Kyle follows me as I walk past him.
“I was. I guess I woke up.” I shrug and shoot a small smile over my shoulder.
“Of course you have,” he mumbles. I give him the bird over my shoulder, much to his amusement.
The walk up the side of the mountain isn’t too tough – this is one of the smaller ones and it’s not too far up – but it’s slippery. It’s wet on the ground from all the springs that start high up and snake their way down, twisting and turning. I hop over a small one in my path and almost slip on a bit of mud.
“Okay?” Kyle asks, steadying me with his hands on my waist.
“Um. Yeah.” Um. No.
I’m anything but okay when his hands are on me and his voice is in my ear.
“Let me go first. Follow me, alright?”
I nod as he steps around me and starts walking.
“On second thought…” He reaches back and links his fingers through mine with a wink. “Easier to pull you up if you fall.”
Too late…
I follow him silently, trying not to focus on the warmth of his hand around mine. Goddammit, brain! Think about the view. It’s a nice view.
My eyes flick to Kyle and his bum.
Yep. Definitely a nice view.
I put my hand to my forehead. I need help.
We stop. My gaze falls to the Columbia Gorge – every beautiful, peaceful part of it. The rive snakes through the hills and mountains, and everywhere is lined with wild flowers and pine trees. Birds fly overhead, darting through the trees and over the water, some dipping close enough to almost touch the water. At least that’s how it looks from up here.
A sigh leaves me. I’d almost forgotten this existed. This perfect place has been a part of our lives for so long, and when one thing was torn away, this nearly was too.
“We spent our childhoods up here,” Kyle says with a sad tone. “All of us – running through the trees…”
“Playing hide and seek. And tag. You guys always pretended it was kiss chase.”
Kyle shrugs a little. “You, Iz and Selena never moved so fast. It was a great excuse for being home late for dinner – you guys had run off and we needed to find you first.”
“I’d say that was good of you, but we got in so much trouble after the fifth time. It took Mom like a year to believe me when I tried telling her the truth. You always got us in shit.”
He smiles. “We’re big brothers. It’s our job.”
“Yeah.” My own smile drops from my face. “Except there’s a vacancy for mine now.”
Kyle turns to me, whispering my name, and I shake my head.
“It’s okay,” I lie to myself as much as him.
It’s not okay and he knows it. He’s the only person I’ll ever show it to… Even when I don’t want to.
“No, it’s not okay,” he says quietly.
“Thank you for bringing me up here.”
“Nice change.”
I lean into his arm, our hands still clasped, and my lips give a sad twitch. “I mean it.”
“Never said you didn’t.” He turns his head so his chin rests on top of mine. “And you’re welcome.”
~
Kyle eyes me over the table and it’s disconcerting. Everything in me is urging me to squirm and shift in my seat but I fight them and remain perfectly still, eying him with the same intensity. He smirks, and I raise an eyebrow.
“What?” He leans back in his chair.
“Says the one who’s been staring at me for the last five minutes without saying a word.”
“I was… thinking.”
“I hope you didn’t hurt yourself too much.”
“Oh, ha ha ha,” he mutters dryly. “Think that up all by yourself, did you?”
“As a matter of fact, I did.” I grin.
His lips twitch as he fights his own. “Did you ever decide where you’re going to college? You were stuck between UCLA with Selena, and Miami with Iz last I heard.”
Yep. I’m not having this conversation.
“Um. Yeah. I picked.” I pick at my thumbnail. “Why don’t you tell me about Berkeley?”
Brown eyes scrutinize me. “College is college. Wake up, go to class, come home, go to bed, repeat. Which did you pick?”
“Uh.”
“Roxy.”
“Shit,” I mumble. “Neither, okay? None of them.”
“None?”
“None. I’m not going to college.” There.