Page 51 of Love By a Landslide

Suddenly, a chilly gust of wind played with the hem of her shirt and cooled her sweaty cheeks. The refreshing breeze came from ahead, beckoning her to follow with the promise of cold, wet relief. She hastened her pace and broke through a thick cluster of trees.

The view was unlike anything she had ever seen. Water, still and translucent as a pane of glass yet saturated with a vibrant cerulean hue, was right in front of her. She could see down to the bottom, but the clarity distorted its depths. Jagged gray peakssurrounded the small lake in part, while dense plant life closed the circle. The landscape encased the hidden lake, providing a shield against wandering eyes from the casual backpacker. While it was impossible that an oasis that beautiful could be untouched by others, Lucy let herself pretend she was the first to come upon it. This was her lake now.

Thiswas why she came.

Thismade explaining why she was in Leavenworth alone worth the embarrassment.

Thiswas worth paying double for a trip because one-half of the party dumped her.

Thiswas worth a fucking landslide. Almost.

Mouth agape, Lucy scrambled down a rocky, root-exposed embankment to a flat expanse of granite that led right to the edge of the lake. She unclipped her backpack and set it a long way from the edge. She’d be damned if she lost yet another pack to clumsiness. Especially one holding so much precious cargo. Stripping to her underwear and painstakingly finger combing the tangled mop she released from her hair tie, she was satisfied and took a few steps back, ready to run and plunge into the beckoning water.

But she paused.

Looking around, Lucy grinned cheekily and peeled off her undergarments. What was the point of modesty? Who would see her? And when would she ever be in a place like this, alone, with no risk of a passerby catching a glimpse of her unusually pale ass-cheeks?

“Cannonball!” she screeched. Scuttling forward, Lucy leaped off the edge of the granite, curled up, and splashed gracelessly into the icy lake. The cold was like tiny daggers on her sun-warmed skin, propelling the air from her lungs in a rush. Paddling frantically, she broke through the surface with a shrillwheeze. “Fuck!” She hadn’t expected the water to be that frigid.

Slowly, she doggy-paddled back to the ledge and crawled out. Her heart pounded, but her limbs rejoiced once she laid back and let the late morning sun dance over her naked body.

Looking up to the sky, Lucy watched wispy clouds hang sporadically among the swath of blue. Her breaths became fast and shallow, and she didn’t fight the prickling burn at the corner of her eyes. A gasp wrenched from her lips, her throat thick with emotion. She laid there crying, sob after sob wracking her body. All of the stress, all of the heartache, all of the fear just tumbled out. She’d been doing her best to compartmentalize the last month’s chaos, but her ability to contain it all finally reached its limit.

So, the dam broke.

She released the anger for staying in a shit relationship for so long. She’d felt relief when Brodan had finally ended things, which begged the question: When had she fallen out of love with him? And why the hell did she stick around? Watching her parents she’d learned to be loyal to those she loved. Her mother was ferociously loyal to Lucy’s father. She followed him everywhere, supporting his dreams and whims.

But in her efforts to remain loyal and supportive to her ex, Lucy hadn’t put herself first. Ever. And there had to be something wrong with that. A person couldn’t be—shouldn’t be—selfless in every way. How did her mother manage to give so much without resentment?

Sally’s voice lilted through her mind, “You can’t give water from an empty bucket, peanut. I fill mine first so I have more to give.You have to learn to do the same.”

That was the plan for her Leavenworth trip until it went wildly wrong. She released the fear from the days before. She and Jonathan had to run for their lives to escape the disgruntled forceof Mother Nature. If he hadn’t slowed to grab her, risking his neck in the process, she would have been swept over the edge. One tiny misstep could have spelled disaster.

But they made it.

She was alive, and she felt the intensity of that to her core.

There had to be a way to pay him back. One thing was certain: Dude was going to get one hell of a Yelp review when things were all said and done. She cackled at the thought, rolling to her side, clutching her belly. The fresh tears sprang from a place of joy as fear and long-held anger took a backseat.

Eventually, Lucy calmed and sat back up to survey the lake once more. The ripples she’d made had disappeared, and the surface resumed the smooth glass-like appearance. Her soul could relate.

Padding over to her bag, she pulled out the biodegradable camping soap, gathered her clothes, and washed them in the water. After hanging them on a nearby branch in full sun, she hopped back into the brisk lake and washed her hair with ridiculous speed. Once rinsed, she climbed back out onto the granite slab. Laying out to allow the sun to dry her body, she marveled at how much better she felt. Between the solo hike, bathing in a crystal blue oasis, and ejecting some of her emotional baggage while lying naked on a rock, Lucy felt like a new woman.

In her near-drunken state of relaxation, she checked her clothes. Breathing out a celebratory oath, she thanked whoever created quick dry fabric. Once fully dressed, she had one final task to complete before returning to her poor, injured guide.

Fifteen minutes later, Lucy had a backpack full of freshly filtered water, her clothes and hair were washed, and she gnawed on a chunk of jerky while backtracking toward camp. Feeling so fresh and emotionally light, she was almost compelled to skip along. The sun was shining, birds whistled beautiful melodies,and she couldn’t smell herself.

Nothing was going to rain on her parade.

“Honey, I’m home,” Lucy sang as she sauntered into camp. She moved to check on her patient but found the hammock empty. “Jonathan?”

“Arghhh . . .” A pitiful groan drifted through the clearing.

Dropping the pack, Lucy followed the sound and scurried past the firepit around one of the large boulders at the perimeter of the clearing. Jonathan lay face down in the dirt.

“Oh my god!” She knelt next to him. “What the hell happened?”

He turned his head in her direction but rested the side of his face back on the ground. “Needed to pee.”

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