Page 9 of Inevitable Love
“Hey yourself.” I’m not totally stupid. I know she was expecting me to tell her we couldn’t do the zip-lining trip. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why she was acting all weird yesterday. I did secure us a spot, but it’s a few weeks out, so I think I’ll hold on to that surprise for later. If I tell her I scored a time slot, she’ll be anxious and spend the nexttwo weeks overthinking it. “You ready to go do some adventuring?”
She angles her head and shoots me a look that basically says I’m an idiot. “I’m always ready.”
And she is. That’s one of the things I like best about her.
Changing the radio to her favorite station, I head toward the interstate while Maggie settles in.
“Okay. Spill. Where are we going?”
“I thought maybe we’d go catch a waterfall.”
Her head whips toward me. “Please say Raven Cliffs.”
“How’d I know you were going to say that?” I knew she’d want to go there, because the last time we went, she raved about how much she loved it. And she still mentions it at least once a month. “I know why you like it so much.”
She unzips her fleece and slips her shoes off for the long car ride. “Oh yeah? Do tell.”
I catch her eyes on me as I check to change lanes. “That was our first big adventure.”
A little huff of laughter is her response. “Yeah. That’s totally it. It has nothing to do with the excellent hike along the creek, the way the waterfall seems to flow out of the cliff, or that it’s basically my favorite hike ever. Yeah. None of that stuff. It’s all about you.”
I clutch my chest as if she’s wounded me, but secretly, I love the way she teases me.
“Nah, I figured with all the rain we’ve had lately, the water will be up, and hopefully the falls will be rushing. Plus, I want to see if my run times have improved since I’ve been training.”
Hours later, we’ve hiked past multiple falls where I only had to be warned to be careful twice. She did actually threaten to leave me, and I had to scramble up the bankfrom the lower falls and catch up to her so she wouldn’t be hiking by herself.
When we reach the end of the official trail, the rushing water blasting from a break in the cliff wall is so loud that it’s easier to just sit and enjoy the moment than to try to talk. After a picnic of meat snacks and cheese, plus fruit Maggie brought, she chills at the base of the falls.
Needing a little more challenge than she does, I scramble up the root ladder to the top of the cliffs, then peer down over the edge. A familiar rush floats through me. Getting too close to the edge spells disaster. A hundred-foot drop to the granite slab below is not the way I want to go out, but that thrill of danger is intoxicating. Addictive.
Maggie’s doing her sun routine, laid out on a boulder, with her head propped on her pack. Beyond the cliffs, the creek washes down through a rhododendron-lined valley.
I wish I could convince Maggie to climb this section with me, because the view is incredible, and I know she’d love it. But she likes to do her thing and never complains when I do mine.
On the rocks below, she looks so laid-back and comfortable, so in her element. It’s one of those rare moments without a soul around her. Just Maggie being a goddess and soaking up nature. I snap a picture of her lounging with the view beyond her, then add it to my adventure album.
I’m gonna miss this if things go my way. Doubt rolls through me, unpleasant and unusual. There’s no time for that, though—we’ve got a mountain to hike back down.
“So about the reunion…” she starts once we’re back in the Jeep and leaving the trailhead.
The hesitation in her voice has me glancing at her.
“I don’t know if I want to go,” she continues, picking at her blunt nails.
“Why not?”
“High school was awful.”
“I remember you and Alice always holed up in her room, talking about music and doing whatever else teenage girls do. But no, high school wasn’t awful. High school rocked.” That’s a total fucking lie. High school sucked—the end of it, anyway.
“Whatever. You were a popular jock.”
“And you always had your nose stuck in a book.”
She lifts a shoulder. “Better living lost in the pages of a good book. Not that you’d know, you’ve never slowed down long enough to try it.”
“Anyway. I do think you should go. If Alice gets this job, I will have to go to support her, and if I have to go, you have to go. We can sit in the corner and observe or, you know, talk about people we knew back when.”
