Page 35 of Secret Nights and Northern Lights
“Ems,” Ben softly interjects. “Why did you think they made a copy of your driver’s license when we checked in?”
“I don’t know!” I bite out, anxiety turning to pure, unadulterated fear. “I guess I thought they wanted to make sure the name matched to who signed up. I didn’t think about it!”
“You can ride with your partner,” Natalia chimes in with an encouraging smile, and I know she’s only trying to be helpful, but riding with Ben isn’t the ideal situation, either. If Jacklyn lost her mind over sharing fries, I can only imagine what she’d say about sharing a snowmobile. “As guides we aren’t allowed to let you ride with us. It’s a liability thing.”
“Unless you wreck,” Fridrik corrects, and Jesus, why won’t this man shut up? “Or there’s an injury. Or any other emergent situation.”
I stand there, blinking back and forth between the row of heavy machinery and the three people all awaiting my response. I literally fled Ben’s hotel room last night, the last thing I need is to have to rely on him today. (Especially when “relying” on him involves him sitting between my thighs while I wrap my arms around his waist and hold him tight.)
“Give us just a second,” Ben says to the guides, then takes my arm and maneuvers me away from Fridrik and Natalia, both already situated on their snowmobiles with the engines purring. “What’s going on? You don’t want to drive your own snowmobile?”
“Fuck no,” I whisper sternly. “I’ve never even seen a snowmobile in real life before today.” My voice quivers as it increases in pitch, quite the departure from my badass self of a few minutes ago who confidently sent a group text to her brothers bragging about precisely how badass she is. Hopefully glaciers on top of volcanoes don’t get a good signal and the message didn’t go through.
“You remember Mr. Sumpter’s poor petunias I demolished when you and the twins taught me how to drive?” My mindflashes to the day I drove straight through my neighbor’s immaculate flower beds, not even tapping the brakes as I nearly took out his mailbox, too. Turns out, those concerns over my depth perception were, in fact, valid. And my reaction time wasn’t looking promising, either. When we’d eventually rolled to a stop in the middle of the front yard, I’d immediately burst into tears while Marcus and Mason started in on how Mom and Dad were going to beso pissedif I’d damaged the car. Ben whipped around in the passenger seat and promptly told them to shut the fuck up and that they weren’t helping matters. We all climbed from the car to survey the damage right as Mr. Sumpter appeared on his porch and demanded to know what had happened. I’d started to speak up, but before I had a chance, Ben took the blame for me. He spent the next two weeks of his summer replanting those beds to Mr. Sumpter’s satisfaction. “What if this turns out even worse? I don’t even drive a car on a daily basis, much less one of these…vehicles on skis! What if I go too fast and slide right off the volcano? Or—oh god!—intothe volcano?”
“Okay, Ems. It’s okay. Just breathe.” Ben averts his gaze over my shoulder and calmly tells Fridrik, “We’ll ride together.”
As much as I didn’t want this scenario, I’m also so relieved it’s Ben here with me that I could cry. This trip is pushing me beyond my limits, and while part of me is grateful for that—a very, very small part I can’t seem to summon at this particular moment as we approach the snowmobile behind Fridrik and I climb aboard—I also can’t imagine how awful it would be to face these situations with someone I hardly know. It’s a blessing and a curse; I trust Ben to keep me safe physically, but relying on him again could break me emotionally.
Right now, I don’t see another choice.
Since we’re amateurs—and therefore much more likely to crash, according to our candid tour guide—Fridrik offers to transport Ben’s camera for us “just in case.” Then we’re fastening our helmets and Ben’s sliding onto the seat between my thighs and the engine is purring to life underneath me. As I swallow down my rising nerves and tighten my grip around my designated “oh shit” handles, we inch away from the row of snowmobiles, Fridrik leading in front of us, Natalia following behind.
To my pleasant surprise, the trail is well traveled and smooth, and we start out at such a slow pace that I’m able to relax enough to enjoy the views around me, the scene like something out of a fever dream. Before long we pull off to the side of the trail and cut our engine as Fridrik hops off his snowmobile several yards in front of us.
“I want to show you something,” he says, approaching us with Ben’s camera in hand.
Ben climbs off first and then offers me his hand as I do the same. Leaving our helmets behind, Ben takes his camera and we follow Fridrik and Natalia as they lead us on a short, steep hike over rolling hills of crushed black rock until we reach a peak with a panoramic view overlooking the vast, contradictory snowscape below.
Glacier meets charred earth in the land of fire and ice.
“Holy shit,” Ben says from beside me. “This is the most incredible view I’ve ever seen.Ever.”
The wonderment in his voice stirs a similar enchantment within me. After the sights of the past two days, I’m convinced one could parachute into Iceland at any random location and besurrounded by the most gorgeous scenery they’ve ever laid eyes on.
After a few moments of stunned silence as we absorb the untouched beauty of the miles upon miles that lie before us, Ben starts taking photos, and Fridrik uses the opportunity to fill me in on a subject I never knew until right now I have no desire to learn about—glacial crevasses. Adding a renewed spike to my momentarily subdued anxiety level, Fridrik goes into explicit detail about people who have fallen into these crevasses and become trapped between walls of ice, their body heat and each breath they exhale melting the ice just enough for them to slip deeper and deeper, the walls becoming tighter and more compact until they can no longer expand their chests to take a breath, eventually leading to a freezing, suffocating death. Now, I’m no professional tour guide like Fridrik here, but maybe such vivid, informative stories should be reserved for the monster bus ridebackto base camp.
Sensing my unease (perhaps from the way I suddenly grab his wrist and squeeze so tightly I’m sure my nails leave crescent moon indentions in his skin), Ben interrupts story time with Fridrik by asking him to take our picture. Then he passes his camera off to our guide and puts his arm around my shoulder. I’m not sure if I smile or grimace into the camera, but at least Fridrik is no longer detailing the many ways to die on this glacier/volcano.
Once we hike back to our snowmobiles, Fridrik utilizes his special skills to send my blood pressure skyrocketing once more with one single sentence. “If you lose me in a whiteout on the way up,” he says calmly and casually as we refasten our helmets, “stop where you are and wait for me to come back and find you.”
Whiteout?
That doesn’t sound good.
“Ben, what does he mean by that?” Unfortunately, my question gets lost on the whipping wind as we lunge forward.
It’s not snowing.
How would we have a whiteout if it’s not actively snowing?
As we make our way higher up the glacier, it dawns on me.
Fog.
Within minutes we’re ascending into a dense, heavy vortex, our visibility narrowing until any view of the far-reaching landscape from only moments ago is eliminated. Instead, the only thing I see in front of us is the distant taillight of Fridrik’s snowmobile—a blip of red surrounded by white. Sheer, all-encompassing white. I’ve spent the majority of my life petrified of the dark, and it turns outthisis just as bad.
A cold sweat breaks out across the back of my neck. Everything’s too tight: my helmet, my jumpsuit, my throat. Suddenly, I’m leaning into Ben’s back and shouting, “I don’t like this anymore!” at the top of my lungs. Between our helmets and the wind, I doubt he hears me, but I’m in full panic mode now. I scream again, “I want to go back! Take me back! I don’t want to do this anymore!”
