Page 37 of Secret Nights and Northern Lights
Now show some respect, this is our baby sister we’re talking about here. It’s definitely an ice sculpture contest.
Marcus
Maybe she’s even a guest judge. LOL.
Mason
Can you even imagine? Tomorrow her schedule is jam packed with a hot cocoa tasting AND a smores festival. How will she manage?
Marcus
Speaking of smores, Dad mentioned a camping trip this weekend. You in, Mase?
Mason
Trying to get my Sunday shift covered. Will get back to you. You bringing the kids?
Marcus
Yeah but we’ll have to come up after Ava’s recital Friday night.
The messages continue on, but I don’t bother reading any more. Instead, I mute the notifications and zip my phone in my jacket pocket with a huff of annoyance. I don’t know why I expected anything different; my brothers’ responses are one hundred percent typical. Downplay anything related to me, then change the subject and make it about them. I know they don’t do it maliciously. Hell, they probably don’t even do it consciously. Besides, the sentiment of their jokes isn’t misguided. I failed miserably at snowmobiling. I’m failing miserably on this entire trip so far. Maybe the weekend festival circuit is all I’m cut out for after all.
“You okay over there?” Ben asks, eyeing me with concern as I forcefully yank on my gloves.
“I’m fine. It’s just Marcus and Mason and how they always—” I stop short when I realize I’m oversharing. Again. “Never mind. It’s nothing. Let’s just go.” Then I hop out of the car before he says anything else.
We make our way close to the falls, Ben with his backpack of camera gear and me empty-handed. I should at least offer to carry the car keys in one of my multitude of pockets. Then again,I don’t need the added weight if I’m going to attempt the staircase to the stars.
Like everything else I’ve seen in Iceland so far, Skógafoss is jaw-dropping, the river carving its way through mountainous hills before plummeting over the cliff’s edge. At the bottom, the falls coalesce into a shallow stream that Ben now wades into in search of the perfect spot, one that will shift the focus just so and make the photograph Benjamin Carter–worthy. Reaching the middle of the stream, he crouches down and frames his shot, then unclips a short tripod from his backpack. He spends a few minutes getting it all set up, submerging the tripod in the slow-moving stream with the camera’s lens resting just above the water’s surface.
As beautiful as Skógafoss is, it’s Ben I can’t look away from.
I’m fully engrossed watching him in his element. Crouched over his camera, attention solely focused on the task before him, dexterous fingers adjusting the lens just so. I always was a goner for Ben’s hands. The rough patches on his palms. The map of veins spread over the back that I’d trace my fingers over. The way he’d sneak one of those hands under my blanket whenever we were watching movies with my brothers that summer, teasing his fingertip up and down my palm until I finally relented and twined my fingers with his and forgot what movie we were even watching. Ben always had a way of making me lose track of everything but him, and as he sloshes back through the stream toward me now, water kicking up at his heels, I haven’t the slightest clue how much time has passed.
“Let’s check out the top.” He juts his chin in the direction of the staircase I’m certain to have nightmares about.
Excellent.
Hundreds of steps later (literally), I. Am. Wheezing.
I’m also forced to hobble on stick-straight legs or otherwise they jiggle uncontrollably (flexing knees something of my past now), and I’m certain the blister on my toe has spread to encompass the entire side of my foot.
Iceland doesn’t play.
Now sweating, I strip off my jacket and haul my trembling body to the side of the trail where there’s a rock waiting for me to sink upon, while Ben—who had the decency to blow out a long breath at the top of the stairs like he was affected, too—makes his way to the viewing area at the top of the falls to do what he does best.
Glancing around from my rock, I must admit the scenery up here in the heavens is magnificent, just as Suki said it would be. The rolling mountains are cut in two by a deep ravine and flowing river, the skies the same foreboding shades of gray we’ve witnessed every day of our trip so far. In the distance, the ice cap of Mýrdalsjökull gives off a fantasy vibe akin to something out ofGame of ThronesorTheLord of the Rings. Admittedly, I’ve never watched either, but the assumption feels right.
What doesn’t feel right, diverting my attention back to Ben, is how close he is to the edge of the drop-off into the ravine. No longer at the viewing platform, he’s now positioned on a jutting ledge to capture the river streaming through the hills of the ravine before it plummets over the falls. Anxiety stirs as I keep Ben in my periphery and instead focus on a line of tourists off to my right as they climb out on a different, even-more-perilous-looking cliff and sit with their feet dangling over the edge to snap selfies.
I don’t like any of this one bit.
There aren’t any guardrails to prevent people from doing anything reckless, only a few shin-high ropes one can easily step over. If someone really wants to be the person who falls off a cliff here in Iceland, they’ll let you do it.
Ben glances in my direction, appearing to search the landscape behind me. With a frantic wave, I get his attention and then motion him over to me, but he doesn’t budge. Instead, his brows lower in question, so I march two fingers over my open palm to pantomime a man walking over the edge of a cliff and falling to his abrupt demise in a morbid, unprompted game of charades.
“You’re too close to the edge,” I mouth.
