Page 75 of Secret Nights and Northern Lights
This time I don’t protest.
“In a way,” I muse aloud on our walk back down the trail, “that was kind of the perfect way to say goodbye to Iceland.” Although intended as a cheeky sentiment, the words create a cloudy heaviness in my chest. I don’t want to leave Iceland. I don’t want this trip to end. But what I can’t fully work out is whether the heaviness I’m feeling is over my dream trip ending, or the fear of what awaits me at home.
“Not so fast, Ems,” Ben says, breaking my thoughts. “I have a surprise planned for you tomorrow morning.”
Chapter 22
Bonus tip when visiting Iceland:If you see Joseph, tell him I said hi.
Ben’ssurpriserequires a wake-up call of threea.m., so I’m not particularly thrilled when I’m startled awake by the buzzing alarm on his phone. Our flight back to New York isn’t until later this afternoon, and I’d hoped to sleep in, eat a nice brunch, maybe get indecent against a sand dune again, who knows? The possibilities were endless.
Instead, Ben’s telling me to dress in warm hiking layers and to make sure I fill my water jug before we leave the hotel. Sadly, none of that sounds like there will be brunchordune sex in my future.
Once the trusty Suzuki is loaded with our luggage, I snap one more photo of Joseph with my phone (to have framed when we get back home) as he lies in the tall grass at the edge of the softlylit parking lot with a judgmental expression akin to,Do you even know what time it is?
Sadness blankets me. Our trip is over, minus this one last excursion Ben has up his sleeve. As much as my body is physically spent, and of course I’m excited to see what life has in store with Ben back at home—no matter what it all might mean for my career—this trip changed me on a fundamental level. Iceland pushed me to my limits and never let up. But I still did the hard things, even if I did them while crying or complaining or swearing I’d never do them again (i.e., anything involving the wordwhiteout). And for that, even if I’m somehow lucky enough to travel to a hundred different countries in the future, it’s Iceland that will always have the biggest piece of my heart.
Ben holds my hand as we follow the one-lane road leading back to the highway. “We’ll come back, Ems,” he says, like he knows how sad I am to say goodbye. “We’ll have to come visit Joseph.”
I bite the inside of my cheek so my chin doesn’t tremble. “People always say that when vacation’s over, but everyone has to go back to real life.”
I know my bad mood is normal. I’m on the trip of a lifetime, and I’m not sure if or when I’ll get to do it again. Calvin isn’t going to promote me when Ben doesn’t join the company. I can’t afford trips like this on my own. And even if I could, it’s deeper than that. It’s the knowledge that there simply isn’t enough time in a lifetime to see every nook and cranny and small village and big city this gigantic, marvelous world has to offer.
What if I never find my favorite spot on earth because I never make it there?
“Well,Ihappen to be very excited to get back home and finally start a life with you in it again.” Ben kisses the back of my hand, and I smile over at him.
“Yeah. There is that.” The sorrow encompassing my chest dissipates the slightest bit. “Maybe I’m just tired. You know, since you dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night and all.”
We take a right turn onto the highway, and the bumpy ground beneath us smooths out. “Why don’t you recline your seat and get some rest?” Ben says. “I’ve got this.”
* * *
I wake again when Ben cuts the engine. Pulling my seat upright, I see we’re parked in a muddy field with a few other vehicles and a camper van nearby. Hills rise in the distance, but it’s still too dark out to get any real sense of what I’m looking at. This view isn’t exactly impressive.
“Where are we?” I ask, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my palms.
“Fagradalsfjall volcano.”
Confusion clouds my sleep-addled brain. “I don’t understand.”
I recall a brief mentioning of this area when doing the little research I’d had time for. In March of 2021, a volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula of southern Iceland erupted, spewing lava sporadically for several months. YouTube and Instagram were flooded with videos and livestreams of hikers roasting marshmallows and hot dogs over the steaming orange slush. Which, on my personal list of things in nature to take seriously,molten lavasits right up there at the top along with quicksand and the recently added glacial crevasses, but who am I to judge?
“What’s so special about an inactive volcano?” I ask.
“It erupted again after we arrived.” Ben opens his door and steps out, then dips his head back into view and winks. “Let’s go climb anactivevolcano, Ems.”
Turns out, hiking a volcano is hard AF (as Jacklyn would say). To be precise, we don’t hike up the volcano itself, rather the mountain nearest the volcano that will provide the best view. Ben had warned me as he loaded gear into his camera bag back at the Suzuki that from what he’d read on tourist blogs, this would be the most difficult hike we’ve done so far. Which is fantastic news after ten days of hiking more than I’ve ever hiked in my life combined and having sex (same parameters sadly still apply) in multiple positions that haven’t been easy on the thighs. I can’t even sit down to pee without my legs trembling and threatening to give out.
And we start this hike in the dark.
With flashlights.
So cool, cool, cool.
Ben wasn’t lying, either. It takes an eternity just to walk around the field to get to the base of the mountain where the real journey begins. Thankfully, by the time we do, daylight breaks over the horizon and we put both our flashlights away in Ben’s backpack. (I already have the keys!)
Now I’m able to clearly see why we walked all the way around the field instead of through it; most of the area is covered in lumpy, hardened lava that at some point spewed from the top of the volcano like a shaken bottle of fiery orange soda. The curved,irregular edges of the solidified rock fascinate me, as if when the lava flowed down the mountain, it suddenly stopped and declared,OkayI think we’re done here. I walk over to one of the now-cooled edges and sweep my hand along the rough, texturized surface, knowing that not all that long ago, this belonged miles underground.
