Page 45 of Fight

“Ian and Annie got my message, so we should be good. We just need to be home by tonight, which won’t be an issue. It’s eight thirty now,” he reported. “Let’s eat, break down the tent, and then head up the rest of the mountain.You’re still game, right?”

She considered him for a few seconds from where she sat with the blanket pulled up to her chest, her wild hair framing her face. She seemed to get distracted for a beat as she reached up to pat her hand on her hair with a cringe. Shaking her head, she looked back at him again.

“Yes, I’m game,” she insisted firmly, smoothing her hair back from her face serenely.

“Good,” he replied. “It will be fun, Helena. You won’t regret it.”

“If you say so, Jacob,” she replied dubiously. “I’m starting to think after yesterday that you may have been right about me all along.”

“Interesting that you say that because I was starting to think I was wrong about you all along,” he said, flashing a cheesy smile while starting to root through the pile of stuff.

“Hmm,” she hummed, giving him a skeptical look. “What’s for breakfast and where’s my toothbrush?”

“Right up here to the left!” Jake called down to Lena from where she trailed him on the steep path. She smiled up at him reassuringly, but he could tell she was struggling. Her neck and narrow shoulders glistened with sweat. She had pulled her wild hair up in a messy bun on the top of her head, but strands were breaking free and sticking to the sides of her wet face.

As they’d put on their still damp clothes earlier, they’d laughingly joked about finally wearing clothes again after hanging out in their underwear for so long. Although the clothes hadn’t dried very well in the wet air that followed the storm, the sun now shined and it was almost painfully hot and bright as they climbed up the Kodiak trail to the peak. Lena’s thin purple tank top clung to her in some places and sagged from over-wear in others.

He’d told her it was about an hour to the peak, but as usual he was off base with his estimations when it came to her. The noon sun was high in the sky as the trees and bushes became more scarce and the rocky patches of sand and dirt were all that sat between the large boulders.

Finally, they came to the final stretch of boulders that would lead to the summit. Bounding up the first boulder, which was about four feet from the ground, he looked back to see her hoisting herself up by her hands onto the big rock as she tried to swing her right leg up.

“Here,” he quickly said. “Grab my hand.” She did with a grateful look on her face, but as he braced his hands on her back and tried to lead her up the next shorter steps, she shook him off.

“I’ve got it, Jake,” she scolded him, pulling herself up on the next short rock.

Dropping his hands, he walked at a snail’s pace behind her as she led the way, climbing rock after rock with occasional directions by him, until they reached the final rock—after which they walked up a short dirt path that led around to the summit. When they stepped out into the clearing at the very top of the mountain, Lena drew in a deep breath as they were finally able to see the full scope of the view.

“Oh wow,” she let out in a single breath as she turned around in circles. “This is so beautiful. You can see for miles. How high is this mountain again?”

“Nine thousand feet,” he said as he wiped his forehead with a bandana and took a swig of his water. Handing the hydroflask to her, she also took a long drink of the water.

“Look at the lake,” she said, pointing to the wide, sparkling blue swath of Lake Conrad with a huge smile on her face. “You can really tell how huge it is from up here.”

He admired the view along with her for a few minutes, before turning to appreciate the way her blue eyes sparkled as she took it all in. She seemed to be trying to record the details in her mind as she pointed out landmarks like the Table Rocks, a large rock formation on the other side of the lake, and Fallen Leaf Lake, much smaller and on the north side of Lake Conrad.

“Come on.” He motioned her to a boulder that was shaded by an even larger boulder. “Let’s sit down for a bit. Do you want to draw and get some of this down? I want to see the artist in action.” He took off his backpack and sat in the shady spot.

“Yeah, good idea,” she finally said, following him. Taking off her backpack and settling down next to him, she continued looking out at the lake before she reached into her backpack and took out a large plastic folder that contained her drawing pad and pencils. Pulling her knees up, she rested the pad on them and took a deep breath before starting to sweep the pencil over the sheet of paper. He was amazed at how, within the first few strokes, the marks on the paper started resembling the view in front of him.

“This is why,” she finally said dramatically and cryptically, looking up at him as she motioned toward the view with her pencil in her hand.

“This is why what?” he asked as he took another drink of his water.

“This is why I wanted to move here. Nobody understood it—not my parents, not my sister; maybe not even Annie. But nothing inspires me like this. And I’m…a person that needs inspiration. I’m not a front desk agent or a government employee. I’m an artist. I know that doesn't fit in with society’s or my family’s expectations, but there it is.” She shook her head in resignation as her hand started swooping and etching the pencil across the paper again.

“Hmm.” Jake nodded as he unpacked her monologue. Sometimes it felt like Lena was speaking a language only she could understand, but this actually made sense to him.

“I wondered why you wanted to move here,” he admitted. “Not just because of our…issues last summer, but everyone I know who moved here did so because they wanted to live in a place where they could bike, ski, or hike. You never really seemed interested in those things, so I didn’t know what was here for you.”

She looked up at him again, settling her eyes on his face earnestly. “I used to live in Austria, you know, after college for a year. That’s where I met Annie and we traveled all over Europe. I’d never been anywhere like the places we visited there before. It made me realize how much of the world I needed to see if I really wanted to create artwork that resonated with different people. There are so many places I’d still like to visit.”

Jake nodded, and gave her a sideways smile. “I’ve always wanted to go to New Zealand and hike Mount Taranaki,” he admitted.

“Oh my god, me too,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Well maybe not for the hiking part,” she added with a laugh. “But it’s themostsymmetrical mountain. I would love to see it and put it down on paper or canvas.”

She quickly moved her hand off his shoulder and they both smiled for a minute before Lena looked down at her drawing again, a light blush spreading over her cheeks, as she picked up her pencil and got back to work.

As her hair dried in the wind, little wisps flew around her face and she kept reaching her hand up to try to force them behind her ears. With the noon sun streaming down on her, and the wide, blue lake below her, he wished he was an artist so that he could capture how beautiful she looked to him in that moment.

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