“No, I’ll stay with you.” Luke’s words make my heart swell, but the feeling is immediately replaced with guilt. Those words mean something different to Luke than they do to me. It wouldbe unfair to string him along.
I shake my head. “I’ll be fine. I’m sure Cassie would love the company.”
It hurts the words to say it, to push him away so clearly, but I know I need to.
I wait for him to protest again, to insist that he still wants to stay with me, but he doesn’t. This time, he agrees.
Chapter 22
Luke
It feels like Harper is breaking up with me. It shouldn’t feel that way, seeing as we’ve never been a couple, but it feels like a punch to the gut to hear her tell me to be with Cassie.
I know I need to go out with Cassie to get over Harper, but I didn’t expect the process to feel so... final.
Harper’s a good friend. I know she doesn’t want to explore Iceland alone, but she thinks I want to go out with Cassie. Ishouldwant to go out with Cassie, but it feels forced.
So here I am, trying to be into a girl for the sake of trying not to fall in love with my best friend.
Harper gives me a quick wave goodbye when we get to the bottom of the waterfall. She gives me a reassuring smile as she makes her way back to the rental car. I know I’ll see her again tonight at the Airbnb, but I can’t help but feel like I miss her already.
But again, that’s why I need to do this. I need to get Harper out of my head.
Cassie gives me the cold shoulder when I get back to the van. She’d been in the middle of making me ramen noodles forlunch when I noticed Harper walking up the steps, so I booked it out the door, telling Cassie I’d be back soon.
“Lunch is ready,” she says, her voice heavy with annoyance as she points to the small bowl of noodles.
“Thanks.” I pick it up. The bowl is room temperature now from sitting so long.
“Luke, if you and Harper are a thing—”
“We’re not a thing,” I say, perhaps a little too harshly. I put a hand over my face. “I’m sorry, I’m just tired. Harper’s my friend, and I feel like we keep ditching her today, so I wanted to do one thing with her. But Harper wants to go do her own thing now. So we can just explore the rest of the day the two of us.”
This perks her up. “Really?”
Another heavy sigh from me. “Yeah, whatever you want.”
Cassie is the most excited I’ve seen her all day. She looks up different things we can do while I eat my lunch. Cassie starts naming off a few places, but I know Harper is planning on going to some of them today, so I try to look uninterested so Cassie won’t want to go and we can give Harper some space.
“There’s this Viking grave. You have to hike up to it,” Cassie says.
That’s not anything Harper mentioned. “How long is the hike?”
“Two miles. It’s on top of a mountain though.” Cassie doesn’t seem completely sold on the idea as she swipes through the photos on her phone. “Looks kind of steep too.”
She passes me the phone so I can check it out. Based on the photos, it doesn’t look horrible, but it’s definitely not going to be a leisurely walk. No, this is a full-blown mountain witha gravesite at the top. Harper wouldn’t want to do this. She prefers sightseeing where the destination is a short walk from the parking lot.
“Let’s do it!” I say, passing the phone back.
Cassie’s still wary but settles in on the idea. After I finish eating, we pull out of the lot. When I glance out to where Harper had been parked, she’s long gone.
§
The hiking trailclimbs straight up a cliff. I was confused when we first pulled into the parking lot because there didn’t seem to be anywhere to go, but that’s because we’re supposed to go straight up. No warm-up or slow introduction. There’s just a sign with a map of the trail, pointing us forward up a steep dirt path that we climb, using our hands to help.
For about a half mile, Cassie doesn’t say a word to me as we climb up. The trail that we’re supposed to be taking is so old and worn that the walking path is about a foot deeper than the surrounding landscape, which is coated with a thick coating of mossy grass.
It’s mystical enough that I can see why there are so many legends of trolls and elves. I can imagine these massive mountains hiding secrets of magic in the grasses.
