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“Did you knowJustin Bieber filmed a music video here?” Harper says as we pass the sign for Fjaðrárgljúfur Canyon.
“Is that why we’re going here?” I ask, a little disappointed. For all the years I’ve known Harper, I’ve never seen her as a fangirl.
“No, just a fun fact.” She shrugs as I pull into the parking lot, which is surprisingly crowded. I’m surprised, because this canyon isn’t directly on the side of the road like the waterfalls we’ve been to. We had to drive a mile or two down a narrow dirt road to get here, but even though it’s out of the way, there’s no shortage of tourists.
“Is he the reason this place is so crowded?”
She shrugs. “Probably.” Once I put the car in park, she’s quick to hop out and zip her jacket back up.
It’s a little windier now than it was earlier, so we both put hats on. Harper’s hat is knitted, purple, and has a huge pom-pom at the top. She’s trying to tuck her hair away from her face and I have to remind myself once again not to reach out and help her.
That’s not what friends do, I remind myself.
The walkway to the canyon seems like a normal path until we get closer. I realize we’re standing at the top of the canyon, and the ground breaks away to a huge drop where a river flows through. That same river of water must have eaten away at these cliffs over thousands of years. The pathway to the canyon lets us walk close to the edge, peeking over the cliffside. The water is a deep blue, making the green moss covering the rocks pop even more.
“Wow.” I peer over the edge. There’s a railing to stopanyone from going any further and stepping on the moss. “It looks extra green today.” And it really does. For some reason it looks even brighter, even though the sky is overcast today.
“I was looking it up online. I guess the moss only grows one centimeter a year, which is why they’re so protective of it. Stepping on it once can kill it.”
“Plus the trolls live in it,” I add. We’d walked by a sign earlier that warned to watch out for trolls because it was bad luck to take anything from the land, including the black sand from the beach we’d just been at. While tourists from Bermuda walk away with jars of pink sand as souvenirs, in Iceland, you get threatened by a troll if you steal a piece of its home.
Harper leads the way, taking us through each lookout that the canyon offers. Though there are a lot of people in the parking lot, everyone is spread out so it doesn’t feel too crowded.
At the end of the canyon is a waterfall, and we hold up my phone to take a selfie.
“Want me to take one for the two of you?” a woman with an Irish accent asks.
“Sure, thanks.” I hand her my phone.
She takes a couple steps back, and I wrap my arm around Harper’s waist to pose for the photo.
“You two are a cute couple. Did you want a more romantic one?” she asks, eager and smiling.
“Darling,” the man next to her says, embarrassed.
“Oh, we’re not—” Harper says at the same time as I say, “No, thanks.” I cringe.
The woman flushes but tries to maintain composure. “Alright then.” She hands me my phone.
“Thanks,” I say, using my best let’s-pretend-that-never-happened voice.
As we walk back to the parking lot, Harper’s quieter than she was before, leaving me to second-guess everything I did in the past five minutes. Maybe I shouldn’t have let her take our photo? Or should I have not put my arm around Harper? Maybe I should have clarified that we weren’t together, like Harper did.
“Can I make a confession?” Harper stops walking and moves off to the side so we aren’t in the way of anyone coming to see the canyon. She keeps her gaze down, like she’s afraid to look at me.
Not good.
“What?” I ask, though I’m not sure Iwantto know.
“When we were at the airport and you left to go to the bathroom, you forgot your phone.” It takes one second for me to connect the dots. “Wes texted you. I wasn’t trying to snoop. A text came in, and I saw my name.” A long string of curses run through my brain. “I didn’t mean to read it, but I was curious.” I contemplate running up to the moss, finding some trolls, and asking them to take mercy on me. “He said good luck telling me how you feel.”
A little bomb goes off in my head. Whatever I had thought she was going to say, it wasn’t this. There had been a worry in the back of my mind when I looked at my phone and saw the text myself, but I never actually thought Harper had read it. The universe would be too cruel for that.
Not only had she read it—she read it and set me up on a date first chance she got.
Couldn’t be worse.
