More miles.
“All right, I got three,” Alec announced, drumming his hands on the steering wheel in excitement.
We’d just crossed the California-Oregon border. The faint stink of our McDonald’s lunch was hanging in the air, and Boomer snoring in the backseat epitomized the sleepy afternoon mood. I was burned out on studying, so I’d suggested we play a game to entertain ourselves. Right off the bat, Alec nixed the license plate game. Claimed he’d played it one too many times while on tour with the band, so I decided on Two Truths and a Lie.
“You ready?” he asked me.
“Bring it.”
“Okay. First, I’ve climbed Denali. Second, my greatest fear is spiders. And third, my favorite flavor of Hamburger Helper is Cheesy Enchilada.”
“What’s a Denali?” If I was going to guess which of the three statements was a lie, then I needed all the facts, and I had no clue what he was talking about.
“The tallest mountain peak in North America. Also known as Mount McKinley.”
I fell quiet for a minute. Mount McKinley sounded like a difficult mountain to climb—not that I knew anything about mountaineering. But it was a hard-to-believe accomplishment.Kind of like being part of a world-famous boy band.But the improbability of Alec’s first statement made me all the more willing to accept it as the truth. He probably threw it into the mix thinking I’d never believe him. Plus, there was the equipment in his trunk to consider, not to mention the picture of him and Vanessa at the top of some cliff.
I moved on to the second would-be truth, Alec’s alleged arachnophobia. I found it difficult to believe someone so rational could be terrified of a creature a million times smaller than him, but then again, maybe he was trying to trick me with a moment of brutal honesty.
So that left me with one option.
“Number three,” I decided. “Nobody likes Hamburger Helper. It’s disgusting.”
Alec glanced at me, a sheepish grin on his face. “They don’t?”
“Ew,” I said, my nose wrinkling. “You eat that stuff?”
He shrugged. “I’m not much of a cook.”
“Damn! I should’ve known the mountain climbing was a lie.”
“It’s not.” His smile grew. “I did it back in May. Ever since getting into climbing, I’ve always wanted to tackle Denali. The entire expedition took twenty-one days.”
“Wow. I’m impressed.” My voice went high at the end. Hearing about another one of his amazing achievements made me feel inadequate, and I realized I’d done nothing worth noting in my life. Alec seemed to detect the change in my tone, because a funny look crossed his face, so I quickly added, “How does one get into mountain climbing?”
“My family loves hiking. When I was twelve, we went to Mount Rainier National Park to hike the Wonderland Trail. Ever heard of it?”
I shook my head.
“It’s this ninety-three-mile hike that encircles Mount Rainier. Takes about two weeks to complete, and you camp alongside the trail at night.”
“Two weeks? That’s a lot of hiking…”
“Yeah, but it’s totally worth it. There’s glaciers and canyons, and these amazing waterfalls in the middle of the forest,” he explained. “The whole time you’re hiking, you’re in the shadow of this spectacular mountain. I couldn’t stop staring at it and thinking—if it’s this beautiful on the trail, how breathtaking is the view at the top? By the time we finished, I’d decided that I was going to make it to the summit so I could see for myself.”
“So did you?”
Alec smiled distantly, as if he was reliving the memory. “On my fourteenth birthday. A year later, I climbed Aconcagua, which is the highest mountain in the world outside Asia.”
“Wow, I never would’ve guessed you were so into hiking.” He didn’t dress like the outdoorsy type…
“Whoa, careful there,” he said, feigning offense. “Mountaineering and hiking…two totally different things.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know what I meant.”
Our conversation lulled long enough for me to wonder if I actuallyhadoffended him, but then he muttered, “I can’t believe you thought I was afraid of spiders.”
“It’s not totally unreasonable,” I said, biting down on my grin. “Lots of people are.”
