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“First date, do you think?” I asked.
“Not first date, but definitely a new relationship.”
I hope we don’t look that mismatched, I thought.
To be fair, at least I was having a good time. That other girl was definitely suffering.
We kept going and continued to see more and more interesting people and came up with wilder and wilder items they might have in their packs.
“I’m sorry, but there’s no way that guy has an entire family-size fried chicken dinner in there,” I said.
“I swear I smelled chicken when he walked by,” Esme said.
After what felt like days, we made it to the top at last, and I was pretty damn proud of myself.
“Celebratory selfie,” Esme said, putting her arm around me and kissing me on the cheek. I smiled and she snapped the pic. Since her arms were longer than mine, I made her use my phone to take one too.
“We’re pretty fucking cute together,” she said, looking at the selfies. “You good if I post this?”
“Absolutely. Don’t forget to tag me,” I said.
We’d been official to ourselves, and to our friends and parents. But it was a whole other bucket of chicken to post about it online. Then anyone could see it, and comment.
Wyatt was going to find out, and I couldn’t figure out how I felt about that.
On one hand, there was complete joy. I really did wish I could see his face when he found out. On the other, there was that little thread of guilt running through me.
Maybe he wouldn’t even care. That was something I had never considered when I’d come up with this freaking plan in the first place. Sure, he had always wanted Esme, but he had Gretchen now. They were having a baby. He had other shit going on. Esme was even more out of reach than she’d ever been.
Why would he care?
“Oh, now I’ve done it,” Esme said, laughing and showing me the celebratory comments that were rolling in. Naturally, she had more followers than I did due to her job. I tended to keep most of my social on the down low because it was tied to my professional online work. People who were hiring me to write copy for them didn’t need to see me wasted off my ass and passed out on top of a pizza with cheese stuck to my face.
Not that that had ever happened to me…
I also decided to break it to my group chat, and they were similarly supportive and thrilled. Then I had to tell them all about Esme, and why I’d been hiding her, and give them all the details. Of course I gave them some details. All the nice details.
“That’s enough of that,” Esme said, shoving her phone back in her bag.
She took my hand and we explored the top of the mountain and took more pictures. We even saw a bald eagle and I capture a gorgeous video of it flying across the sky.
“Mountain picnic?” Esme asked, and so we laid out a light blanket I’d brought and had some more of our snacks.
The day was absolutely perfect, so the top was crawling with other humans taking pictures and soaking in the satisfaction of having scaled an entire mountain. Then there were the geniuses who didn’t seem to have any self-preservation and kept getting too close to the edge to take dramatic pictures.
“I can’t look anymore,” I said, turning my back. “It’s giving me heart palpitations.”
Esme shuddered. “Sometimes I wonder how we’ve managed to continue as a species.”
I shoved a handful of dried cherries in my mouth and tried not to think too much about it.
Stormy had fallen asleep under a tree but woke up to come get a fresh bowl of water and some kibble Esme had packed.
I was so ready for a nap, but we still had to make our way back to the truck.
“Now, they should really have something like a ski lift that takes you all the way down,” Esme said, standing up and stretching her back. She held her hand out to me.
I took it and she pulled me up.
