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Chapter 17
Shit, how muchlonger can this trail be?
Gavin had needed to have some time to himself to clear his head after all the bro time the night before, so he’d figured that hiking was as good a way to accomplish that as any. After all, it had all the ingredients in the classic recipe for getting your head on straight.
Fresh air– check.
Physical activity– check.
Solitude– check and double check.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care about his family and his friends and his….whatever the hell Gen was to him. He did. He was just overwhelmed with all the togetherness he’d experienced since coming back to Valentine Bay.
It was a shit ton of togetherness.
He had so many decisions to make, chief among them the one that he’d used as a weapon of mass deflection with Donovan the night before: what the hell he was going to do with his life now that Plan A was no longer an option.
He’d never even thought of flying as Plan A. It was just the plan. He’d only adopted that mental moniker for it after the need for a Plan B (and potentially C through Z) had made itself painfully known.
Of course, he didn’t need to do anything. Not financially. He’d saved and invested. And once the paperwork went through, he’d have his retirement pay coming in. Financially, he could sit on his ass for the rest of his life and be just fine. Psychologically, he didn’t think he could do it for one more week without it driving him crazy.
It was more than just craving the structure and stimulation of daily work– although after years of military discipline, he was feeling a little aimless without those. The main thing was that he wanted his life and his work to be meaningful. He wanted to make a difference.
For years, he’d accomplished making that difference by devoting his life to the service of God and country. How was he going to find meaning now?
Shit. Why does an image of Gen’s face pop into my mind every time I think of the word ‘meaningful’ or the concept of giving my life meaning? It’s damn distracting.
He knew the answer to that question, though, deep down. It wasn’t hard to figure out. She was quickly becoming the rock in the midst of his storm, even if she didn’t know it. And how could she, with the way he’d treated her?
As much as his brothers had turned “trying to get Gavin to talk” into their new favorite hobby– hell, forget that, they were each working at it like it was their part-time job– the only person that he could see himself opening up to, if he did open up, was Genevieve.
The path curved, then, and Gavin stepped out into an expansive meadow. After passing underneath the dense growth of tall, thick trees for so long, it was a revelation. The redwoods grew so high and close that their branches were interconnected overhead. He’d been enshrouded in shadow for nearly an hour, now he burst out into the sunlight.
Using his hand to shade his eyes, he crossed the meadow and saw that it was actually more of a bluff. He stood at the edge and looked down at the sea crashing against the rocks far below, then cast his eyes out at the horizon.
He had a sense of how small he was in the universe. It was the same realization he was struck with every time he went up in the air. It was awe-inspiring, but also a little scary, every time the understanding struck him fresh of just how small he was in relation to the whole universe– but it was also kind of comforting, because it meant that his problems were even smaller than that.
He felt something like a small head rush at the swift change in the atmosphere, and the view. A minute ago, it had been dark, now it was light. It had been cool, now he felt the warm sun beating down on his skin. It had been claustrophobic, now he stood in the middle of an endless unbound expanse.
And the most significant part of the whole thing was that there’d been no warning. No gradual lightening of the air or incremental spacing out of the trees that would give some kind of hint that a big change was coming.
He’d just been trudging down the path, pushing through and persevering, and everything had opened up in front of him, like an explosion of light and air. And it felt just as sudden as an explosion, too.
Yeah. He couldn’t miss the metaphor. It pretty much screamed in his ear to wake up and pay attention.
He knew what he had to do. There was no consideration or weighing his options, counting out the pros and cons. His vision for what to do next was suddenly as clear as the expansive ocean view before him.
An epiphany. An honest to God, real-life, consciousness-altering epiphany.
Yep. That’s what he’d had, all right. And there was really nothing to do when you were struck by one of those, in Gavin’s experience, but to change your life to fit in with that new understanding. Otherwise, what was the damn point of having it in the first place?
He glanced quickly at his watch. Yeah, if he hurried, he thought he could just about make it.
He turned and started back down the trail, his pace significantly brisker than the ponderous stroll he’d used when coming up the mountain.
He had an appointment to keep, and it was critical to be on time.
So what if Gen didn’t know about it yet? That didn’t make it any less important. She’d find out about it when he showed up.
Hey, he thought, smiling to himself. I guess that’s kind of our thing now.
