Last night was amazing to say the least and when morning comes around, I feel like skipping and singing because I feel that happy. But instead we end up going for a hike and I listen to Ethan chat about the wildlife. Sometimes listening to him can be magical, especially when he’s just laid back and not overthinking things. It happens a lot when we’re hiking.
“I seriously could just live up here and write all day,” he admits as he sits down on the top of the hill we just hiked up, stretching his legs out and staring down at the rolling hills and small town below.
I sit down with him and crisscross my legs. There’s a gentle breeze blowing through my hair and I have to pluck strands of it out of my mouth. “What would you write about? The view?”
He shakes his head and shrugs, squinting against the sunlight. “I’m not even sure… something, though.”
I rest back on my hands and lean my shoulder into his, breathing in his scent of cologne, mixed with campfire and a hint of dirt. “Do you think one day you’d like to become a writer?”
He shrugs again, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “I haven’t thought that far ahead of what I’m going to do for the rest of my life… what I want to be.” He looks down at the ground, seeming confused, and I’m suddenly reminded of the bigger problems ahead of us, ones that I want to shove aside for now.
“Well, maybe one day you should think about what you want to do,” I dare suggest. “It could be fun, you know. To write for a living. Well, at least for you since you seem to love it so much.”
“You don’t even know if I’m good,” he says with a smile.
“Well, if you can write like how you talk sometimes, then I’m sure you are.” I pause, considering my next words carefully. “Or you could just let me read some of the stuff you wrote.” I actually heard him last night when he thought I was asleep, scratching away in his journal, and I wish I knew what he was writing about.
He pauses, biting at his bottom lip, and for a second I think he’s considering it. I start to get a little excited and nervous, because I might finally get a full insight into what goes on in that head of his. What he thinks and feels—what he sees when he looks at me.
But then he says, “Trust me. You don’t want to read what goes on in my head.” And my hopefulness crumbles.
I fake an exaggerated pout. “Yes, I do. I promise. Even if it’s bad, I want to know.”
He stifles a smile as he leans in and grazes my bottom lip with his fingertip. “Stop pouting to try and get your way,” he says, and then he kisses me.
We kiss until we’re panting and then we pull away, breathless and sweaty. We relax for a while and look out at the land below us, enjoying the view and the quiet and I know at that moment that he’s happy because it’s the kind of moment he loves.
“The thing is,” Ethan says, startling me. “I don’t really write stories. Just my thoughts.”
“But isn’t that what all stories are?” I ask. “Just someone’s thoughts?”
“Yeah, but my journal isn’t like a book,” he says. “It’s just a bunch of rambling about how I feel… about stuff… and my feelings… It’s sort of how I discover what I’m really feeling.”
“About me?” I sound a little nervous.
He looks even more nervous. “Yeah, sometimes I write about you and how I’m feeling about you.” He pauses with his mouth open, like he wants to say more, but then he snaps his jaw shut.
“Do you ever write anything mean about me?” I hold my breath in anticipation.
He shakes his head, looking stunned by my question. “I would never write anything bad about you. Ever.”
“Then why can’t I read just a page or two?” I ask.
“I’m not sure I can let you,” he mumbles. “Not sure if I’m ready yet…” He trails off, staring out at the hills in front of us, looking as lost as we probably do out in the middle of thousands of trees. If it wasn’t for him, I’d never be able to find my way back. Thankfully, he has a good sense of direction.
I want to press him more, because I’m really curious what he’s writing about all the time, but I can tell his mind’s already wandering, so I seal my lips and pretend to be happy. Eventually he starts to get up. I bend my legs to stand up, too, figuring we’re leaving, but he puts a hand onto my shoulder and gently pushes me down to the ground. Then he winds around behind me and sits down, putting a leg on each side of me and winding his arms around my waist. He pulls me against him and buries his face into my neck, kissing it. “This past month has been amazing,” he whispers, and sucks on my neck, rolling his tongue out, teasing my skin with kisses. “I really wish we could stay this way.”
I let my head fall to the side to give him more room to tease my neck. “We can’t just live in a tent forever… as much fun as it’s been, I really can’t wait to have a real roof over my head.”
He moves his lips up my neck to my earlobe. “What if we built a cabin for us to live in?”
“Why would we do that?” I ask, breathless as his kisses make my skin dot with goose bumps. “Or better yet, how would we?”
“Save up.” He makes a path of kisses down my neck as his hand slips underneath the front of my shirt. “Build one. Move out here. Live. Write. Do whatever the hell we want for the rest of our lives.”
My heart hammers inside my chest, wondering if this conversation is headed where I think it’s headed. “Forever? Just you and I?” Is he talking about our future?
“Maybe,” he says distractedly, and then he presses his fingertips to the side of my jaw and kisses me deeply, leaving me more confused than ever.
But like always, his kisses make me forget my confusion.
* * *
I’m messing this up. Really, really bad. There was a reason why I wanted to take her up here—some things I want to say about us that I discovered last night—but now I’m chickening out and panicking. I suddenly feel like I’m fourteen again and the weight of the world—the pressure—is building up and crushing me. I need to calm down.
I start kissing her as a way around it, knowing that eventually I’ll have to break the kiss and finally just tell her how I feel. About us. About our future. But I kiss her for as long as possible, until she’s gasping against my mouth and I’m gently pulling at her hair. I can tell we’re only a few more heated moments away from peeling off our clothes and having sex right here on the trail. It wouldn’t be the first time, and yet I carefully pull away, nibbling on her lip before sitting up straight.
She looks flustered. “What’s wrong?” Her fingers travel up the front of my chest to the top of my shirt, where she grips at the fabric, trying to guide me back to her. “Don’t you want to relive the Fourth of July incident?”
I smile as I recollect the Fourth of July. Fireworks exploding over the lake in front of us. Trees surrounding us. Hiding under a blanket, listening to people chatter in the distance as we made love, knowing that at any moment someone could walk up the trail and see us. Neither of us really cared. In fact, it made things more exhilarating.
“Not just yet,” I say, cupping her cheek. “I actually need to talk to you about something.”
Her forehead creases as she sits up, then kneels and turns to face me. “It’s not bad, is it?”
“As long as I can get it out right, it isn’t.” I let out a loud exhale, preparing to do something I never thought I’d do. “The thing is, you keep talking about marriage and stuff and it really freaks me out,” I tell her, and when she frowns I quickly add, “But it’s not like I don’t think about where we’re going to be down the road… if we’re going to end up together… be together forever.” I put my hands on her thighs as she watches me with worry. “I actually think about it a lot. More than I actually realized… Something that I sort of discovered after writing last night.”
“And what did writing reveal to you?” she asks, biting on her bottom lip as I smooth my thumb across her cheek.
“That you and I will end up together.” I swallow hard, hating that I have to add the last part, but I need to if I’m going to be honest. “However, I don’t think we should get married soon.”
She rolls her eyes, which wasn’t the response I was expecting. “I don’t think we should get married soon either,” she says, inching closer to me. “I just wanted—no needed—to know we’re headed somewhere that could maybe lead to that one day. And that you feel the same way as I do about being together in the long run.”
I tangle my fingers through her hair “You know I love you, right?”
“Yes,” she says, leaning in for a kiss. “And I love you too.”
I pull her in for a quick kiss and then rest my forehead against hers, shutting my eyes, preparing myself for the next thing I’m going to say. Something that terrifies the shit out of me because it’s so permanent and the even scarier part is that I want it to be. “I want to do something.”
She catches her breath. “What?”
I slip my hand up the back of her shirt and place my palm over her tattoo on her back. “I think… I mean, I want to get another tattoo.”
I feel her lashes flutter against me as she opens her eyes and slants away. I open my eyes but keep my hand on her back right between her shoulder blades. She’s giving me a baffled look, her eyes wide and searching mine.
“I don’t get it,” she says. “How do we go from our future talk to you getting a tattoo? I mean, if you want to get another tattoo, that’s totally okay with me. You look hot with them… but I don’t—”
Chuckling under my breath, I cover her mouth with my hand. “Lila, I meant that we should get tattoos together. Ones to mark this trip. And the beginning of our future… ones that sort of go together.” When she looks like she’s starting to relax, I remove my hand from her mouth. “I knew this couple with really cool matching bands on their fingers and I thought maybe we could get something like that.”
“You want to get a matching tattoo with me,” she says, a little shocked. “But it’s so permanent.”
“That’s sort of the point.” I pause, wondering why she’s not excited about this. I thought she would be, but maybe I’ve been reading her wrong. “We don’t have to. I just thought…” I trail off as she gets to her feet and starts to walk toward the trail.
I quickly get to my feet and hurry after her. “Where are you going?”
She glances over her shoulder at me, heading toward the trees at the bottom of the hill. “I want you to show me what you wrote last night.”
My expression falls. “Why?”
She turns around, walking backward with a grin on her face. “I want to see how you really feel—I want to make sure that you’re not just doing this for me because I’ve been pressuring you. That you really want this as much as I do. And if it does seem that you want to make that sort of leap with me, then I’ll totally do it, but if not, then…” She turns around as she reaches a steep spot on the hill where the ground gets a little loose.
“And if you don’t think I want this, then what?” I ask, catching up with her and placing my hand on her back to help her down the steep slope.
“Then we won’t get the tattoos right now,” she says, stumbling a little, and my fingers enfold her waist to catch her from falling.
“But I thought you wanted a commitment?” I ask, taking her hand as we reach the flat section at the bottom of the hill.
“I do,” she says as we duck to enter the trees. “But I also want to know for sure that you want it. And if you do, then great, and if you’re not ready for it, then you’re not ready for it.”
I grow a little nervous. “But what if what I wrote freaks you out?”
She aims a disbelieving look at me. “Are you kidding me? After all the stuff I put you through, you think that something you wrote in your journal is going to freak me out?” She pauses as we reach the open section of the trail where the trees are sparse. “You helped me through addiction, family problems, and helped me find myself. I don’t think anything you wrote could be more intense than that.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I say, unsure if I want her to read anything in my journal. It’s like giving her insight straight into my head.
“If you don’t want me to, then that’s fine,” she says. “But I’m not going to get matching tattoos until I know for sure that you want this and aren’t just saying so because I’ve been weird about commitment lately.”
“I never say anything but the truth,” I remind her. “Even if it’s harsh.” I pause, tugging my free hand through my hair, thinking about what I want and what I don’t want and which one is more important. But in the end only one thing matters—what she wants. “I’ll let you read it… but just prepare yourself… I always write what I say and sometimes… well, I’m not sure how you’re going to interpret it… whether you’re going to see it as me wanting a future with you.”
She swallows hard and then lets out a loud exhale, looking nervous. “Well, I guess we’re about to find out.”