Kiss Me Again

by Wood, Vivian

  “I guess we don't need to go any particular place,” he says, his brow creasing.

  I hike alongside him, swatting at a mosquito. “No. But… maybe we just go hit the spots that you love best.”

  He looks at me, nodding slowly. “If that’s how you want to spend your last days here, then sure.”

  Puzzled, I scrunch my face up. “I’m not going back to Manhattan just because my father made a stink about it.”

  “From what you’ve told me, I think that when we go back to base camp, there will be a set of orders waiting there for us. I’ll be sent off to somewhere remote. You’ll be ordered back to New York.” He shrugs my shoulders. “It’s just how things will be.”

  “Right.” I try not to look bitterly disappointed, but I’m sure I fail miserably.

  “I think you’re right about the other part, though.” He looks thoughtful. “I think we should scale Mount Vessalt. It’s hardly out of our way and the view from the top is incredible. Just breathtaking, really.”

  I nod slowly. “Let’s do it, then.”

  “Yeah?” He glances back at me. I give him the most reassuring smile I’m capable of at this moment. “Okay. We have to backtrack a little and then it’s a serious hike.”

  “I’m ready. Lead the way.”

  He turns around and starts heading down the ridge we are ascending. I follow him, my heart full of worry. I’m wondering how I’m ever possibly going to leave things like this with Grayson. Up in the air, unfinished.

  My heart squeezes at the probability of leaving things just hanging like that, forever. God, I can’t even fathom how I will do it.

  Everything in Manhattan seems so far away now but I am only a week away from it, at most. My father wants me in the Civicore offices, bright eyed and bushy tailed. And he also expects Clay to be at my side.

  After being with Grayson for even a short time, it seems cruel to force myself to accept… well, less. And let’s face it, anyone who is not Grayson is going to feel like the wrong choice. But I can’t force Grayson into my life in Manhattan.

  Clay has set us up for a lifetime of infidelities and hurt feelings. I understand why my father is attached to him, but… I can barely breathe, just thinking about walking down the aisle to marry Clay.

  When the ground rises beneath our feet once more, steeply inclining toward a peak, I start to breathe a little harder. Grayson looks back at me every so often.

  “Oh man,” I puff. “This is hard.”

  He gives me a faint smile. “I know. But it’s a good mountain to climb if you are trying not to think about something.”

  My heart clatters against my ribs. So he’s trying to avoid thinking about me leaving too, if I had to guess.

  He picks up the pace, so much so that I really have to work to keep up. The trees begin to thin out, the dense underbrush peeling back to show patches of rock on the ground in some places. I’m really huffing and puffing now, trailing behind Grayson. Glaring at him with his long legs, muttering under my breath.

  When we finally reach the summit, I’m soaked in sweat and wheezing. Grayson casts an eye over me.

  “Do you want to stop for a minute? We are almost to the sightseeing spot.”

  Bracing my hands on my knees, I shake my head. “Not if it’s flat I don't.”

  He grins. “That’s my girl.”

  He starts walking away, missing my disbelieving expression. His words are a torment, of sorts. It’s evident to me at least how badly I would like them to be true.

  I would like to be his girl again.

  But that isn’t possible. I have to go back to New York. Certain things are expected of me.

  My heart turns to lead in my chest. I straighten up and tag along after him, feeling as though I’ve been punched in the stomach.

  “Okay,” he says, putting his hand out to stop me in my tracks. “Take your backpack off and close your eyes.”

  Raising both of my eyebrows, I shrug my pack to the ground. He does the same. Then he spins me around, coming behind me to stand with his hands over my eyes. My heart sings at his closeness; I realize that this moment reminds me of the last time he covered my eyes and led me somewhere.

  How far we’ve come from that moment on the golf course, beneath the stars.

  “Go on,” he encourages. He’s oh so very close to my ear. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  I almost open my mouth to argue back. It already has. You’ve stolen my heart again, somehow.

  But instead, I just draw a breath and step forward. I let him guide me the last few steps, feeling unbelievably sad and unspeakably happy all at once. The feelings slosh around inside my brain; I feel like I’m going to throw up from how quickly it changes from dark to light and back inside my mind.

  Grayson lifts his hands from my face. “You can look now.”

  I open my eyes. The view here is incredible and the time of day couldn’t be better. I see nothing but mountains, their slopes covered with pine trees. Bathed in the gorgeous pinks and purples of the sunset, the sleepy mountains come alive. We’re up higher than just about every other thing I can see and the view stretches for ninety degrees. To my left, I see a river snaking its way between two peaks. I’m actually so awestruck that for a minute, I struggle to find the words.

  Grayson looks at my face with a grin. When I look to him, he laughs.

  “I know, right? That was my reaction the first time I climbed up here.”

  I can’t help but wrap my hands around his face and pull him in for a kiss. Pressing my lips against his, I try to feed all the tumult of emotions I’ve been feeling today into it. His lips are hot and sweet, his tongue dancing with my own.

  Grayson makes this soft little growl in the back of his throat, slipping his arm around my waist and pulling me against his body. When I need to take a breath, I pull back for a second and look up at him. His breathing is harsh as he peers down into my eyes.

  Oh god.

  I love him.

  I love him so much.

  I never stopped loving him five years ago, not really. He just disappeared.

  And now that I know where he is, now that I’ve seen him, I will have to say goodbye to him again. Somehow, some way, I will have to look him in the eye and wish him farewell.

  My heart cracks and breaks inside my chest as I look up into his deep blue eyes. Feeling a tear slip down my cheek, I close my eyes for a second.

  “Hey,” he says, his voice gone to gravel. He wipes my tear from my cheek with the calloused pad of his thumb. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  I draw a shaky breath and whisper, “It’s not okay.”

  He is quiet for a few beats. I open my eyes and look at him. His face is unreadable, but the tension that he exudes is palpable. He blows out a breath, looking out over the vista.

  “This wasn’t supposed to get messy.”

  My heart aches. “And yet, here we are.”

  “Do you think…” He pauses and shakes his head. He clears his throat. “I think the best thing for us both to do is just to pretend that… for the next week, that we are happy.” His thrust works as he swallows. “That we aren’t facing anything, that we are just simply… happy.”

  I wipe away my tears again. “Do you think so?”

  Grayson glances back to me. “I do.”

  I exhale, loud and long. “Okay.”

  He smiles, but that expression doesn’t reach his eyes. It feels fake. He releases me and steps back toward the trees. “I think we should bivvy out tonight. Sleep under the stars. How does that sound to you?”

  Pushing my hand through my hair, I sigh. “That sounds great.”

  My words are hollow, as hollow as his smile, but we are pretending. He nods and looks out at the sunset again.

  “I’m going to go get materials for the fire,” he says. “You pick out where we’re going to bed down for the night.”

  We go on like that, both of us covering our hurt in a pile of things that have to
be done. He starts a fire. I lay out our sleeping pads and bags. We sit and look out at the gorgeous view while we eat dinner. As the sun sinks below the horizon and the last rays of purple light touch the mountain, I can see the stars spreading throughout the sky.

  He moves closer, so that our legs and arms touch. I ask him to bring out the compass once more.

  “Show me how to navigate in the dark,” I tell him. “Teach me how to know where I am using nothing but the compass and the stars.”

  Grayson looks at me, a thousand unspoken emotions crossing through his perfectly blue eyes. I can tell he wants to say something, but we have an agreement in place now.

  Neither of us wants to say anything to disrupt that.

  So instead he sighs, holding the compass. He raises his hand to point. “We’re facing north. See the north star, the brightest one right there?”

  “Yes.”

  His voice is rough with emotion. “It’ll always be present, anytime you look for it. Always.”

  When I look at Grayson, his eyes bore into mine. It seems like he’s talking about more than the stars. I bite my lower lip.

  “Will it be there forever?” I ask.

  He draws a breath. “As long as you are alive, the star will still be there, burning like a candle in the night sky. Just look for it there next time you are feeling alone.” He cups my cheeks, leaning down to whisper against my lips. “It is as faithful and reliable as any star can be.”

  I kiss him then, aching with need and want. And something more, something left unsaid between us. As we kiss, night falls on the mountaintop, and we have nothing but each other to pay attention to.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Grayson

  It’s been raining for almost a day. My shoulder keeps bothering me, the echo of an injury sustained in another life. Rachel and I spend the time hiding out in a hastily constructed cave of tarps. We basically fuck the entire time we are bogged down, occasionally coming up for air or a few handfuls of trail mix. Or we make each other crack up as we eat dried fruit.

  You’ve never really seen the person you’re sleeping with until you’ve seen bits of dried pineapple shoot out of their nose after a particularly funny comment.

  What we don’t do is talk about the emotions swirling in the air around us. We don’t talk about the fact that I made promises to her that I’m not sure I can keep. Or the fact that in that moment, they were the balm she was so desperately seeking.

  And we definitely don’t talk about those three little words that are on the tip of my tongue every single time I sink myself deep inside her, filling her to the hilt, her name on my lips.

  I can almost taste the emotions in the air, but Rachel keeps pushing her lips against mine. And I’m weak for her, knowing that we may only have less than a handful of days together.

  My natural inclination is avoidance by whatever means necessary. So when she moans, when I’m pulling those soft sounds from her lips, so deep inside her that neither of us can breathe, let alone think…

  That is pretty satisfying to me, at least for now.

  All things come to an end though, especially the best ones. I’m lying stretched out over the top of my sleeping bag, Rachel burrowed sleepily at my side. I doze just a little, but not enough to fall into dreaming. There’s no guarantee if I fall asleep that I won’t dream, and I don’t want to terrify Rachel again.

  A low rumbling sound reaches my ears. My eyes snap open. It dies away, but I’m still wide awake.

  What was that, exactly?

  It comes again, this time accompanied by a hint of the ground beneath me shaking. It stops again, but I’m not interested in taking any chances. My hand shoots out to wake Rachel. “Hey. Something is happening.”

  Her eyes open, her expression groggy. “What?”

  The rumble starts again. The ground begins to quake. I spring up, reaching for a pile of our clothes. “I’m not sure, but you need to get dressed. We have to get off this mountain.”

  I toss clothes at her and she starts to get dressed. I pull on pants and a shirt, scrambling to find my socks and stuff my feet in my hiking boots. The rumbling and shaking starts again, much louder this time. I try not to panic but it’s hard.

  My hands are shaking as I tie my boots.

  Desperate, I look around the tent. We can come back for most of this stuff, so I just stuff the map and the compass in my pocket. My water bottle I clip to my waist with a carabiner. Then I look at Rachel.

  She’s just got her boots on and is looking around the tent. My head is spinning as I try to make some decisions. It doesn’t help that the ground under my feet is still shaking.

  “Is it an earthquake?” she wonders.

  “I don’t know. Just… bring your water bottle,” I direct her. “And the trail mix, I guess. Leave everything else.”

  She roots through her bag. I see her slip the trail mix in her pocket, along with her cell phone. Then she grabs her water bottle and looks at me expectantly. I realize that it’s dark out here, enough to make me grab two flashlights. I toss one to her and then head out of the tent.

  Turning the flashlight on, I sweep the beam across the ground. I hold out my hand to her. “Here. Hold on tight. I think we’d better try to run.”

  She grabs my hand, looking frightened. As she does, the ground beneath us shifts down a few feet, giving away somewhere far below us.

  “Fuck!” I breathe. I sprint away quickly, seeking a way down that doesn’t involve the sagging earth we were just standing on. Rachel lags behind me, holding onto my hand with an iron grip.

  Still, the earth just keeps shifting under our feet. It’s so dark out and the flashlight is little help. Rachel stumbles over a tree root and I stop, letting her hand go to grab her around the waist and haul her up. Around us, trees are falling over and disappearing.

  Fuck. I’ve seen the aftermath of landslides before, whole tops and sides of mountains just collapsed. But I never prepared to be in one.

  What the fuck do I do?

  Jesus.

  Rachel is my priority. Everything else in my life could up and vanish in an instant, but the only person I need to worry about right now is the one I can’t live without.

  I need to know that Rachel is okay. How do I keep her safe?

  “What do we do?” Rachel yells to me.

  “We had better run,” I say, looking around for a steady path. “Here, this way.”

  I tug her hand. We start running as the ground beneath our feet falls away. It’s a nightmare of sorts, where we are running, but we are not nearly fast enough to escape what’s happening.

  “Just keep going,” I urge. “Whatever happens, don’t stop until you’re—”

  I trip over something on the ground, stumbling and falling.

  We are ripped apart. “No! Rachel, just wait right—”

  Then the ground shifts again, rumbling so loudly that I can’t hear whatever Rachel tries to shout at me.

  All I know is that I am falling backward. It seems so ridiculous to me at the moment as my arms and legs start to flail. Yet I keep going.

  Falling.

  Falling.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Rachel

  One second, Grayson is gripping me around the waist.

  The next second, I am on the ground, looking at empty space where he just was.

  All I can hear is my heart beating in my ears. I’m so fucking afraid. And now I’m alone, ripped away from Grayson’s touch.

  I’m trembling harder than I have in my whole life.

  Where did he go?

  “Grayson?” I call out. Crawling to my feet, I edge toward where the earth fell away. I’m completely soaked, damp soil clinging to me wherever I touch it. All I can smell is fresh soil and the scent of fear coming off my body.

  This can’t be real. This can’t be happening right now.

  As I get closer to the lip, some of the loose earth crumbles. “Gray?” I call out.

  Silence.


  Oh god.

  What if… what if something happened to him?

  My heart thunders in my chest. I only just found Grayson again. My heart is in my throat.

  What if all his goodness is just… gone? It would gut me to be without him.

  Not just without him. For him to be… dead… that would be worse than anything I could dream of. Yet I’m not entirely sure I’m not having some terrible nightmare, the ground rending right under us, prying Grayson from my grip.

  I stop to consider it. I can feel the goosebumps on my arms. I can feel my heart racing. Shivering, I pinch myself hard.

  “Ow!” I mumble.

  This is reality, I guess. I look out over the expense of dirt, panicking.

  What should I do?

  Where the fuck is Grayson?

  God, what if I never get to tell him how I feel? What if the worst happened, and now I have to live my life knowing that I never said I love you to Grayson?

  The earth rumbles again, signaling that it might not be done giving way. I skitter back from the edge, my mind racing.

  I’m not giving up on him, not yet.

  Think. What would Grayson do if the situation were reversed?

  Wiping the tears I didn’t realize had escaped down my face, I cup my hands to my mouth and call out again. I notice that there are dirt and bits of pine trees stuck to my hands, but that’s the last thing on my mind right now. “Grayson!”

  Getting as low as I can, I crab walk over to the edge. Pieces of ground break away around me, crumbling and plummeting down the side. It’s scary as hell, especially not being able to see what is down below. But I’m a lot more terrified of the idea of never seeing Grayson again.

  When I get to the lip, I shift, sticking my head over the edge. For several beats, I’m awestruck.

  The mountain just sheered away, dropping twenty feet below my head. Down below that, I see the broken trees and bits of rocks that indicate a landslide has happened. A swath of land a hundred feet wide has been erased. It’s like a piece of slate that has just been wiped clean.