Trail Blazer

by Nicolette Dane

  “I get it from your mum,” said Seb.

  “She’s one in the same!” boomed Queenie.

  “Siblings,” Cask said quietly, shaking his head.

  “Yeah, but she’s a bit more like you,” Seb continued. “Tough exterior. Mushy exterior. A cunt, through and through.”

  Nova immediately put her hand to her mouth and looked at Seb. She wasn’t sure whether to be appalled or burst out laughing. Reaching over, she put her hand on Piggy’s leg for support. Piggy’s eyes looked down to Nova’s hand, feeling her heart race from the touch, and then she returned her eyes to the conversation.

  “I’m sorry,” Seb said, putting his hand up in Nova’s direction. “Pardon me. I know we’re in mixed company. Brits and Yanks. I’ll be more docile.”

  “Did you really just call your mother and your sister a…” said Nova, shaking her head slowly.

  “Nova,” said Queenie carefully. “In much of the other half of the English-speaking world, cunt is… well, it’s more of a term of endearment, really. To be fair to Seb, I am a cunt. And so is our mum.”

  “Actually, I think you Yanks are missing out,” Cask presented. “It’s a very satisfying word to say, positive or negatively.”

  “Okay,” Nova said, beginning to come around quickly. She was enchanted by this group, and she couldn’t fight their charm.

  “Sometimes mates just call each other a cunt in mocking and jest,” Queenie further clarified. “It’s like two American bros might call one another a dick. Or two women call each other a nasty bitch, or something. I don’t know all your slang. But it’s often friendly.”

  “It can be used quite negatively, as well,” said Seb.

  “Oh, surely,” Queenie agreed. “It’s a keen multitasker, that word.”

  “It’s growing on me,” said Nova. “The more I hear you say it.”

  “We’re poisoning America, one impressionable mind at a time,” gloated Seb, fist clenched. The whole group laughed.

  “What about you, Piggy?” asked Cask. “Coming around?”

  “I don’t know,” Piggy replied with another laugh. “I’ll let Nova here throw that word around a bit and see if it sticks.”

  “We got two!” Seb said triumphantly.

  “Don’t listen to us, girls,” said Queenie. “We’re certifiable. You go on being good. We have enough bad on this side for the lot of us.”

  After the finer points of language had been discussed a bit further, the group moved on to their well-deserved dinners and even more chatting over a small LED lantern that the Brits had brought with them. Despite the affinity growing between the girls and the Brits, they all had a long day ahead of them tomorrow and the evening came to its natural end fairly quickly after they ate. As the Brits had already claimed the small sleeping shelter as their own, Piggy and Nova hauled their stuff just a little further away and found a clear spot to pitch a tent and put their food up in a tree.

  It was a compact two-person tunnel tent, easy enough to haul with them on the hike, but it offered very little space in side for the two of them. As such, Piggy and Nova lay side by side, close and touching, as they settled in for rest that night.

  Outside it was quiet, but for the varying sounds of insect life chirping. Nova lay there with a bemused smile and her eyes open as she reflected on the day. She was a bit sore, but she was fine. She felt good.

  “Hey,” she said softly. “Piggy? You awake?”

  “Yeah,” replied Piggy quietly.

  “Today was awesome,” said Nova. “I feel so good about it. About everything.”

  “Me too,” agreed Piggy. Though something about the conversation with the Brits made her feel a little less confident about herself. She couldn’t figure out why.

  “I loved those English people,” Nova continued. “They were so funny and just… bantering and quick.”

  “Yeah, they’re all over the place.”

  “You think you’ll start using the word cunt?” Nova asked, giving Piggy a laugh.

  “No,” she said, still laughing. “I don’t think I will.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” Nova agreed with a smile.

  “I think we’d get looked at like we were crazy people if we started throwing that word around,” Piggy offered. “Don’t you?”

  “I think so,” said Nova. “But it’s kind of charming to think we’d actually get away with it.” She laughed at herself, and Piggy smirked in the darkness of the tent. Reaching over, she touched Nova lightly on the side, causing her to reply with a contented sigh.

  “Goodnight, Nova.”

  “Night, Piggy.”

  The following morning, Piggy and Nova took their time getting going. The Brits had already taken off, as they were a little behind schedule to complete the hike in five days and the girls didn’t expect to see them again. Nova was disappointed, hoping that maybe they could all set out together. But she knew their plans.

  Breakfast was granola with powdered milk that Piggy reconstituted with water. It was filling and dense, and the perfect way to start their second day on the trail. Before the girls got moving, a group of hikers came through their camp and said hello. They didn’t stick around, however, and their eagerness inspired Piggy and Nova to pack up their tent and get hiking themselves.

  It was drizzling that morning, and they both put on their lightweight rain jackets as they began an elevation climb up toward Barren Mountain. It took them up over a thousand feet in elevation, amid the alternating mist and rain, aided by some manmade slate staircases on the path. And after another six hundred or so feet of elevation, the girls reached the peak of Barren Mountain, and the old dilapidated lookout tower that was installed there.

  They stopped at the summit, and they looked up to the tower. The roof had blown off some time ago, and there was wood debris strewn about on the ground near where they stood. Although they were up high enough for some expected scenic views, the increasingly heavy mist blocked any real visibility.

  “Maybe we should climb the tower,” Nova offered.

  “I don’t know,” said Piggy. “It looks pretty wet. We might slip.”

  “Yeah,” replied Nova, looking up once again and considering it. “I hope it stops raining.”

  “At least it’s cool,” Piggy reconciled. “I mean, if it was hot and humid and rainy, that would be pretty uncomfortable.”

  “How’s the rest of the day looking?”

  “For rain or for hiking?” said Piggy.

  “Both.”

  “Um, well,” Piggy said, taking out her phone and looking at it. “I’m not getting great reception right now. But when I checked earlier, it looked like it was going to kind of drizzle for much of the day. And for hiking, we’ve got some rough and steep climbs today. We’re going over a few peaks toward Columbus Mountain as well as some peaks that aren’t named on the map.”

  “Okay,” Nova said, hefting her pack up onto her back. “Let’s get moving, then.”

  It was a pretty rough day for them. All that mist got them pretty well soaked, and they traversed over many pointless ups and downs, or PUDs as they’re called by hikers. It took them a few hours to climb the elevation in front of them, much of it hiked in silence. The first day had been a breeze compared to day two, and Piggy could tell that it was taking its toll on Nova.

  Eventually they stopped at a stream to refill their water. They both had their own water filter, a plastic bag that they would fill with water and then attach to a bulbous black filter. Once the filter was secure, they would squeeze the bag and squirt the now-filtered water into their bottles. Piggy also carried a water bladder in her pack, which took some time to fill up. But after a long, wet day of hiking, neither of them wanted to be without water for whatever might lay ahead.

  “How high do you think we are?” Nova asked, then pouring a gulp of water into her mouth. Some water dripped down her face and she wiped at it.

  “We’ve done over four thousand feet so far today,” replied Piggy. They were sitting on ro
cks by the stream where they had filled up, and were snacking on trail mix. Piggy took a handful of it, tilted her head back, and dropped it all into her mouth.

  “This isn’t like yesterday,” said Nova woefully.

  “It’s harder today,” Piggy agreed. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah,” Nova said, capping her water bottle. “I’ll be all right.”

  “How are your feet?”

  “Good,” Nova acknowledged. “I don’t think I have any blisters yet. How about you?”

  “I might be getting one,” said Piggy. “But I’m okay.”

  “I’m feeling a little bit emotional, though,” Nova continued. “I kind of feel a little bit like crying.”

  “Because it’s been hard?”

  “Yeah, that,” she responded. “But it just feels like it’s pushing a lot of stuff up inside of me. You know what I mean? Like the difficulty of the hike today has really pushed me emotionally, too.”

  “Absolutely,” said Piggy. “I absolutely know what you mean.”

  “Sometimes I feel like such a loser,” admitted Nova. “I really get down on myself and I break down. It feels good to cry in those times.”

  “Yeah, it does,” Piggy confirmed. “Why do you feel like a loser?”

  “Just because,” said Nova. “For many reasons, I guess. I only completed my associate’s degree at the community college. And every time I look for jobs to apply to, they all want a bachelor’s. But I feel like it’s too late for me, or something. To go back and do it.”

  “It’s not too late,” Piggy said empathetically. “It’s never too late.”

  “I’m almost thirty,” Nova mourned with a shrug. “It would just be weird.”

  “No it wouldn’t,” said Piggy, her tone resolute. “You could totally go back and get your bachelor’s. People do that every day. Old people. People in their seventies and eighties. I think I read a story about some woman in her nineties going back to school and finishing her degree. You’re not a loser for that.”

  “Thanks,” Nova replied with a half-smile. “It’s more than all that, too.”

  “Like what?”

  “You know,” said Nova. “Still living at home, working at the brewery, not really doing much with myself. I feel this stupid pressure from my family to either do something or get married and have a family. I’ve told you this,” she said, and looked down, playing with her fingernail.

  “People go at their own pace,” said Piggy. “It can take time to find the way you’re supposed to go.”

  “But Gretchen… Piggy,” Nova corrected. “You left home at eighteen and went to college. You lived away from your family, in the dorms or whatever, and then with friends and on your own. You never went back home after you moved out. I never even moved out.”

  “I know,” said Piggy, her lips flat and her head slowly nodding as she thought about her friend’s life in comparison to her own. “We’ve had different lives.”

  “I feel so behind,” Nova admitted with a bit more passion. “That’s it, you know? I just want to get on with it. I want to be free.”

  Piggy stood up from where she sat and moved over toward Nova, sitting down directly next to her and putting her arm around her. Nova leaned into Piggy, and although she looked like she was going to cry, she was able to keep her cheeks dry.

  “Why don’t you feel free?” Piggy asked gently.

  “I don’t know,” huffed Nova. “I just don’t.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” cooed Piggy, rubbing her hand up and down Nova’s back. “You’re with me out here in the wilderness. If ever there was a place where you were free, it’s here. Look at all this,” she said, motioning out toward the stream with her hand. The current flowed at a nice clip, and beyond the stream was a beautiful stand of fir trees. “Pretty, right?”

  “It is,” Nova agreed solemnly.

  “Everything we need, we’re carrying with us,” Piggy went on. “It’s just you and me and nature. We can just be who we are out here with no expectations. You remember that girl we met at the hostel? Stormy?”

  “Mm hmm.”

  “She was giving us some tips, but then she stopped and said she’d let us hike our own hike,” said Piggy, “You know what that means?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Nova.

  “It means live and let live, it means accept all kinds,” said Piggy. “That’s how people operate out here. You let people be themselves and do what they need to do to get it done. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah,” said Nova. “It does.”

  “It means not taking any offense when the Brits start throwing the word cunt around,” Piggy said. “I mean, I’m not going to start saying it. But that’s their world, you know? It is what it is.”

  “Well, you did just say it,” Nova teased. Piggy smiled.

  “I did,” she acquiesced.

  “Thank you for being my friend,” Nova said, cuddling up against Piggy and holding her. “I don’t think I’ve really had anyone like you in my life.” Piggy was still smiling, and that smile grew even bigger and more proud.

  “I love you, Nova,” said Piggy. “I’m glad we’re friends, too. It means a lot to me. You really accepted me when I moved to Traverse City and didn’t know anybody. It seems like so many of the locals are off in their own worlds and don’t really want to get close with an outsider like me. But you were different.”

  “I love you, too,” Nova replied happily. “You’re really special to me.”

  The girls sat there together on that rock for some time, just embracing one another, happy to be in each other’s company. But the break in the rain was coming to an end, and the sky opened up with a light and lazy drizzle, just as it had been doing for much of the day. Reluctantly, they pulled apart and put their hoods over their heads. For a moment, Piggy and Nova stared into each other’s eyes, blue into green. Piggy really wanted to lean in and kiss her friend, and so she did. But she craned her neck upwards slightly, and she kissed Nova on the forehead.

  “Let’s get moving,” said Piggy. “We still have more miles to cover before dark.”

  When Piggy and Nova arrived in the early evening at the Chairback Gap Shelter, they found that they were the first people to arrive giving them the luxury of hanging their hammocks in the shelter and camping there for the night. In just two days they had gone over twenty-five miles, though only ten of those miles had been hiked on the second day. With the elevation they climbed, the rain, the struggles, it hadn’t been a very great day for distance.

  After another ramen dinner and a resolution that they would make up their missed miles tomorrow, the girls decided to call it an early night in the hopes that they could get a head start in the morning. They hoisted their food bag up into a nearby tree, making it difficult on any hungry intruders, and ambled with sore feet back into the shelter to climb into their hammocks.

  The sun had almost completely set and darkness began to overtake them in the shelter.

  “How did your family react to you coming out as gay?” Nova asked, breaking the silence of the impending night. “Did they disown you or call you an abomination or anything like that?”

  “No,” said Piggy firmly. “They were fine about it, very supportive and happy for me. Happy that I understood myself.”

  “Are they religious at all?”

  “I guess a little,” Piggy considered. “I wasn’t really raised going to church or anything, but I’d say my parents believe in God or the idea of God or whatever. They don’t subscribe to a lot of the negativity that seems to come with Christianity.”

  Nova was quiet for a few moments, and Piggy wondered what she could be thinking. These questions struck Piggy as very telling, but she didn’t want to make any assumptions based on her own biases.

  “I’m not sure how my parents would react,” Nova said eventually. “I mean, if you had been their daughter and came out to them. My parents are good people, usually understanding and supportive, but it’s against their
beliefs, you know?”

  “Listen,” said Piggy. “If you ever need to open up to somebody… you know you can open up to me. Not that you’re not opening up right now. I’m just saying… that’s all.”

  “I know.”

  “Have you ever felt attracted to another woman?” Piggy asked bluntly.

  “Yes,” said Nova.

  “Who?”

  “I had a friend long ago,” Nova began. “Lily French was her name. I haven’t seen her in a long time, but we were friends growing up. We spent a lot of time together, in school and in church. I remember one time we had gone downstate for some church concert thing, and Lily and I shared a hotel room. I watched her change before bed, and seeing her in just her underwear made me feel something I’d never really felt before.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Like… real arousal,” Nova admitted. “I got excited, my heart raced… I got wet.”

  “So what happened with the two of you?” Piggy said with a delicate tone.

  “Later on in high school she got a boyfriend,” said Nova. “And then eventually she went off to college down in Holland. We sort of lost touch, especially when I stopped going to church. Before I stopped going, I’d sometimes see her if she was home for a weekend. But when I stopped, I never saw her again.”

  “I was attracted to girls even before that,” Piggy confirmed. “In middle school, I was on the softball team and there was this girl Annie. She was super cute and just naturally good at sports. She ran track, too. Anyway, with her, that was the first time I really found myself thinking about other girls. Some of my friends would start talking about the boys they liked at school, and all I could think about was Annie.”

  “Did anything happen with you and Annie?” Nova asked.

  “Oh no,” said Piggy with authority. “No, she was totally into guys. I just had a crush on her, you know? It wasn’t until high school that I actually made out with another girl. And then by college…” She just laughed.

  “You remind me a lot of Lily in a way,” Nova blurted. “You’re confident and outgoing. And blonde. She was also blonde.”