She tries to move, but Cass wakes up immediately, and they smile shyly at each other. Outside the van, they survey the damage: both of their tents are down and soaked, and Keri’s has collapsed on one side. “She must have gone into Mindy and Rosa’s,” Cass whispers.
Eliza nods. She’s not sure what to say in the light of day. But Cass isn’t acting weird, so she follows her lead, helping drape their waterlogged things over the roof of the van to dry and getting coffee started. The other girls emerge, yawning, and they compare notes on the night. “Keri got mud all over my sleeping bag when she came in,” Mindy complains.
Rosa hands her a mug of coffee. “You’ll survive.”
Eliza wonders if they can see it on her face: I KISSED A GIRL. ALL NIGHT. It was just kissing and cuddling, but it feels more intimate than any of the making out she ever did with Nathan. She doesn’t think it’s because he’s a guy. They were together a long time, but Eliza did kiss other boys before him, and last night makes her remember that some of those early awkward fumbles also felt similar—frantic and wonderful and scary. Maybe it even felt that way with Nathan, originally. It’s impossible to remember now.
“Can we get a hotel tonight?” Mindy asks.
Rosa rolls her eyes but Keri beams at the rest of the group. Cass just shrugs and looks to Eliza.
“Um...” It sounds great, but she doesn’t want to admit to the boys that they wussed out after two nights. Then Cass smiles, and Eliza reconsiders. Everyone would notice if they shared a tent, but sharing a hotel room wouldn’t be weird... “I’m fine with it,” she decides. “There’s no way my sleeping bag is going to dry out in time anyway.”
* * *
They take a long hike, giving their gear time to dry enough in the sun to hold off any mold. The heat returns with a vengeance, and everyone is grateful that Rosa forced them to carry extra water, especially when the trail climbs to a large hoodoo with a view of half the park.
Eliza takes a seat in the shade, watching Mindy snap photos from every possible angle. Service is spotty, but while her phone has signal, she sends her parents an update text: Survived storm at Palo Duro—hiking then headed to Pueblo today.
Her mom’s reply buzzes back: I saw on Mindy’s Instagram, so scary! Glad you’re okay. Drive safely and let us know when you arrive.
Eliza snorts. She forgot her mom was a social media addict.
Cass plops down beside her. “I hope Mindy is planning to work at National Geographic.”
“She actually has a pretty big following online,” Eliza admits.
Rosa takes a spot on her other side. “You wearing sunscreen, gringa?”
“Trust. I wear it to bed.” She holds out her arm, ridiculously pale. Almost translucent next to Rosa’s.
“You look more Indian than I do,” Cass says.
Rosa shrugs. “Latinxs are indigenous too.”
“I always wondered how that was pronounced,” Eliza says, and Cass laughs.
“You have a lot to learn, Grasshopper.”
Eliza can’t decide if she’s insulted or not, but Cass offers a hand and she takes it, following her down the slope. “What will you be doing,” she asks Rosa, “while Mindy’s off being a photojournalist?”
Rosa shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe I’ll be her keeper.”
There’s a bitter undercurrent there that Eliza doesn’t know how to address, so she turns to Cass. “And you’ll be a miner, of course.”
Cass laughs again. “With a degree in engineering.”
“What will you do with it?” Rosa asks.
“Depends.” Cass holds a branch back so it won’t snap Eliza in the face. Eliza does the same for Rosa. “It’s a five-year master’s, so I can go on to academia, or just get a job.”
“Our education program is a five-year master’s too,” Keri says from behind, catching up.
Eliza wonders why she feels uncomfortable in so many conversations lately. That’s because in the past, you’d just start a private convo with Nathan. Breaking up with him had felt like letting go of a safety rail, but it’s really more like peeling back a security blanket bit by bit, exposing unexpected parts to the air.
Cass bumps her shoulder. “Hey.”
“What?”
“I was asking what your major is.”
Eliza’s stomach sinks. Another of her least favorite topics. “I’m undeclared.” Noticing her shoe is untied, she steps to the side and crouches down. “Go on around me,” she says, letting them pass.
Cass lingers, adjusting her ponytail so her baseball cap sits comfortably. “Undeclared, huh?”
She even looks cute in hats, damn it. “To be honest, I have no idea what I want to do with my life.”
“Me neither.”
Eliza snorts. “Sounds like you have it pretty well figured out though.”
“It sounds good on paper,” Cass says. “The problem is that I want to go back to Poteau and help the community, but you need money to help and there’s not much there, so...”
The trail narrows, forcing them closer together, and their arms bump. Eliza thinks about how natural it seems to just take Cass’s hand, but she can’t make herself do it out here in the open. “I guess my situation is sort of similar, in a way. When I’m home, I want to leave, and when I leave, I want to go home.”
“Is that why you left UT?”
“Half of it. The other half was Nathan, but I let him think it was just my family.” She looks at Cass. “Do you know about my sister?”
Cass shakes her head.
“Well, she has muscular dystrophy. She uses a wheelchair and—”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Eliza snaps, then catches herself. “It’s just—that’s who she is, you know? She’s really clear on that. She’s a disabled person whose lifespan will probably be shorter than average, but she’s not—”
“I’m sorry,” she says again, and Eliza knows it’s a different apology. Then Cass laughs. “I’d say ‘I have a friend who uses a wheelchair,’ but to be honest I don’t.”
Eliza relaxes, almost relieved to find that Cass has blind spots too. Wait, is okay to call them blind spots? She shakes her head. “Well, anyway, I kind of let Nathan think that she and my family need my help more than they really do.” She shuffles her foot in the sand. “Actually, I kind of let myself think that, too.”
“I’m sure they appreciate it,” Cass says.
“Oh, they do, but...” It’s hard to say out loud what she’s only said to herself. “They can get by without me just fine. And I think I was hoping that... I don’t know, it’s stupid.”
“What?”
Eliza stops and takes a drink. “I was hoping...he would miss me more, I guess.”
“He didn’t miss you?”
She shrugs. “I mean, he did. But not in a way that like...changed my mind about the future. I mean, the thing is, he has his all worked out.” She only meant to leak a secret thought, but now they’re pouring out in a torrent. “He wants to go to law school and then settle down and support a family and it’s not like I’m against any of that, but it’s just not—I didn’t want...” She looks up. “I didn’t want it with him, is what I finally realized.”
“And he can’t understand that.”
Eliza shakes her head. “No. And now...” She gestures between the two of them. “He’s going to think I really left because I was secretly gay and like, maybe I am, but that’s not why, but then again why does it even matter if he—”
Cass takes her upper arms and squeezes.
“My entire life is one big open question right now, and everyone acts like that should be exciting but it just makes me feel tired. But I also have it so much easier than so many people...”
Cass turns her hat backward and rests her forehead against Eliza’s. “You do, but that doesn’t mean it’s not har
d. It’s just perspective. Both those things can be true.”
Eliza nods awkwardly. “I’m sweating on you.”
“Who’s sweating on who?” Cass pulls away. “Oh my god, Mindy is such a piece of work.”
Eliza looks up, to where Mindy is waving them forward. “Did she take our picture?”
“Of course she did. She probably already posted it with eighty-seven hashtags.”
Eliza’s stomach gives a lurch.
* * *
The girls pack up their gear and head north, Mindy waxing rapturously about the shower she’s going to take at the hotel. Keri hopes they can find one with a pool, Eliza just wants a night of decent rest, and even Rosa has to admit it’s a good plan. “Our reservations for tomorrow night are at Longs Peak, and that’s at 9000 feet. It’ll be good to acclimate in Pueblo for a night—it’s only at 4K.”
“Good call,” Cass agrees. “My school’s at 5600 and even that makes me sick if I do the drive all in one day.”
“Thanks for planning so much of this trip, Rosa,” Keri says. “I didn’t realize how much you had done.”
“Me neither,” Eliza admits, feeling guilty. “You’re amazing.”
Rosa actually blushes. “Well,” she says brusquely, “you can repay me by not getting altitude sickness.”
That, Eliza’s not sure she can promise. A quick search says their hometown is only at 1400 feet, but another search says preventative measures include eating carbs and drinking water, so at their next stop, they load up on snacks.
The drive passes fairly quickly, but Eliza can’t stop checking Instagram to see what Mindy has posted. So far, there’s just a group shot, but Eliza is hyperaware of how Cass’s hand curls around her hip, and how her own face is turned toward Cass, not the camera.
She glances over. Cass is beside her, taking in the scenery, which for now is still desert and weird rock formations. Their hands are inches apart on the seat. She wonders more what the sleeping arrangements will be, and how she feels about sharing a bed...or a room.
But the latter is a non-issue. The girls get a semi-decent meal at a greasy spoon in northern New Mexico, where Eliza is surprised to find that green chile is delicious, and by the time they get to Pueblo, Keri’s found them a deal on a hotel room with two beds and a pull-out couch. They take turns in the shower, have a microwave popcorn fight, and spend another half hour cleaning it up because Keri insists it’s unfair to leave for the cleaning lady.
No one thinks it’s strange that Cass and Eliza volunteer to share a bed, or notices that they’re holding hands under the covers, but it still takes Eliza hours to fall asleep.
* * *
“It seems a little weird that we drove here to do more driving,” Mindy says.
Rosa looks up from the map. “Did you want to hike?”
“Fair point,” Mindy says. They’re still tired from yesterday, and with the altitude, Rosa has planned for them to drive the Trail Ridge Road.
“‘Rocky Mountain National Park’s heavily traveled highway to the sky!’” Keri reads from a brochure. “Damn, it goes up four thousand feet in a couple of minutes.”
“Why are so many of the trees dead?” Mindy asks.
“Beetle kill,” Cass says.
“That sounds like a band,” Keri says.
Cass snorts. “It took out almost all the lodgepole pines. Like, over a space the size of Rhode Island.” Mindy gives her a quizzical look. “We learned about it in school?”
“Oh right.” She looks out the window. “God, these little lakes are so freaking blue. Pull over, Keri, I want to take pictures. Whoa, a moose!”
Keri groans but obliges. It’s not every day you see a moose, at least where they’re from.
The road winds up and around, making long curves around the tallest peaks. Walls of snow have been bulldozed to the shoulder, and the shady sides of the mountains remain white, but the sunny sides are either sheer gray rock or green slopes. Tall poles mark the road’s edge every few feet, and Eliza marvels that snow regularly gets so high, much less that people still drive on it.
Cass is sitting in the backseat without her, and it’s weird that the separation already feels wrong. They’ve barely spoken at all, but of course they’ve been with the other girls the entire time, so Eliza tries not to let it bother her.
They reach the Alpine Visitor Center, where tourists are speaking every language imaginable. Ravens swoop overhead, grabbing dropped snacks from the parking lot. “You want to do the trail?” Cass asks, pointing. A paved sidewalk leads up the closest peak. “I think it’s the highest point on the route.”
Rosa starts to reply, but Keri interrupts. “Let’s see if they have gum,” she says, and grabs her arm. “Mindy?” Mindy follows cluelessly, taking pictures of the birds as they walk.
“Wow, that wasn’t obvious at all,” Cass says.
“What?”
“You didn’t see Keri? She might as well have yelled ‘Let’s give them some alone time.’” Cass laughs. “We should have called this trip ‘Life Is a Biway.’”
“She knows?” Eliza asks. Her first instinct is panic, and Cass’s smile disappears. “I just... I don’t know. I haven’t thought this part through.”
“Let’s walk and talk.” Cass pulls out a stocking cap. “It’s windy up here.”
Eliza puts on her gloves and they start toward the summit. It’s hard to breathe, but a few feet up she blurts, “What happens now?”
“Right now?” Cass asks. “Or when you go home?”
“Both. Either. I don’t know.”
“I dunno. What do you want to happen?”
“I have no idea.”
Cass doesn’t reply. At the top, a sign reads 12,005 feet, and another says Protect the Tundra. Eliza had no idea there were tundras in the United States, at least outside of Alaska. Purple and yellow flowers grow everywhere, and she points at the small rocks lying scattered around. “What’s with those?”
“Glaciers.”
She doesn’t elaborate. Eliza can’t tell if Cass is mad or winded or just thinking. But she’s clearly waiting for Eliza to speak up, and after a minute, Eliza decides to just say exactly what she’s thinking.
“If you went anywhere else, I’d offer to transfer,” she starts, “but I don’t think mining is for me.”
Cass doesn’t laugh, but she gives her a half smile. “That would probably be a little fast, anyway.”
“And I’ve already gone that route once before,” Eliza admits. “I like Big Springs. I might not always live there, but...”
“I understand.” Cass gestures for them to step away from the sign so a family can take a photo. When they’re out of earshot, she says, “I wouldn’t want to be your mistake.”
“You wouldn’t be a—but yeah. I get it.”
Cass looks down. “I mean, I like you a lot. I hope you know that.”
“But...” Eliza says, bracing herself.
“But I’m not the only girl who’s going to like you. Not the only person,” she amends, looking up. “I’ll definitely call you, next time I’m home—Big Springs isn’t that far from there. But I know you’re not into the long distance, so if you’re with someone else, or if I am...”
Eliza swallows hard but nods. “Yeah.” She desperately wants to throw herself on top of Cass, insist that she loves her and never wants to leave her, but she knows only the second part is true. The first could become reality, under the right circumstances, but for now they’re a fling and that’s all there’s time for. “There’s so much more I want to know about you.”
“Well, there’s always texts and FaceTime and stuff.” Cass gazes out over the mountains. “Isn’t it wild that the hills back home are technically mountains too?”
Eliza nods. Even these don’t look like the triangles in children’s drawings, but like the ones at home, they’re al
l connected—the peaks are higher, but they’re still in lined up like long arms hugging the valley below. “They make me homesick even though I don’t want to leave,” she says, unable to express what she really means.
“It’ll be hard,” Cass says, and Eliza’s glad she understands. “But listen. If we do, you know...going forward... I’m out. And I don’t want to pretend that I’m not.” She takes Eliza’s hands, and Eliza forces herself not to check and see who might be watching. “I’m not asking you to like, put on a rainbow flag and come dance on a float at Pride, but...but that part’s up to you.” When Eliza doesn’t answer, she tries to step back. “I won’t rush you, but I won’t be your secret, either.”
Eliza knows she should let go, but she can’t. They just stand there and stare at each other, while Eliza’s mind races, wondering what all the reactions might be. Her parents: surprised, but probably supportive. Her sister: the same. Her girlfriends: giggly but delighted, she hopes; weirded out and weird, at worst.
Nathan: shocked and hurt.
But that’s not what makes her decision. What makes her decision is the realization is that the only reaction she hasn’t considered is her own. How will you feel, if you go home like this? If you left Cass at right this second?
She already knows. She feels it right now. It aches and it will just get worse.
It’s not something she can live with. Or without.
“Hey,” Cass says, pursing her lips toward the steps. “Mindy strikes again.”
Mindy’s taking their picture, turning her phone, aiming for just the right angle. “Smile!” she yells, as a tourist hurries to get out of the way.
Eliza smiles and pulls Cass forward, then kisses her at the top of the world.
* * *
SEDITIOUS TEAPOTS
by
Katherine Locke
I don’t know where it started.
Out Now Page 13
