Page 13

13

KIT

DAY 8: MWEKA CAMP TO MWEKA GATE

10,000 feet to 5500 feet

“G ood morning,” calls Joseph for the final time, tapping on a tent pole.

I blink my eyes open and find myself facing Miller.

“Good morning,” Miller calls back, watching my face.

I wasn’t asleep, Kitten.

The memory of those words alone is enough to make my stomach clench with want. I have no idea if what I remember of last night was a dream or reality. Did we actually kiss, and if we did, was it as good as I remember? Did he actually groan?

I’ll go to my grave without those answers because there’s absolutely no way to ask.

“Maren still likes you,” I blurt out.

His brow furrows, and then he releases a confused laugh. “ What? ”

It’s so incredibly disloyal that I’m telling him this, and she’d be horrified, but I need to know that he will never, ever allude to what happened—or nearly happened—between us last night. In fact, I need to know that he won’t go back and mention anything about me—that we spoke, that we were friendly, and most of all, that we shared a tent.

“It’s just her personality. She’s a romantic, and she’s got it in her head that you’re the one who got away.” I sigh. “I know that sounds crazy, but her marriage sucks. Harvey is a dick, and I think she clings to this idea of you because she needs to feel hopeful about something.”

His eyes are wide. He sits up, running his hands through his hair. I wish he’d put on a shirt—I can see about a million rippling muscles right now. “What’s there to be hopeful about ?” he demands. “Kit, I broke up with her ten years ago and we only dated for a few months. How could she possibly think…”

I sit up, searching my side of the tent for a ponytail holder. “She thinks—well, everyone thinks—that you left because I was such a bitch to you all the time. That I drove you off somehow, because, to be honest, I’ve done it to people before.”

He climbs out of the sleeping bag…wearing only boxer briefs. For a moment, I’m remembering the press of him between my legs. The substantial press between my legs. My gaze jerks away.

“From what I’ve heard, you had every fucking reason to drive those people away,” he says tightly, sliding on his hiking pants.

I finish twisting my hair up. “Yeah, but I was a bitch to you for no reason at all, so in their eyes, it was just Kit being Kit,” I admit. “I didn’t even tell her you were on this trip because I was worried it would get her daydreaming about ways this could lead you guys back together.”

He stares at me, that brow still furrowed, something dark in his eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”

My cheeks heat. His gaze travels over the path of that blood rushing to my face with something that looks a lot like affection.

I glance away. “Because when we get back, it’s really important that no one hears we shared a tent. Or, you know, the thing last night.”

I wasn’t asleep, Kitten.

God. That will never stop being hot to me.

He pulls on a T-shirt at last. “I kind of figured the fact that you’ve got a boyfriend would be the bigger issue.”

It’s almost laughable, how little I care about Blake’s reaction—maybe that’s because I already know I’m ending it when I get home—but it would matter far less than Maren’s even if I weren’t.

“Maren is my best friend, and she’d do anything for me. If I’m going to slap someone in the face, it will never be her.”

His tongue darts between his lips as if he’s about to argue, and then his jaw locks. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Thanks.”

“But that’s fucking crazy,” he adds, climbing out of the tent.

* * *

The excitement is at fever pitch over breakfast. We dine on eggs and sausages and fried bread—three foods I will never willingly eat again—and talk about our firsts again with the ravenous awe of people coming off a month-long fast.

What’s the first thing you’ll drink? Most of us want Coke. Alex wants beer.

What’s the first thing you’ll do? Everyone says shower.

What’s the second thing you’ll do? Half of us claim we will shower a second time.

“I want a bed,” Maddie says. “And a real pillow.”

“And clothes that don’t have any silt on them,” I add, because the dust that got all over everything at Shira One never fully left.

“What about you, Miller?” asks Stacy. “You’re very quiet this morning.”

He looks up from his plate, slightly blank, as if he wasn’t listening. His smile is forced. “Coke, then beer, two showers, a real pillow.”

I wonder if I’m the only one who notices the unhappiness in his voice beneath it all.

We begin the final trek to the Mweka Gate after breakfast, descending five thousand feet over the course of three hours. My energy is endless this morning…aside from the incident with Miller, it was the best night’s sleep I’ve had since I left New York, and the downhill climb is so easy it’s hard to believe it’s still considered exercise.

The path turns muddy as we enter the rainforest, and my feet begin to slip, but it’s hard to slow down when the hike is easy for the first time the entire trip.

Miller is close to my back, clearly worried that I am going to wipe out if he’s not there to catch me. A week ago, I’d have told him to fuck off. Now I just love that he’s watching out for me, which he’s done this entire trip, even when I was being a bitch to him.

“Slow down, Kit,” he warns.

“I’m fine.” I look back over my shoulder at him. “Worry about your?—”

My feet fly out from under me. Miller lunges and grabs me before I go face-first into the jagged rocks below and suddenly I’m pressed tight to his chest, which is rising and falling fast.

“Jesus,” he whispers. “You scared the shit out of me.”

We are too close, and I don’t want it to end, but it has to. I step backward quickly. “Thanks for?—”

The words are barely out of my mouth when he has snatched me back to him and turned me so that my spine is pressed to the wall of boulders behind me. His mouth is a millimeter from mine.

I’m not sure what we’re doing, but my breathing seems to have stopped. It’s a half second at most, but I’m strung so tight that I can’t think, can’t move, can’t breathe. The force of how badly I want Miller is like a virus, coursing through my blood.

I can hear last night’s groan in my head as if it’s happening in real time. I would give up decades just to have Miller’s mouth on mine once more.

A porter is humming as he approaches from above. Miller releases me.

“Thanks,” I say again, still breathless. As if the moment he spun me against that rock never happened. As if he just kept me from falling and set me politely on my feet.

I turn and continue to walk toward the gate, more careful than I was.

I need to be a lot more careful on many fronts.

After another hour, the buzz of the forest grows louder, and the trail flattens out. Everyone’s pace quickens, as if we can sense our proximity to civilization somehow. The porters sing, Leah belts out a few more show tunes, and everyone continues to talk about showering until we reach the bustling Mweka Gate, where porters are already stashing the bags on top of our bus.

I’m too thrilled by the sight of a real shop to be sad that it’s over. We go inside and buy Cokes, then sit around an outdoor table to drink them.

“God, I’ve missed carbonation,” says Maddie. “Carbonation, I’ll never leave you again.”

Stacy laughs. “Not so fast,” she says. “You haven’t heard about the trip I’m planning for next year.”

Maddie glances at Alex. “I don’t know if I can go,” she says. “I, uh, was going to wait until we got home to tell you, but I got into grad school. I’m gonna get my MSW.”

Everyone looks at Adam. Even my breath holds.

“Honey, that’s fantastic,” he says, eyes shining with pride. “You’ll make an amazing therapist.”

Her smile is relieved. “Thanks, Dad.” She glances at Alex again, and he shakes his head. Maybe he’s not ready to tell his dad or perhaps he thinks it will be too many defections at once.

I hope he makes the break eventually. I hope I make the break, too. It’s easy to think you’ll change course when it’s still a week and thousands of miles away. It’s harder when all the forces that put you there are once again front and center.

We tip the porters and thank them before we climb on the bus and Miller takes the row behind mine as we collapse into incredibly plush seats. Did I notice how soft these were on the way in? Not for a minute. They’re amazing .

“I think I’m starting to understand your six-month rule,” I tell him.

He grins. “Wanna come to Everest with me next summer?”

He’s joking, but there’s a pang in my chest anyway. Because...yes, I would like that. A lot.

I force a smile. “You saw how I floundered on the easy climb, Miller.”

We fall silent after that. We were both joking...but also not joking. This is really coming to an end and neither of us will be able to make it last.

On the drive back, we pass through Arusha. After a week in the mountains, it looks almost too busy, too crowded, when it’s just a tiny fraction of New York City. It’s also wildly different. Barefoot children stir up dust as they run past a gas station, kicking a can to each other. A stooped old man, the skin hanging from his bones, walks down a road that has no end in sight. A line of people—men, women, and children—stretches down a block, looking absolutely miserable in the bright sun. They’re waiting to enter a tiny medical clinic, so small I doubt that half the people here can be served in a week, much less a day.

Miller looks at me. “Don’t say it,” I warn him.

“I don’t have to say it,” he replies. “You’re already thinking it.”

He’s right. I am. I always wanted to be a doctor, and if I’d gotten my degree…I could help. Even if I messed up, wouldn’t that be better than situations like the one we’re witnessing here? Because there are children in that line suffering, children who will probably wait all day and never be seen, people who will give up on the line when they desperately need care.

How dare I claim that it’s too much responsibility when the result is unnecessary suffering? I told myself at the time that I was recognizing my own limitations, but really I was just scared and selfish.

God. How could I have been wrong about so many things? Work, Blake...if my father hadn’t sent me on this trip, I would’ve fucked it all up.

“What?” asks Miller as I shake my head.

I laugh. “I just realized I’m going to have to tell my dad he was right. Which absolutely sucks.”

Our bus slows as we enter the gates of the resort. As we climb off, a staff member hands us flutes of rum punch and cool towels. We have definitely put hardship behind us.

I’ve just finished wiping my face when Miller stiffens beside me, staring at the couple moving our way—who are beaming at him as if he’s their favorite person.

“ Fuck ,” Miller hisses quietly.

“We just had to thank you again for switching,” the woman says, setting her bag down on a marble bench behind her. “The Machame route was amazing, and the money is letting us stay to do a safari instead of rushing home.”

“It was nothing,” Miller says, with a tense smile. “Glad it worked out.”

“It wasn’t nothing,” she insists. “We saved for years to come on this trip, and our plan was to start saving again…now we get to do all of it.”

I wait until they’ve walked away and we’ve each grabbed a second flute of rum punch before I raise a brow at Miller. “Care to explain that?”

He sighs, looking so woefully embarrassed that I almost feel sorry for him. “I was worried about you going up alone,” he admits. “I offered to pay for their trip if they’d switch with me.”

He wanted to make sure someone had my back. He wanted to be the person who had it. And he was. It says more than a thousand of Blake’s proclamations. Because Blake would never have done what Miller did. And I wouldn’t have wanted him to.

I should totally give him shit for saying that I was stalking him , but tears spring to my eyes instead. “You paid them to switch, and you came on a longer, much easier route. For me.”

“I enjoyed it, Kit,” he says. “I wouldn’t give up the past eight days for anything.”

I smile at him through my tears. “Yeah, me neither.”

Maddie and Stacy walk toward us. “We’re going into town for dinner tonight. You guys in?”

I should say no. My flight leaves at the crack of dawn, but I don’t want to leave these people yet. Mostly, I don’t want to leave one person.

I look up at Miller, who shrugs as he glances down at me...the ball’s in my court. “Yeah, we’re in,” I tell them.

* * *

I’m stunned by what I see in the mirror when I finally enter my tent. I’d sort of expected to look the same, but…Jesus. My hair is greasy and wild. My face is tan despite all that careful SPF usage. I have a bruise on my forehead—I’m not even sure what that’s from—and a smear of mud going into my hairline that I hope has only been there today. Despite all the candy, I’ve definitely lost weight. My mother will applaud this, but she’s psychotic. I look skeletal.

My appearance makes it seem even less likely that Miller was about to kiss me today. Was he just stopping me to confirm I was okay? Did I stand there like an idiot, dazed by lust? How humiliating.

I step into the shower. Despite all those wet wipes I used, the water runs brown at my feet, and I can feel it as the dirt caked on my skin begins to erode away.

I shampoo once, and then a second time. I shave every last millimeter of hair off my body, aside from the mess atop my head. I soap everything thoroughly and repeat that as well.

When I look at the mirror again as I step out, I’m slightly more myself. I don a plush hotel robe, dry my hair, then go to the bed with the phone I’d left charging, where a mountain of texts await— my friends Mallory and Lo sending memes; Blake sending me a couple of incredibly dumb videos of toddlers falling in the snow; Maren giving me the blow-by-blow of potty training her new puppy and sending designs for my condo, which she’s dying to decorate; my mother demanding I tell a contractor she wants her deposit back, and asking if I want her to make a hair appointment for me because I’ll “probably need one” before her birthday party, scheduled a few days after I return.

None of it makes me miss home. It just leaves me overwhelmed and empty at the same time. I set the phone on the nightstand, and then turn face down on the pillow and cry myself to sleep.

* * *

When I wake, I open the suitcase that they kept here for me and go through my things.

I pull on jeans and a nice tank and have just added some mascara when there’s a knock on the pillar supporting my tent.

“Come in,” I call, emerging from the bathroom just as Miller ducks through the tent flaps.

“You’ve shaved,” I say at the same time he says, “ Your hair .”

We both laugh. I cross the room and let my palm slide over his jaw. My skin tingles everywhere we connect. “You look so much younger without it.”

He holds still, watching me do it, not stopping me. The tension between us is so thick I can barely breathe.

“It felt so good to get rid of it.” His voice is a low rumble in his chest.

I pull my hand back, though I don’t want to.

“I was just going to put on some gloss,” I say, walking to the bathroom.

“You don’t need it,” he replies, but he watches me smooth it over my mouth with my index finger as if I’m the pivotal scene of his favorite movie.

We shared a tent for a week, but right now there’s a big, soft bed separating us, and he’s watching me that way, and…

There’s only one thing I want right now, and it isn’t dinner in town.

“I’m ready,” I tell him. I sound like I’m once again in need of oxygen.

We meet the Arnaults at the gate, and a car takes us into Arusha. We all agree that we probably should try the local cuisine, but when we spy a Chinese restaurant, we groaningly agree we can try the local cuisine later.

It’s not the best Chinese food I’ve ever had, but I eat with relish as more and more platters are brought to the table while Maddie demands everyone name the most awkward moment of the trip.

“I learned some things about you around the campfire that I’d rather not know,” Alex offers. “That’s mine.”

Maddie raises a brow. “You made some startling revelations of your own, but my vote for the most awkward moment was when you learned that Kit had a boyfriend.”

Alex laughs. “Thanks, Maddie. I suppose this is now the second most awkward moment.” He raises a beer in my direction. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” grumbles Miller.

When the meal concludes, we crack open our fortune cookies.

“Your high-minded principles spell success,” reads Alex, “in bed.”

“A dream you have will come true,” reads Adam, “in bed. Uh-oh.” He grins at his wife.

“Gross, Dad,” says Maddie. “Please stop.”

“From small beginnings come great things…in bed,” I say aloud. I hand it to Miller. “Here you go, buddy. Give yourself a little pep talk with that when you’re home.”

Everyone laughs, but his eyes catch mine, and there’s a smirk on his face confirming something I was already pretty sure of: there’d be nothing small about it.

After dinner, Maddie and Alex convince us to walk to a bar across the street, where we all clink our bottles together and toast the end of the trip. The Arnaults still have another day in Tanzania. Miller leaves for his safari tomorrow, and I leave for New York at the crack of dawn. I’m suddenly wishing I’d planned it differently.

I wish I could stay.

The dance floor is crowded, the music varying wildly—country, pop, rap. They put on something salsa-ish, and when Alex demands that I dance with him as he refuses to dance with his mother and sister, I follow him onto the floor. He shows me the basic three steps to the dance and insists that I stop watching my feet. Eventually, I comply.

“So if things fall through with him,” Alex says nodding toward Miller, “give me a call.”

“As I have said many times, I am not with Miller,” I reply, raising a brow.

“Oh really, Kitten ?” he asks with a sly smile. “Look, I know you have a boyfriend or whatever, but you cannot expect me to believe that there is nothing going on there. If not on your end, there definitely is on his.”

“I assure you there is not. When I leave here, I won’t see him again for ages.” The thought brings a lump to my throat.

He spins me. “Let’s put this to a little test then.”

“A test?”

“Hang on.” He walks to the DJ booth and returns a moment later. “I asked him to play a slow song after this. A hundred bucks says that Miller is over here the second it starts because he’s not about to let you slow dance with anyone else. He barely wanted to let you dance with me to this, and we’re a foot apart.”

I roll my eyes. “This is the easiest hundred bucks I’ll ever make.”

“We’ll see,” he replies.

But when the final notes of the song fade away and “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri begins, Miller appears back beside us.

“I’m reclaiming Kit,” he says firmly—not a request. A demand. Alex releases me, winking behind Miller’s back and mouthing the words one hundred bucks .

“What’s all the smiling about?” Miller asks.

I shake my head. “Alex being dumb.”

I should probably tell Miller I’m done, but when his hand slides to the small of my back and jerks me against him, I go willingly. His hold is exactly as possessive as I knew it would be.

“I’m shocked you’re out here,” I tell him. “It runs contrary to the whole ‘I’m ruggedly masculine’ thing.”

“I didn’t realize you found me ruggedly masculine.”

“That was you saying you were ruggedly masculine—not me. It was pretty arrogant of you, actually.”

He pulls me closer. My cheek is pressed to his sternum and his chin rests against the top of my head. I breathe him in—soap and fabric softener—and count the beats of his heart beneath my ear. Maybe, in some parallel world, there’s a version of me that doesn’t have to walk away, and that version will smile at him when the song ends, grateful that he’s hers, eager to strip him out of that T-shirt and fall asleep against his bare chest.

Among other things.

We don’t say another word during the three-minute duration of the song, but I know even as it’s happening that I will replay these three minutes in my head for the rest of my natural life.

The song’s dying notes echo across the floor. Miller is slow to release me, and I’m slower to move away. When I glance up at him, neither of us is smiling. This is, obviously, all we’re going to get. This dance—this trip. It should have been more, but my primary regret is that I didn’t relish every second. That from the moment I first saw him at the airport, I ever willingly left his side, that I slept at all when I could have been staring at his sleeping profile instead.

“Well,” I whisper, “I guess we should head out.”

His finger slides into the waistband of my jeans to keep me in place.

“Kit,” he says, his gaze burning straight through me, “tell me you’re not marrying that guy.”

My shoulders sag. In some ways, this moment makes me think that I should marry Blake. That when I fall for someone, it’s always this …It’s always intensely painful. It always leads to this thing inside me that aches and can’t seem to stop, and now instead of aching for Rob, I get to ache for him and Miller both.

“No,” I reply. “I’m going to end it when I get home.”

His mouth opens and then shuts as if there were words there, words he’d be better off not saying. It’s for the best. “Good.”

I walk off the dance floor, him in my wake. The Arnaults want to stay for another beer, so we hug them goodbye and exchange contact info, and then Miller and I walk out, him close to my side as he hails a cab, his arm around me as if to warn the world that I’m not fair game.

He’s been here, at this exact place, for the entire trip.

He was right, when he said that even if I didn’t need someone to have my back, I might want to be with a man who’d have it anyway.

I do. God, I really, really do.

We are silent on the ride to the resort. The cab drops us off at the gated entrance and we walk toward the tents.

“How much are you looking forward to that bed?” he asks.

I know it’s entirely in my head, but even hearing him utter the word bed sounds dirty to me. I am not thinking about the quality of the sheets or the softness of the mattress. I’m thinking about the way it would feel to be pressed into it beneath his weight.

“You know what’s funny?” I ask. “The night we got here, I was bitching about that room to my dad. I was furious.”

He laughs quietly. “Knowing your father, he did not feel nearly as guilty as you’d have hoped.”

I shake my head. “He didn’t feel guilty at all. I told him if I was murdered, I was going to hold him responsible, and he said that technically if I were murdered, I couldn’t hold anyone responsible. Completely unrepentant.”

Miller laughs. “Yep, that sounds like Henry. I was pretty pissed at him that night myself. I still can’t believe he sent you. Things could have gone really wrong.”

We’ve reached my tent. I stop and turn toward him. “I was fine. I had you looking after me, right?”

He gives me a half smile that fades too quickly. “I’ve got to tell you something. I mean, it’s not really a bad thing, so I don’t have to tell you, but I don’t feel right lying about it anymore.”

My stomach begins a long, slow dive. I have faith in very few men, but he was one of them, and I don’t want to be disappointed. “What is it?”

He bites his lip. “There was nothing wrong with my tent.”

I laugh, half relieved and half confused. “ What? ”

“There was nothing wrong with my tent. I was just worried about you sleeping alone, and I was undoubtedly being paranoid, but…my tent was fine. I collapsed it myself and told the porters that you and I decided to share.”

I stare at him for a second, dumbfounded, and then I start to laugh. “You asshole. That’s so sweet, but oh my God .”

He grins. “I’d tell you I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

Tears spring to my eyes. “I’m not sorry either.”

Somehow, in eight days’ time, I’m leaving here feeling as if he’s my best friend, the person I’m closest to. I have no regrets.

Well, I have one regret. It’s that he can’t remain my best friend, my everything, when we go home. After tonight, he is always going to be a stranger to me.

“Well,” I say, glancing toward my tent, trying to subtly dry my eyes, “I should?—”

“Kit,” he says, pulling me toward him.

His hands cradle my jaw, and he pulls my mouth to his. It’s soft and it’s hard; it’s kind and it’s also relentless. His kiss is everything I knew it would be, and if I have ever been kissed like this, I certainly don’t remember it. Not even with Rob.

It’s the kind of kiss you could lose yourself in for a very long time. I have to force myself to stop.

I take a step backward, my breath coming too fast. My mouth opens, but he shakes his head. “I know,” he says. “It’s just something I had to do.”

I nod and turn for my tent. I’m not sure how long he remains outside, but I never hear him walk away.

* * *

Only a few hours later, the sun is rising, and it’s time for me to leave for the airport.

There’s a pang in my chest as I walk toward the waiting car. I turn at the last minute, surveying the tents around me. I sort of love the people who still sleep in each of them. I know we’ve said our goodbyes, but I want to say them again.

Or better, I want to say, “ You know what? Why don’t I stay? What if we all go on a safari together? Miller and I can share a room.”

Miller and I would go get some coffee. We’d wander through Arusha and try a local breakfast that didn’t involve any foods we ate during the climb. We could even go to that clinic with the line that went down the street, just to understand if the issue is staffing or infrastructure. Between Miller’s family and mine, we’d have the money to solve it. And then we’d go back to his room and watch 30 Rock and?—

“Miss?” asks the bellman.

I blink, turning away from the tents and facing the car door held open for me.

“Sorry,” I whisper, climbing in. “Thanks.”

All I wanted when I arrived was to get the hell out, and now I don’t ever want to leave.

The driver begins to move down the road. I don’t look backward. It hurts enough as it is.

At the airport, I begin to see that Miller was right when he said I’d be different after the trip. I no longer feel the punch of anxiety as I go through security or when people start lining up to get on the plane. When I’m jostled from behind, my first thought isn’t that someone’s trying to steal my bag; I’m not in a manic rush to disembark when we land in Doha; I don’t panic that someone’s not going to let me out into the aisle, that my next gate might be seventeen miles away.

I doubt it will last long, but just being able to see the world through new eyes for a few hours is enough. Even if it stops working, I’ll always be aware that there’s another way to perceive these things. That they don’t have to stress me out the way they do.

I watch three movies in a row and only get out of my seat twice over the final fourteen-hour flight to New York. The lie-flat seats on the plane are the most comfortable thing I’ve experienced in ten days. The steak and potato are bliss.

What’s Miller doing right now? The thought creeps up unbidden.

Regardless of what it is, regardless of how nice this plane is, I’d still rather be with him.