Page 45 of On the Way to You

“I feel amazing.”

He laughed again, and I threaded my arm through his, leaning into him. He smelled like fire and citrus.

The farther we got from the fire, the more settled I felt. I was cooler, my skin tingling with the transition from the warmth of the fire to the icy night air, and the urge to laugh seemed to be left behind at the campsite, especially once we reached the edge of a small cliff at the end of the park. The moon and stars were bright, illuminating the edges of the mountains in the distance, and Emery clicked the light off on his phone, letting the night surround us.

The sky almost seemed sea blue instead of black, and I watched our breath float up in front of us in little puffs of white. It didn’t feel real, standing there with Emery, knowing I wasn’t in Alabama anymore, that I never would be again. I’d already seen more in the past four days than in my entire life before, and I knew it was just the beginning.

“That was fun,” I finally said, nodding back toward the campsite. “Making that list with them. They’re funny.”

“Everything’s funny to you right now.”

I nudged him. “Don’t make fun of me! Are you high, too?”

Emery looked down the bridge of his nose at me, one side of his face shrouded in the darkness, the other illuminated by the moon. “I am.”

“It’s a weird feeling.”

“It is. I remember my first time, too. It doesn’t affect me the same way anymore, though.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

A loud, long breath left his chest as he turned his eyes back toward the mountains. “I used to laugh like you, and now I just get…” He faded off, mouth flattening like he didn’t know if he should say anything more, like he wasn’t sure he could trust me.

I squeezed his arm, letting him know he could.

“I get in my head,” he finished after a moment. “And that’s a dangerous place to be.”

Suddenly, I felt sober, though I knew I wasn’t yet. His words struck that chord inside me, the one that warned me, that buzzed to life when something was a threat. I didn’t want him inside his head, not if it was the same dark mind that almost took his life.

“Maybe it’s only dangerous because you’re the only one there. You could…” My voice faded along with my confidence. “I’m here, if you want to talk.”

Emery smiled, though it fell quickly, and he tucked his hands into his pockets. My own hand was still wrapped around his bicep.

“It’s nothing specific, honestly. I just get to thinking… like tonight, making that‘list of hopes and dreams’ with them. You were so happy making it, laughing and listing things off. And it made me… sad.”

“Why?” I whispered.

He shrugged. “That’s the kicker. I’m not sure.”

My thoughts were fuzzy in my head, and I suddenly wished I could come down from my high, that I could be sober and present. I fought through the cloud, trying to find the right words to say.

“Do you think it’s because making a list like that takes something as grand as life and simplifies it? Makes it so… small?”

Emery turned to me then, his brows pulled together, my favorite lines forming between them. “Kind of,” he admitted, as if it surprised him that I understood. “It was also hard for me, to even come up with those few that we did to start the list.”

“You think you don’t have any real hopes and dreams.”

“I don’t.”

I shook my head. “Yes, you do. You’re just figuring it out. It’s not easy for everyone.”

“It was for you.”

I laughed then, but not because I was high — because the thought of anything in my life being easy was hilarious.

“Nothing in my life has been easy, Emery. Sure, I know that I want to go into natural medicine, but that’s only one part of life. Atinypart of it. Maybe it was easy to make my list because life hasn’t disappointed me yet. I’m still lusting after things you’ve already experienced and been let down by.”

“Like love,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. It was a statement, one he punctuated with a turn in my direction, with a stare down into my eyes that felt like a piercing needle.