Twelve Days

Day ten

"So now it's just the two of us left.", Alec sighed and I blinked to try and adapt to the sun. We were sitting on a blanket, right next to maroon lake's shore, watching the sun reflect in the light blue water. We have taken off our boots and felt the warm ground against our bare feet. "Well, it was a coincidence we even met her in the first place.", I smiled. The sun burnt hot against my bare shins and onto my head, only a slight fresh breeze disarraying my hair and brushing the heat off of my face. Alec has steadied himself on his elbows and closed his eyes. I could see a red flush of sunburn around his nose and cheeks against the rest of his pale skin. Unlike yesterday, today it was quite busy at the national park and people were passing them by all the time. It was about lunchtime so I unpacked our backpack and took out the sandwiches we made this morning. Birds chirped as I took my first bite and my mind came wandering off to all the countless memories we already made in the past ten days. "Do you remember how we soaked our mattress in champagne?", I chuckled as I took a sip from my water bottle. "Oh god that was hilarious.", Alec laughed and I grinned. I remembered how I stood on that parking lot in the very beginning and took one of the first pills. How we met Clary on that hike and how we were on the road, seeing the city lights in the distance. "It has been quite an epic journey, hasn't it?", I sighed and looked at the sky. "Ten days really felt like ten weeks in the best way possible.", Alec chuckled in response. I couldn't actually believe we were here- far from home, two best friends on a roadtrip. Countless times I have imagined this trip, talked to Alec about it, we have billions of endless conversations fantasizing about what it would be like to just get away and press pause on life for a few days. And now we were here, exactly how we imagined it all the years before.

My calves were burning as we marched up a hill, still quite close to the lake. The sun was setting and colored the sky in all shades of peach, pink and purple, moving away for the night to take over the sky and wipe away the colors to decorate it with its sparkling gemstones called stars. A song by the Lumineers played dimly from inside my backpack where I had a roadtrip playlist on shuffle. It was getting progressively darker as we marched up the hill and as we reached the top, there were only faints of the sunset left. Still, the view was breathtaking. "I think this might be the spot we saw from the mountain lake yesterday.", Alec said as he made himself comfortable on the earthy ground. "That would make sense.", I exhaled. To my own surprise I was quite out of breath, meanwhile Alec seemed totally. It was day ten after all, I told myself. Slowly but steadily, the pills would have to unleash their actual power.

It got even windier as the night came crashing so Alec and I decided it was best for us to slowly start heading back to the van before we caught a cold. Like expected, we seemed to be one of the last people left. Dark grey clouds started overshadowing the moon, making our way down even darker. "Careful!", Alec exclaimed and grabbed me by my arm as I almost slipped, kicking pebbles down the hill. "Do you have a flashlight?", I asked. The road was steep and we could barely see a foot ahead of us. Taking a short break we searched our backpacks only to see that Alec forgot his flash and mine had no battery. "Okay, phone Flashs it is.", I laughed and fidgeted my phone out of my pocket. Even if that ruined the vibe a bit, I wasn't planning in breaking an ankle on this way down. With the aid of our Flashs we made it down the hill and now only had the stony path to the parking lot to go. As if we were damned, it started raining. "Oh come on!", Alec cursed but instead I only laughed. Within seconds it started heavily pouring down on us, soaking our clothes and shoes. "Come on!", I laughed and took his hand, my hair already wet and stuck to my face. "Put away your phone!", I said and watched everything around us turn completely dark. Pine trees shielded us from the rain, but we still had half a mile to go until the parking lot, and there was not ging to be anything to protect us against the rain. "Ready?", I asked and looked into Alec's startled face. "What for?", he asked but I just held on to his hand a bit tighter and started running through the rainy dark, him slightly behind me. "Isn't this perfect?", I screamed, feeling every single rain drop on my face. "It kinda is!", Alec started laughing and caught up to me. When I looked into his face I saw his eyes sparkle like they have never sparkled before. And i knew, he finally got it.

"God, that was epic!", Alec laughed as we got rid of our wet clothes and dried our hair with some random blankets. "See!", I chuckled and put on fuzzy socks. "Tea?", he asked, obviously also freezing. "Always.", I laughed and set up our bed. Minutes later both of us were wearing fresh warm clothes and made ourselves comfortable in our bed, wrapped in blankets. Alec and I leant against the side of our van while we saw the rain pour down onto the piece of our van's car roof that was out of glass, hearing the drops hit the metal parts. "Wanna watch a movie?", Alec asked and I nodded. We have put on some fairy lights and a movie, the tea smelled like Jasmin and we were comfortable in our little van, protected from the wild, big world. It felt like home in a sense I never expected home to feel like.