Blame The Weeds (gxg)

12

My alarm blared at half past eight on Sunday morning, and I immediately regretted the Fun in The Sun idea. Still, I hit my clock and tossed my blankets. Freya had said I needed a restful night's sleep, sunscreen, and a good attitude. I had none of those things, but I did have bug spray, so after I pulled on my boots, shorts, and a long-sleeved orange shirt, I doused myself until my lungs were laced with DEET. No ticks, no problems.

I crept throughout the house like a ghost, grabbing apples, hair ties, and water bottles. Finally, I slipped out the front door at precisely nine o'clock. Sure enough, the sun was the first to greet me, warming the skin on my cheeks and the backs of my hands in hello. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The crispness was obscene. Freya leaned on her rusty sky-blue jeep, arms behind her back with a smile. She looked like a proper hiker with a deep green shirt that shone in contrast with her loose hair, and grey pants belted at the waist. Her leather boots looked a little worse for wear, but they reached up her shins with intricate lacing. I lifted a hand in greeting as I walked. Her smile grew as she waved me over. I stopped shy of her appraising eyes.

"Ready to catch a break from this gloriously tiring thing called life?" she asked.

"I can't believe you're calling a hike a break, but yeah," I said, rubbing the residual sleep from my eyes.

We climbed into the Jeep, buckling up with sleepy eyes. I snuck the gift under the passenger's seat as Freya turned the ignition over thrice before it caught. With the windows down, we began the journey up the coast as the sun climbed the sky.

~

Point Reid State Park had trails everywhere, but people nowhere, and when I asked Freya about that, she bit her lip. Turns out the word trail was up to interpretation. Bushwhacking was a better term for what we did, breaking branches, skipping streams, and falling in foxholes.

"North?" Freya said, holding up her compass.

"We've been going in circles for three goddamn hours," I wheezed. "Do you expect me to listen to you this time?"

"I know what I'm doing," she mumbled.

"You're holding the compass wrong!" I swiped it from her hands and dropped to the ground, arms on my bruised knees. "Look around, Freya." I swept a weak hand around the canopy of forest surrounding us from every angle. Nothing but bark and branches on the ground, nothing but green and blue above. "We're lost. Time to regroup." Freya pouted and sat beside me, swinging her pack around to grab more sunscreen. She smacked it on her face, neck, and hands again, which totalled seven full reapplications. She grabbed my chin, and I scowled as she forced me to look at her.

"Hold still," she said, swiping the lotion over the high points of my cheeks and nose. "And try to look more enthused. Sun safety is smart, and we're smart people."

"Sun safety is smart," I mocked. She leaned forward, nose-to-nose with me, and narrowed her eyes. I thought my heart stopped—skipped at least. Painfully.

"I'll leave you here if you keep complaining," she whispered.

"Good luck finding your way back, globetrotter," I said. I leaned away and rubbed my hands on my face, rubbing in the sunscreen. Freya stole back the compass and continued to orient it wrong. It'd been nothing but moss and broken boardwalks across marshes. Once we entered the woods on a suspect trail, we lost sight of the sea, and we'd been lost since.

I cleared the mud off my digital watch. It was already 2:58 PM. I groaned and looked up at the swaying, rough pine trees in the peaceful, breezy sky. They were just like every patch of trees we'd encountered since arrival. Circles, circles, circles.