Oneshots

Falling In Love Again (Herophine) - Part 2

1. Watch the sunrise from the mountaintop

We took the weekend off. Turn off our phones and we left the town behind, going to a cabin in the mountains, owned by Hero's best friend, Jake. Our first activity from the bucket list will be cut from it soon. It's early June and it's a nice weather in Minnesota, so a night spent in a tent on the mountaintop will be good.

We arrive at the cabin somewhere around 1pm. We unpack everything, then we pack only some essential stuff we will need for our night in the tent. We're hiking until we find a camp zone where we will put our tent and we will sleep outside.

"Ready to go?" Hero asks as I zip my backpack.

"Yep. Ready. We can go."

"I called Jake while you packed. I told him we arrived and he gave me some directions for a camp zone. All good."

"Oh, perfect. Let's go."

The trail starts off easy. The sun's still high when we begin, and for the first thirty minutes, we even talk a little — about the trees, how out of shape we are, the weird sound Hero's backpack keeps making.

But then the trail starts to split. And Hero's "directions" stop making sense.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" I ask, eyeing the three different paths in front of us.

"Yes. Jake said to follow the left fork past the fallen tree."

"There are three fallen trees."

He sighs. "Okay, then maybe the second left. What does it matter?"

"I just don't want to get stuck hiking in the dark."

"We won't. Stop worrying."

"I'm not worried, I just don't want to die out here because you think your guy instincts are better than reading a map."

"Oh come on, Jo. It's not like we're in the middle of the Himalayas."

I cross my arms, annoyed. "You always do this. You never admit when you're wrong."

"And you always panic before anything even goes wrong."

That one lands. I look away, jaw tight. Silence falls between us, thick and tense. We walk another twenty minutes, each of us stewing in our thoughts, the woods darker now — sun slipping behind the trees, shadows stretching across the trail.

I finally speak. "I didn't come out here to argue."

He exhales, slower this time. "Me neither."

We stop walking. The air feels cooler now. I zip up my jacket and glance at the horizon — gold bleeding into a soft purple. Hero checks his phone, still holding a signal. "I think I figured it out. Jake meant the second right, not left. The map's just flipped."

I raise an eyebrow. "So you were wrong."

He smirks. "Painfully."

A beat. Then I laugh — not because it's funny, but because it feels like the only thing left to do.

"We're gonna need to hustle if we want to set up camp before it's pitch black."

"Race you."

We hike for almost an hour before we reach the clearing Jake mentioned. It's quiet—just the crunch of dirt beneath our boots and the sound of birds echoing through the trees. The sun starting to go down when we arrive there.

"Not bad." Hero says as he surveys the space. "Flat ground. Good view. Not too far from that creek we passed."

"Not bad at all," I echo, dropping my pack and stretching my arms.