The Winter Project

17. Isabel

She was up and moving hours before Cleo was able to force herself up from the amount of wine they had consumed the night before. She woke up abruptly from a cold gust of wind that swept through the van and violently slammed one of the back doors shut, scaring her into being completely awake immediately. Once she was truly satisfied that nobody had come to kill them with a shotgun, she was able to control her breathing back to a steady pace and take in the true beauty of the moment.

She poured a bottle of water into their travel kettle, brewed herself a cup of coffee and sat outside of the van clutching her mug, watching the stars disappear as the sun introduced itself for another day. The sky was clear now, and the mountains were more visible than they had been the night before, no longer obstructed by clouds or darkness. She was amazed by them, and yet terrified at the same time. They were so huge and dominating of the landscape, and she couldn't help but imagine how terrifying it would be to be stuck atop the largest peak, stranded and desperate for help. Yet she wanted to be closer to them, to stare up at their magnificent height and do so until she no longer felt fear, but only felt the beauty of their existence. She did not realise for hours that she did not feel anxious about her whereabouts or situation, she only felt excited for the days to come.

When Cleo finally awoke, Isabel felt more determined than ever to see their adventure through. Cleo had agreed to do most of the driving as Isabel had not driven for years, not since her grandmother passed away and she no longer needed to drive in order to get her to the hospital and back in emergencies, or to take her shopping on the weekends. Isabel kept insisting that she would drive when she felt comfortable, preferably on quiet roads with little traffic. Cleo, on the other hand, insisted on finding and planning the most populated routes via cities so that they could experience as much as possible, and so she remained the primary driver.

They drove through the entirety of Switzerland. They stopped once a day and ate at a café or a restaurant, trying the most culturally local thing they could find on the menu. Isabel would sit in the passenger side of the van as Cleo drove, doing nothing except stare out of the windows for hours, admiring the mountain ranges as they grew closer and further away with every passing mile. They stopped at every lake, every park and every city they could find, but would only spend a few hours at each location before eagerly agreeing to move on to their next destination. The photo wall in the van, not including the fourteen photos they took on their first night and subsequently took down the very next day, began to fill up, with black marker pens noting the date and location of each photo. They drove through Liechtenstein purely for the photo. They then travelled north to Munich just for the photo. They were driven by the need to fill up the van with photographs and show their progress through a tangible wall of evidence. For Isabel, it was a wall of her victories. Behind every photo of her smiling was a lonely girl with anxiety, battling with her fear of not being able to travel as she kept travelling. Her fears of not being able to eat in crowded restaurants. Her fears of not being able to stand in crowded city centres. Her fear of living. Yet every time she checked the map on her phone, she was happy to see Milan become further and further away from their current location. She fell in love with Salzburg, but she hated Vienna. She grew bored in Bratislava and so they decided not to bother with Slovakia at all and began the journey south to Hungary.

As they crossed the border and were headed towards Budapest, Isabel thought about the fact that Cleo had saved her. Cleo had saved her from misery, from a life of nothing but routine and wondering what her life would have been like if she had never felt fear. Her brief moments of inner peace were becoming stretches of time, and sometimes she would go an entire day without feeling the stomach churning, heart stopping sensation that her anxiety would throw at her. Sometimes, she would feel it coming and just carry on, facing it head on and stopping it in its tracks. She was in control of her thoughts, able to manipulate herself into the right frame of mind. She was unstoppable.

The thought of going home didn't exist; their adventure had just begun. They had agreed to keep going until they ran out of money, and even then Cleo kept insisting that they would 'find a way.' Cleo was the confident one of the two; talking to strangers and suggesting they do activities that would frighten Isabel like boat trips and cable cars. Isabel was the quiet and reserved one, but the happiest. She felt the joy in her body every passing moment, and she was confident that after this trip, she would never feel anxious again. All she had to do was keep going with Cleo by her side, and she couldn't think of a single thing that could go wrong.