A Beginner's Guide to the American West ✓

chapter one

o n e

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The sky is a mottled watercolour of blues and pinks that gives way to the orange and yellow of sunrise on a mild summer's day. Thin wisps of white cloud stretch across the horizon, cupping the sun as it drags itself up to greet the day beyond the city limits: the warm, early light bathes skyscrapers and palm trees in a sepia hue, and I can't help but take another photo.

Far below, the sun glistens on the surface of the Hollywood Reservoir, a huge expanse of still blue. The Hollywood sign juts into the picture, so close that it almost seems like I could touch it if I just reach out. My hands twitch with the urge, but I know better. When I got here, I wanted to try to shimmy down the side to get closer, to edge between the letters for a better photo, until I noticed all the cameras and the speakers, and the signs promising a $250 fine. I'm not sure my parents would be too happy if I got arrested in America.

So now I'm stuck on legal territory, the fenced path that continues above the sign. The fence obstructs the view from this angle, but I'm here. I made it to Los Angeles. I made it to Mount Lee. I left my hostel at four o'clock this morning and took an Uber to the Canyon Drive trailhead, and I hiked for nearly an hour and a half to make it to the sign for sunrise.

I stand back and stare at the horizon, the sun pushing through my hair and tanning my skin a slightly darker shade of light brown, and I let out a long sigh as I roll back my shoulders and appreciate the quiet. I thought it'd be crowded here, but I was the only one when I arrived twenty minutes ago, and no-one else has shown up since. I've got the place to myself, no-one else around to spoil the view.

The hike just about destroyed me – fitness is not my forte, especially not after nine months of focusing on not much else but my final year of high school – but as the light gets better, I'm so glad I made it to the sign. It was a struggle to get out of bed this morning after barely catching the tendrils of sleep, thanks to a noisy and restless bunkmate – the cheapest hostel I could find only had space in a twelve-bed all-male dorm – but it's worth it now as I sit down on the other side of the path and close my eyes, and give my trembling legs a break.

Before I can force myself to move again, I just need a moment. I need to let this sink in. I'm six thousand miles from home. Six thousand miles from heartbreak, though no distance is far enough when my broken heart still beats in my chest. At the thought, it twinges as though letting me know it's still there. It's still working; it's just about the only thing I can still rely on.

My heart squeezes. Broken shards scrape my lungs and I gasp for breath. This is real.

A quiet gust pushes its fingers through the dry grass, carrying the scents of nature that don't seem like they should belong so close to the dirt and grime of the city. This morning, I could just about see the sign from my hostel, but it was tainted by the stench of Hollywood Boulevard. When I booked a room there, I'd been half expecting glitz and glamour, so it was a shock to find that the place is pretty gross and it stinks of piss.

A second sigh escapes me, and I take that as a cue to pull myself to my feet. Dry dirt dusts my shorts, clinging to the hair on my legs, and I'm struck by the sudden desire to stuff a fistful of L.A. soil into my pocket and take it home. It's an absurd desire, but my fingers itch to scrape up a handful, some tangential way of bottling this feeling.

I'm only stopped by the sound of another hiker, the scuff of boots on gravelled dirt, and I look up to see a white-haired couple in full hiking gear. They even have those spiked walking sticks. I feel underdressed in my t-shirt and shorts, and the only pair of trainers I brought with me, but I didn't want to get hot. According to the forecast, today's going to be a scorcher, so all I have in my backpack is a tube of suncream and five bottles of water – and an emergency charger.