A Beginner's Guide to the American West ✓

chapter seventeen

s e v e n t e e n

*

We stay for another hour, soaking in the scenes and the sun, until the heat is too much and the thought of having to climb up the near vertical ridge weighs down heavier and heavier on my shoulders.

Sam stays. Young-mi and I decided to tackle the return. I’m already sweating just standing here, so this will be a shitshow, but it helps that Young-mi is just as unfit as me. We take breaks every two minutes and we know better than to try to talk, and I pray it’ll be over soon.

It takes us nearly an hour. Several groups pass, but I couldn’t care less. Without the constant breaks, I’d be dead long before we reach the top. As it is, when we finally make it to the flat ground of the summit, I drop to the floor and gasp as though I'm sucking in my final breaths. There’s a bus pulling up but I’d rather wait for the next one than get up just yet.

Young-mi collapses next to me, as painfully red and dripping as I am, but I can't hear her struggling for breath when my pulse is deafening, a rapid throbbing in my ears. Even sitting on the ground, my legs are seriously shaking and I can't seem fill my lungs.

“We made it,” I say, as soon as I can snatch a couple of words between pained breaths. Young-mi hums her agreement, unable to coax out a syllable. I try to breathe deeply and fill my lungs but just like my bone-idle dog, all I can do is pant. When I manage to wrangle a bottle of water from my backpack, I down half at once and Young-mi finishes it off.

Three buses pass us before we eventually board and make it back to the visitor centre, where we replenish out water bottles and lie out across a hot stone slab to wait for the others.

*

The glow behind my eyelids darkens from orange to black when something blocks the sun from reaching my face. I open my eyes to see Arjun standing over me, not a bead of sweat on his face. When he sees that I’m alive and awake, he shrugs off his backpack and sits next to me on the hot stone.

“Hey.” He swigs from his water bottle, the plastic crumpling, and he gasps. “Were you ok back there? You looked a bit freaked out and I was worried but Sam said to keep going.”

“I just had a wobble,” I say. When his concerned expression doesn’t waver, I elaborate. “Hiking down into a ravine does not pair well with my poor balance and shocking foot-ground coordination. I just had to take a break to regroup.”

“Shit. Sorry. I would’ve stayed if I’d realised.” He runs a hand through his hair, eyes fixed on me.

“Nah, no point. You were doing the long route anyway. How was it?”

“Amazing,” he says, his eyes brightening. “Exhausting, but worth it. We only just got back.”

I check my watch and realise it’s lunchtime, and we set off on our hikes six hours ago. “Wow. You’ve been gone ages. I didn’t even realise.”

“Well,” he says with laughter in his eyes, “you were asleep when I got back.”

“I was?” I don’t remember falling asleep, but I also don’t know how the past few hours flew by. That explains why my face is hot and stiff, even though I’m mostly in the shade.

“Out cold. Snoring,” he says. He downs the rest of his water. “We’re about to head back to camp to pack up and shower. I volunteered as tribute to come and wake Sleeping Beauty.”

Even that, him calling me Sleeping Beauty, is more than enough to set my pulse racing but I try to play it cool and tamp down the thrill. I give him a wry smile and cross my arms over my chest. “I thought Sleeping Beauty had to be woken with a kiss.”