CALVIN

forty-six: the hike

Leon forced us to go hiking.

Jesus had spent the entire night playing Red Dead Redemption II in the home theatre. He fell asleep on the sofa amidst cans of raspberry RedBull and small bags of crisps. When Leon got up at 5AM for his morning 10k, he came across this glimpse of Jesus's pathetic life and made the proclamation: all of us, as a collective unit, are going to be active. Because, you guessed it, all our bodies are temples. 

We set out on the trail behind the property, Ehsan leading the way with an old-fashioned paper map (Leon forced us all to deposit our cellphones in a kitchen cabinet before leaving). Leon decided to bring up the rear. I was unlucky because I got sort of trapped around Nikita for a while, who had insisted on wearing his furry Gucci slippers and was now complaining about getting foot cramps from trying to keep the slippers from slipping off every time he took a step. "I'm trying to sympathize with you but I'm having a troubled time," I told him. 

We hiked for about an hour before Ehsan made us all stop so he could scrutinize the map. "You sure we're going in the right direction?" Leon yelled from the back. "Yeah," Ehsan responded, "just give me a second, okay?"

Second: given.

Direction: chosen.

Hike: continued.

"We're going back to the house now, right?" Nikita. 

"Yes, princess, we're going back to the house," said Ehsan. He turned the map on its side to see if that would give him better perspective. I wondered who was responsible for letting him lead.

Calvin fell into stride with me.

"Hey, we're alright, right?"

Heart beating faster. Why did I start panicking at the simplest interactions? "Yeah, I think so?" I said. Pretend that everything is normal.

"Well. You haven't really spoken to me since we got here."

"I..."

"You tend to do this. You tend to shut down."

"I'm not shutting down," I said quietly. I didn't want anyone to hear.

"You're going to end up slipping away again. It's because of Saturday, right?"

"Calvin, I don't want to talk about this here." My foot hit a snag in the path and I almost fell. Calvin's hand grabbed my arm and pulled me up. He let go as soon as I was deemed non-hazardous.

"You're not the first person who's changed their mind when having sex with me," he said.

My breath left me. For some reason, I got angry. It was unreasonable. "I get it, you have tons of sex."

"No - Elias - that came out wrong. I didn't mean to say it like that. I just meant that it's not out of the ordinary. And I don't hold it against you. How could I hold that against you?"

"I don't know, maybe like this: I blue-balled you, you're angry. There. Now you can hold it against me."

He grabbed my arm again, held me in place. Leon asked what's up and Calvin told him, and everyone else, to keep walking. We'll catch up.

Alone. On the path. 

"You can't be serious about the blue-ball thing," he said. 

I exhaled. "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"Calvin - I don't - I can't - "

"You can't what?"