Since Hannah and I will have to keep our relationship a secret at the party tonight, spending part of my birthday together beforehand gives us a chance to be ourselves. And given how we connected over the summer, a hike just feels right.
We hit the Gorge trail and take the right side of the fork up a steep incline. The lower level of the park runs by the Cuyahoga River and passes through a picnic area and fishing pier, hot spots for crowds. My goal is to avoid people if I can help it.
The hill takes us away from the water, but even through thetrees, we can hear the sound of the river cascading over the Ohio Edison Dam somewhere ahead of us. The noise is nice and helps me clear my head and settle into my surroundings. It’s still warm, but evidence of autumn is everywhere here. The trail is covered in a blanket of fallen leaves, a collage of yellows, oranges, and browns. The leaves still on the oak trees provide a canopy overhead, dense enough that sunlight trickles through and reaches us in shimmering rays.
I don’t realize how quiet we’ve been until we reach the Mary Campbell Cave, a huge sandstone alcove flanked by cliffs covered in moss. It’s beautiful and massive, big enough that I tilt my head all the way back to take it in in its entirety.
“Amazing,” Hannah whispers beside me. I look over to find her head tilted back as well, marvel etched across her face. When she turns to look at me, I catch the sheen of sweat on her skin when it’s hit by sunlight.
I never thought of myself as a hiker. Exploring the woods around Camp Refuge was the thing we did to keep busy, to add a backdrop of adventure to our talks. But doing it only with Hannah made me associate them with each other.
Being here, in the woods, breathing in the scents of wet moss and black gum trees, makes me realize how I nearly lost something so special. For those weeks after the Incident, I was convinced I’d never find myself in this same pocket of nature and magic ever again.
“I hear the overlooks are cool too,” Hannah says, nodding toward the rest of the trail.
I fall in step beside her. “You ‘heard’?” I ask. She’s never mentioned any of her friends being into hiking.
“You’re not the only one with Google.”
The way she glances at me, her lips quirking in a smirk, sends heat flaring across my chest. Something about that cocky grin snares me every time.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just admiring you.”
She looks away, her gaze falling to her hiking boots, as red creeps into her cheeks. I love making her blush, knowing that I might have that same stomach-flipping effect on her too.
Ahead of us, the trail disappears around a bend in a thick line of trees. Birds call to each other high above our heads and leaves rustle as squirrels and chipmunks dash across the path.
We’re in our own world.
“Wait.” She cuts me off, holding up one hand and using her other to fish her phone out of her pocket. “This light is perfect right now.”
“What light?” I ask.
I tilt my head back to see where there might be a break in the leaves. I don’t know where the sunlight she’s talking about is coming from, but her shutter goes off, my face still turned to the sky.
“I wasn’t ready.”
“I was,” she says, her attention fixed on her phone.
“Can I see?”
I step up next to her as she turns so I can see the picture.
“I wish I had more like this, from this summer,” she murmurs, tilting her phone.
The picture shows me from the waist up, my face glowing, mouth parted in a slight smile, eyes reflecting soft, indirect sunlight. She used portrait mode, so all the greenery behind me is blurred. I imagine what pictures from this summer would’ve looked like. Mostly lit by the moon and set against a backdrop of darkness. I pull still shots from my memory and find myself wishing the same, that we had something tangible from our time at Camp Refuge.
“I’ve missed this version of us,” I tell her as we continue walking.
She takes a second before admitting, “I think about camp a lot.” Her voice is quiet, her tone leaving room for something more.
“I feel like we got to know so much about each other in such a short amount of time. I’ve been friends with Rowena since I was ten, but I felt closer to you in a matter of weeks than I have with anyone.”
I float my hand across the space between us and slip my fingers between Hannah’s.
“You’re my favorite person,” I say.