49 - Melissa

49

Melissa

“Not trying to stop me, they say,” I muttered sarcastically. “You know, my mom literally just asked if I was being kidnapped, and I assured her I wasn’t. Do I need to call her back and correct myself? Because this is starting to feel kidnappy.”

Ash pointed at the open Jeep door. “Get in.”

“Okay, the vibe is now firmly kidnappy.”

“Don’t care,” Ash rumbled. “Get in the Jeep.”

“No!” I shouted. “I’m not going back! I need to leave, to return to the right path. The one I never should have left. All of this…” I gestured at the Jeep in the middle of the road, “…is only making me more certain of that decision!”

A car slowed down behind us and then politely honked. Ash walked toward them and pointed, shouting, “Fuck all the way off!”

“We’re not taking you back to Crested Butte,” Noah said calmly. “If you’re going to resume your hike, then you deserve to be driven by friends. Not a stranger in a taxi.”

Out of all the things I expected them to say to me, that was at the bottom of the list. “Oh.”

I got in the back seat of the Jeep with Noah, and we resumed the trip. After the scene we’d caused on the road with all the honking and shouting, the ride was weirdly quiet.

“Did you come straight from the clinic?” I asked Noah.

“This was important,” he replied.

“We’re not here to guilt trip you,” Ash said over his shoulder from the front. “I get it. You probably felt trapped. Like you had to run before you were stuck there forever.”

“Actually, yeah,” I said. “How’d you know?”

His dark eyes met mine. “Same feeling I have every damn day.”

I nodded. That tracked, especially considering how afraid he was to put down roots.

We drove in silence for a little while. I didn’t want to break the silence. Even if I did, I wasn’t sure what to say.

“I fucked up,” Jack finally said, glancing at me in the rear-view mirror. “I moved too fast. Freaked you out. I kind of freaked myself out, if I’m being honest.”

“That’s Jackie,” Noah said. “Always trying to pick up strays. Like those cats he pretends not to like.”

Jack made a disgusted noise. “Seriously? Does everyone know about the cats?”

Ash looked over at him, deadly serious. “You’re only embarrassing yourself.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Jack muttered.

“Jack fucked up,” Noah said. “But maybe it was for the best. It helped remind you of what you’re trying to do out here in Colorado.”

I didn’t respond. His comment was surprisingly on the nose.

“And we’re not going to give you some huge profession of love,” Noah went on.

“Fuck no,” Ash grumbled.

“But I do want to say that I like you, Melissa. You’re pretty great. So when you finish your hike…”

“ If I finish it,” I murmured.

“ When you finish it,” Noah reiterated, “we’d love for you to come back to Crested Butte to celebrate the accomplishment. For a few days, or a week, or however long you want.”

“That’s what I meant to say earlier today,” Jack said. “What I should have said.”

I smiled at him in the mirror.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” Noah added. “You’ve got some time to think about it. But I hope you do think about it.”

“Crested Butte is beautiful in the late summer, before it gets really cold,” Jack said awkwardly. I could tell this was hard for him.

I shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll think about it.”

Ash cranked up the radio, and we drove the rest of the way without talking. It felt like everything we needed to say had been said.

The trip went by quicker than I expected, and in the blink of an eye we were pulling into the trailhead parking lot just outside of Ouray. The same place where Jack and Ash had taken me away over a week ago. It was familiar and foreign all at once.

Had it really only been a week?

All four of us got out of the Jeep. Noah carried my pack for me as we walked from the parking lot over to the campsite office.

“Were you really going to leave without saying goodbye?” Noah asked. Despite what he had said earlier, despite his effort to conceal it, now he sounded hurt.

My heart lurched in my chest as I turned to face him. “It wasn’t the plan. I just… freaked out. I was going to text!” I winced. “Okay, yeah. That sounds shitty. I’m really sorry.”

He shrugged, and gave me that easy smile I had come to cherish. “The past week has been special. And if this is the last time we ever see each other, I’ll remember it fondly.” He held up a finger. “ But , if you want to come back to celebrate after you kick this trail’s ass, then we’d love to have you.”

“We all would,” Jack said.

Ash grunted in agreement.

The four of us stood around, extending that awkward moment. I never knew what to do in these situations. I opened my mouth to say that dreadful, soul-wrenching word: goodbye .

“Oh!” Noah said before I could. “I almost forgot. I have something for you.” He darted back to the Jeep, opened the back, and came out with a small plastic bag. “These are my favorite freeze-dried meals. Just add boiling water.”

I took the bag and smirked. “You came speeding after my taxi like the world was ending, but you had time to grab a gift?”

“I made Jackie go back to pick it up. He was not happy about it.”

“He was not,” Jack muttered.

“They’re much tastier than the MREs I had to eat in Afghanistan. And this way, you won’t have to buy as much food along the way. Hooray self-sufficiency.”

I dropped the bag and threw myself into his arms. “Thank you. I’ll think of you at every meal.”

I felt Noah smirk. “That was the idea.”

While hugging him, I noticed Ash tinkering with my backpack on the ground. He had removed my sleeping pad and was clipping a new one to the outside of the pack.

“It’s the sleeping pad from my tent,” he explained. “Better than the bullshit you were using. No wonder you twisted your ankle. You probably weren’t sleeping at all.”

I gawked at the tightly-rolled fabric pad. “But you said it was expensive!”

He rose and shrugged. “Maybe you’ll think of me when you fall asleep every night.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Give me a break.”

“Sneaky,” I told Ash. “But what are you going to sleep on tonight?”

Noah chuckled. “He finally agreed to sleep in my guest room.”

“Just until I get another tent pad,” Ash said a little too quickly. “No more than a few days. A week at most.”

“Of course,” Noah said, giving me a secret little wink.

I hugged him, then turned to Jack. “You don’t need to give me anything. I already owe you so much.”

“Good,” he grumbled, “because I don’t have a thousand dollar sleeping pad to give you.” He revealed a small hatchet he’d been holding by his side. “This is all I have.”

“The hatchet! When did you go back and get it from the mountain?”

“After our sexual marathon. Doesn’t matter.”

“Marathon?” Noah asked, exchanging a look with Ash.

“You had your turn, so be quiet,” Jack said. He held out the hatchet. “You need a way to protect yourself. And now you can collect your own kindling for campfires. Those campsites charge too much for firewood. Trust me, I would know.”

I accepted the hatchet like it was priceless. “I love it.”

We hugged. It was kind of awkward, I’ll admit. He was still embarrassed about asking me to move to Crested Butte, and I was still confused about how I felt and what I wanted. But the hug was real, and so were the emotions simmering beneath the surface.

“Happy hiking,” they said.

And then they climbed into the Jeep and drove away.

I was all alone again, just like the last time I was here at the trail.

I paid $20 at the office and then carried my pack over to my assigned spot. This was a multi-use campsite, and I was right next to a massive RV with a generator rumbling so loudly that the ground vibrated, and five kids that were running around screaming. I gave the parents a friendly wave, then pitched my tent and inflated Ash’s sleeping pad.

The office was indeed charging way too much for firewood, so I used Jack’s hatchet to collect enough to start my own fire. Then I boiled water for dinner. Tonight I was having spaghetti Bolognese. Noah was right: it did look delicious, better than the camping meals I’d had for the first week of my hike.

While waiting for the water to boil, I examined the hatchet. When I turned it over, I noticed that some letters had been carved into the handle and charred black:

MEL

I wondered if he was calling me Mel as a nickname, or if he hadn’t gotten a chance to finish my full name. Either way, I clutched the hatchet to my chest and smiled.

It was a nice goodbye with my three mountain men. Certainly better than how I had tried to leave things. It gave me closure. And I really, really appreciated how they let me go and respected what I was doing—even if it was kind of ridiculous how they had intercepted my taxi like a CIA kidnapping. I felt good about everything with them.

But how would I feel when I finished my hike in a few weeks?

I crawled into my tent that night still confused about everything that had happened, confused about what my heart wanted and what I would do when all of this was over.

Thankfully, I had a lot of time by myself to figure it out.