‘I would love one.’ He smiled with his eyes peeled on me.
I drove inland from my beachfront apartment. My favourite waterfall was only twenty-five minutes away. It had become my new favourite place to run away to. To reinvigorate my creativity. To jump into the deep water at the bottom of the fall and feel it wash away anything from the day before. I pulled up on the dirt road outside the entrance to the waterfall. The waterfall was hidden, there were no signs or even a real walkway visible from the street. Lucas was wide eyed, sitting in the passenger seat of my Suzuki Swift, looking around creasing his forehead, unsure of where we were. The dirt road we parked on looked completely deserted.
‘This place was a local hidden treasure. I found out about it through Abbie. We took her niece here for a picnic one Saturday afternoon a couple of months ago and I had been coming back regularly for a dip after work ever since,’ I said.
Lucas looked at the bushes we were about to head into.
‘Is this where my life ends?’ he joked, ‘Is this the part in the story where the girl really is too good to be true and the naive guy finds himself in the middle of a murder scene.’
I laughed. ‘Sorry, this story doesn’t get that exciting.’ I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the door. ‘Trust me. Just wait.’
‘I’m trusting you,’ he said as he hopped out of the car and followed me towards the forestry. I carried a woven beach bag filled with two towels as we walked towards the dense trees and ducked down under a low tree branch to enter the forest. Lucas stood back.
‘Are you coming?’ I said, flashing him a cheeky smile. It was interesting to see him hesitate. I hadn’t seen him like this before, a little out of his comfort zone. I knew once he got in there, he was going to love it. I loved that he had no idea what he was in for. I walked into the bushes and Lucas followed right behind me. Behind the trees, covering the access from the street, there was a thin two-hundred-meter dirt path that led to the top of the waterfall. It was peaceful walking through the trees. All you could hear was the rustle of the wind throughout the treetops and the odd call from a bird. It was very rare to ever run into someone here. It felt like my own little rain forest and nature bath. Lucas walked slowly through the track. He was looking through the trees and staring up above, catching glimpses of the clouds moving through the tops of the trees and the sun rays peeping through.
As we reached the end of the bushland, the trees opened to the rocks at the top of the waterfall. Underneath us was a pool of water that you could jump into and swim around. On a day where the waterfall wasn’t heavily flowing, you could lean up onto the rocks and look over the edge as if you were in nature’s most beautiful infinity pool, looking into the beauty and density of the open rainforest that we were surrounded by. Lucas stood back at the edge of the trees’ opening, taking in the view.
‘A picture can’t do this place justice,’ I said looking back at him.
‘This is stunning. What a hidden treasure.’ His head moved slowly from left to right, taking in the full panoramic views of sunlit, lush green landscape.
‘Don’t tell anyone about it,’ I said, ‘it’s my little secret.’
I took a seat on the top of the rocks, Lucas sat right next to me. It was the most beautiful day, the sun’s rays were beaming right down on us as if we were little flowers needing a little sun to bloom on Sunday. Sitting here always made me feel so small. It reminded me of the open land of the world that surrounded me. How much of it I was yet to experience and explore and immerse myself in. It also made me feel content for how much I had experienced and how much I had achieved as one little person in this big wide world, and how far I still had to go. Thinking about the present moment, in between the wild past and an unknown future, excited me. I smiled, sitting in silence, crossed-legged on the top of the rocks, staring out into the beauty of nature with Lucas by my side. Lucas started to speak, and I turned to look at him. He had never looked more amazing than right now, his blue eyes glistened in the sun, exposing every colour, every line, every intricate detail of the lenses in which he saw life.
‘I never imagined myself, right here, right now, not in the moment or this current life,’ he said. Listening to his words made me realise that sitting at the top of these rocks gave him the same feeling as it did me. Sitting in nature, feeling alone, seemed to give both Lucas and I a moment of clear presence. It made me contemplate the future and be more aware of the past. How everything had bought us to this very moment where we sat. ‘I actually don’t know if I’ve ever had a clear vision for my life. When I was younger, all I knew was I wanted to create. I wanted to prove everyone around me wrong. That I could create a life of art. But no one seemed to care. No one seemed to believe in me. So, I just pushed on to prove a point. I never actually stopped to give myself a moment of what that would look like for me or the journey that it would take me in. I think I’ve spent so much time in the doing. When I give myself a moment to stop and think about what I want for myself, and what’s next. When I stop and think, I don’t think I ever had a real plan to get to this very moment right now. And that in itself is amazing, because right here, right now I’m happy, but it’s different you know, to not have a what’s next? Thinking about that and pondering what I want to achieve in the future, I guess I’ve never felt more lost,’ he said, he placed his hands firmly on the rocks behind his body, leaning back onto them, still staring out into the distance.
‘I don’t think the future should always be about achieving and planning. If you’re happy with the present moment and keep doing what you love. I think following that very path is probably exactly what got you to where you are right now. I know how driven you are, and the next plan and goal, whatever it is will come, I know it will, you don’t have to force it,’ I said. I felt my heart pump throughout my whole body staring into his glittering blue eyes as he met mine. ‘I don’t think art as impactful as yours can be purged from the opinions of others. I don’t think it was the people you wanted to prove wrong that got you to where you are now. You don’t owe anyone anything. No one does. I think it was the fact, that you proved yourself right. You could do it, and you are worthy, and everything that has happened to get you right to this very moment was because it was meant for you. I think it’s really about time you stopped and gave yourself that praise. Because it’s the truth, your talented, and you deserve to be exactly where you are, you don’t need to shy away or feel unworthy of it any longer. And you don’t need to feel as though you’re constantly fighting for it either, you can let go, enjoy it for exactly what it is, because this is your life, you created it, you earned it and every little bit of it, is here for you to enjoy,’ I said, I wished he could finally see it all within himself, it was the same repeating story that kept haunting him.
‘You see so much in me, more than anyone else has,’ he said.
‘How does it feel? To feel a little lost?’ I asked. My body tensed at the words, he was lost before, and he was lost now, and if he still felt that way, I couldn’t be the backlash of his confusion, not again.
‘Confusing, scary. Like I keep needing to be grateful for what I have. But it’s time to step into something different,’ he said, he squinted his eyes onto mine.
‘If you’re lost then maybe that just means you’ve got some hunting to do,’ I said, pressing my hand onto his chest, ‘I think there’s still a lot inside there that remains undiscovered,’ I said.
‘I don’t know where you came from,’ he said. His hand touched my face as his glistening eyes drew deeper into mine. ‘You’re just here, being you and I have never felt more understood,’ he said, placing his hand on the back of my head, leaning in to kiss me. ‘You’re fucking magic.’
He smiled wider and jumped to his feet, taking off his shirt at the same time. His chest perfectly chiselled. I tried not to stare at him half-naked, my mind wandered to undressing him more. I wanted to feel the grooves of his strong chest pressed up against me. He continued to get undressed, pulling off his sneakers and socks one by one. ‘Have you ever jumped in here before?’ he asked.
‘Many times. I’ll follow you in.’ I slipped off my sundress, exposing my black bikini. He stood back from the rocks, getting ready for a run-up. He flashed me his cheeky grin, before leaping into the deep blue below him.
We had spent the whole day at the waterfall. Tanning, swimming, conversing, and walking around the waterfall. On the way home, we stopped in at my favourite little walk-in sushi spot to grab some take-away rolls. When we walked back into my apartment, we were silent. We were both so exhausted and a little sunburnt. I walked straight to the kitchen and reached for the soy sauce out of the pantry.
‘We can eat outside on the balcony if you like?’ I said. Lucas grabbed the sushi rolls and the soy sauce out of my hands walking towards the sliding doors on the balcony. I noticed that my laptop was sitting open on the kitchen bench. I quickly typed in my password to check any work emails I had to be aware of for the week that lay ahead.
‘What are you working on right now?’ Lucas called out. I turned around not noticing that he was standing in the doorway to the balcony, half chowing down a sushi roll.
‘At work?’ I asked.
‘No, what are you currently creating for yourself?’ I turned around and he was pointing to a white cloth tucked into the corner of the room. My latest paintings were tucked neatly underneath it. ‘I’ve seen that here, the past couple of times I’ve come to visit, and you haven’t mentioned it, so now I’ve got the guts to interrogate you, what are you working on?’ he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders and badly pretended to not hear his question, looking back at my computer.
‘Oh, c’mon just show me something. I send you all my rough stuff,’ he said. This was true. Lucas always sent me every stage of his music and appreciated my uneducated musical opinion of his work.
‘Under that cloth are a couple of paintings that are going into a gallery in the city in two weeks,’ I said.
