This. Hardship. This isn’t me.
“How do you do this?” I ask Angus without looking back.
“Do what?”
“This! You do this all the time, right? But how?” A sob threatens: fatigue and pain combining to throw me over the edge. It’s all coming back: those years in my bedroom, weighed down by my own thoughts. Curtains drawn, phone off. Trapped. I hate thinking about it, but this is what happens when I push myself. I always,alwaysend back in the hole. “This is hard, Angus. This is really fucking hard.”
“Life is hard, London. That’s how you know you’re alive,” he shoots back. “But you have to keep going, no matter how hard it is. That’s how you get to the good things. That’s how you get to the top.”
“What if it’s too hard?” A gust of wind tears the words from my mouth.
“It’s not.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you’re tough. Tough enough to get through this.” He hesitates. “And because I’m right here with you. All the way. So you keep picking those feet up. This mountain doesn’t get to beat you.”
Angus thinks I’m tough. Mr Hiker Know It All, Calves of Steel, thinks I can do this. I take a deep breath and focus on nothing else: not the view, not Lila and Priya, not my own fears, not the voice in my head that is always there, telling me I can’t, that I’m not good enough, will never be good enough.
Instead I breathe, and on the in breath, I move my left leg, and on the out, my right.
There is nothing else.
And then suddenly, out of nowhere, right when I’ve settled into the rhythm of pain, step, pain, step, we reach the top.
I stagger the last few paces and almost sink to my knees when the ground levels out. There are a few other hikers up herealready, their bags shining like beetle carapaces as they crawl over the top. The sun is still high, but a stiff wind gusts, whipping my face.
Priya and Lila have already jettisoned their packs and are perched on neighbouring rocks, sharing a bag of dried mango. Priya holds it out, and I take a piece, relishing the sharp, sugary hit on my tongue.
“I’m glad we put Ewan on a bus,” Lila comments, eyeing the steep slope. “I think that would have been a bit much for him.”
“It was a bit much for me,” I say, honestly. I must look a sight: red-faced and bedraggled with sweat. But achievement glows within me like a hot coal.
“But you did it.” Lila smiles, reflecting what I’m thinking.
“I did it.”
“Me too! I did it too!” Priya holds up her hand and we high-five, while Lila hugs her from the side.
“That’s right, kiddo. You’re the best hiker there ever was.”
“You did great, Priya.” Angus ambles over, munching some jerky. Bastard is fresh as when we started. He hasn’t even bothered to take off his bag. With his tight hiking trousers that leave little to the imagination and the thick stubble that has taken over his sharp jaw, he looks rugged, all mountain man, strong and capable of anything.
I want to feel that stubble between my thighs, for his hands to grab my legs and throw them apart. The contrast I imagine between the harshness of his beard and his hot, wet tongue.
Angus catches my eye, and I flush an even brighter red, glad that I have the excuse of the exertion to hide behind.
“And what about me?” I ask. “How did I do?”
“You beat the mountain,” he says approvingly. “How does it feel?”
How does it feel? I’m sure I’ve sprouted at least two new blisters, and my fingers are swollen from the heat. Now that I’vestopped, my knee is shouting at me, twinging in anger whenever I shift my weight onto my left side.
Physically, I’m a mess.
But emotionally? Mentally? I beat the mountain. I kept going even when I didn’t want to. I didn’t give up.
And how does that feel?
