“Are you drinking the water I gave you?” Sabrina asks.
“Just had a big gulp.”
She draws to a stop and turns to face me again as the trees open up around us. “Take another one.”
Felicia had no qualms about ordering me around. Neither did my siblings for most of my life.
But I like it when Sabrina does it.
Sit down. Drink your tea. Wear safety tools on your feet. Have you eaten?
It’s vastly different from buy me this. Go here with me. Smile bigger for the picture. Can you pretend you’re happy to be here? Make Zen get a real job and not be so dependent on you.
I loop the hiking poles over one wrist and obediently drink from the water bottle.
But as I lift it, I catch sight of something unexpected on the horizon, and it’s not until I feel the chill of water dribbling down the side of my mouth that I remember I’m drinking and jerk the bottle away to stare.
The pine-shrouded valley gives way to snowcapped mountains touching the majestic orange glow lighting the wispy clouds in the sky. There’s a hazy softness to the peaks, and the sky has melted from the deep blue I noticed this morning to a soft baby blue hugging the glowing clouds.
So this is why people tolerate the cold.
To not just stare at the landscape from behind glass, but to be part of it. Breathing in the clear air, chilly but alive. Nothing between me and the sky but a few green pine branches. Snow and rock beneath my feet.
The oddest sense washes over me, and it takes me longer than it should to recognize it.
Belonging.
Belonging in my very existence. One with nature. Here with purpose. Accepted into the surroundings because nature made me too. No judgment. No manipulation.
Simply being as a tiny dot here in this vast array of beauty.
There’s a pull deep in my chest. This is where you’ll make a difference.
It’s vastly different from this is where justice will give you peace.
I suck in a deep breath, the extra burst of chilly air pulling me back to myself. Sabrina and Jitter have stepped over to stand on a rocky outcropping. She’s holding her phone up and snapping a picture.
“You’ve lived here your whole life and you still take pictures.” I don’t want to disturb the peace, but I can’t not comment on it.
She doesn’t look back at me. “It’s still beautiful.”
Jitter plops down into the snow and pants happily, and once again, there’s that pull.
I miss my dog. I miss laughing. I miss believing in the good in people.
And I’ve never stopped wanting to feel like there could be a place in this world that I belong. Where I could trust more than a small handful of people.
I look back at the mountain peaks, shadowed by the glowing orange clouds, and wonder how long it’ll stay.
Then I steal another look at Sabrina.
She’s squatting next to Jitter, pouring water into a small collapsible dish for him as he laps it up before she’s done. She finishes pouring, snaps the bottle shut, tucks it back into a side pocket in her backpack, and then rubs his neck. “Who’s such a good boy?”
He grins at her, then goes back to drinking.
While lying in the snow.
He’s so fucking adorable.
“Good boy,” she says again, then she rises and looks back at the sunset over the mountains. “We need to go soon though.”
“You have somewhere to be?”
“I always have somewhere to be.”
“You don’t sit still well.”
“I don’t do alone well.”
“But you don’t date.” Shut up, idiot. Quit pushing it.
“Okay, Mr. Travels with His Nibling Personal Assistant.”
She bends over Jitter again, rubs his ears, and kisses the top of his head before gathering his water bowl, wiping it out, popping it flat, and tucking it back into her bag. “C’mon, Jitter. Time to go home.”
He straightens and stretches, looking bigger than Sabrina herself.
She smiles at him and scratches his back. “Such a good puppy.”
I want her to smile at me like that. Smile at me. Touch me. Kiss me. Right here. In the chilly evening that’s getting chillier by the minute with the sun dropping lower but still illuminating the low-hanging clouds over the mountains in that brilliant fire-orange glow.
She swings her backpack over one shoulder, and as she’s shifting the leash to her other hand, Jitter straightens and sniffs the air.
I straighten.
Sabrina gets her other arm through the strap, and Jitter tenses.
I open my mouth. “Jitter, don’t—” I start, recognizing that look after the porcupine incident, but it’s too late.