Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Our issue is that the first half of the hike is all uphill, and the path is steep and muddy. Also the tour guide must be trying to wrap up his workday early or something because his pace is brutal. Sienna asks to stop for a water break, and he tells her no! “The view is really better if we stop up ahead.”
Up ahead means going another two miles!
We trail behind the others by a lot, so much so that the group has to stop a few times to ensure we haven’t collapsed out of sheer exhaustion. No one’s happy with us. We hear the grumbles.
“I thought we were going to take a leisurely walk through the forest,” I admit to Sienna quietly so the others can’t hear.
“I bought these boots mostly for show!” Sienna admits.
Our route is beautiful, don’t get me wrong. The forest is lush and overflowing with tropical plants and flowers. We catch breathtaking views of the surrounding water and islands, but those views last all of thirty seconds as we’re constantly ordered to “Keep up!” and “Pick up the pace, girls!”
I have half a mind to pop a squat and let them go on without me, but I’m worried I’d be lost here forever. The route isn’t completely intuitive. A few times, the tour guide has had to quite literally hack through overgrowth with a machete. I mean, we’re really off the beaten path here, folks. I try to think of how I’ll word my review of this hike for my write-up and mostly come away with three simple words: Don’t do it.
We can do nothing but groan in exhaustion by the time we make it back onto the bus.
We’re barely sitting up. Sienna’s splayed out like a starfish, airing out all her bits and bobs, she says.
“I’m so knackered I might never get up again,” she groans.
“Why did we do this to ourselves?”
“We should have booked another spa day! I could be lazing with cucumbers over my eyes! Listening to Enya!”
Turns out, it was our own fault. Neither of us read the fine print before we signed up for the extreme cardio hike specifically not for amateurs. If I have one rule in life, it’s that extreme and cardio should never belong in the same sentence. The group waiting outside the bus in the morning, sporting spandex and toned butts, should have been a dead giveaway that we were out of our element, but I just thought people were really getting into the hiking spirit! They might as well have been Navy SEALs sporting CamelBak hydration packs, marathon jerseys, and sweat bandannas. I thought my practical Nikes—the pair classified under walking shoes online—would cut it. They’re so muddy that you can barely see the logo anymore.
We did it, though. We made it to the end of the hike and took photos in front of the waterfall while I propped myself on Sienna for support and she held gauze to her scraped knee.
I think we sweat out most of the liquid in our bodies, but that doesn’t matter now. We’re finished, and we’re gloating and delusional, riding high on endorphins and a little bit of dehydration psychosis.
“Was it really that hard?”
“You know what? Looking back, it wasn’t so bad. I could have gone a bit longer.”
“I’d totally do it again!”
We’re still doing it now while we walk into the dining hall for dinner. Of course Sienna has a slight limp from a strained muscle in her thigh and a bandage on her knee, and I’m still wincing with every step I take—but we damn well deserve to brag!
I’m a full-fledged hiking aficionado, thank you very much.
Is there a special section where we should sit with the other ultrafit people eager to tear into a high-protein, low-carb dinner?
Sienna and I are laughing about this—poking fun at ourselves—when I glance across the dining hall and see Phillip. He’s sitting at a table with Arthur Burton and Tyson. I’m a half step behind Sienna, and she doesn’t notice that I freeze in place. I was looking for Phillip, though the moment I see him, I short-circuit as if surprised I actually succeeded.
He kills the laughter on my lips. The sight of him is a physical reminder of everything that happened last night—tangling together, naked in his sheets. I was going to pretend and act as if nothing all that serious even happened. It was just sex, and it was supposed to be casual, but then nothing about Phillip is casual. I should have known it wasn’t possible to keep him at a distance.
He looks up, and our gazes clash. I feel his eyes on me like a caress. I look away quickly—flushed with embarrassment—then realizing how silly that is, I glance back up and smile. We can be cordial to each other, friendly even, can’t we? He’s still looking at me, the ghost of a smile playing across his handsome face. Suddenly it all seems so intimate. Those lips were pressed between my thighs last night. Oh my god. A thousand riotous butterflies take flight in my stomach, a complication I wasn’t expecting. I had hoped I sated something last night. Though as my heart thunders in my chest and a tantalizing warmth spreads over me, a sinking feeling starts to creep up inside me—a worry I was hoping to avoid. There’s been a shift, and we both notice it. Something feels markedly different between us, like the air is tinged with secret longing. I realize now that last night doesn’t exist in the past; it lives here and now, a breathing thing that grows between us.