Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [112]
While Nightwalker was up ahead and I was hiking at a crawl behind Mooch, listening to him bemoan the current mountain, I decided to broach the subject.
“I couldn’t hike up this mountain any slower if I were a hobbit,” said Mooch.
“Hehe . . . Um, Mooch?”
“My trail name should be Bilbo Baggins.”
“Okay, whatever, but Mooch?”
“Yes, my precious?”
“Um, we kissed.”
“What?”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t mean to. I mean, I didn’t not mean to . . . but the moon was out, and we could see the mountains, and there were crickets. Well, it just happened. And I’m sorry!”
“You mean you and Nightwalker kissed?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Haha. First of all, that’s gross, because you stink and Nightwalker stinks, but you smell worse, and anyone who would kiss either one of you when you smell that bad is just gross. Secondly, it’s none of my business what you and Nightwalker do. And thirdly, if you guys are happy, then I’m happy for you.”
“So you’re not mad?”
“Odyssa, why would I be mad?”
“Well, you guys kinda had this thing going. You’ve been partners since Georgia, and it’s just been guys, and now, well, I’m kind of a third wheel.”
“Are you kidding? Odyssa, you saved us! Nightwalker and I were about to kill each other before we started hiking with you. Seriously. We were so sick of each other that we probably would have split up if we hadn’t met you in Hanover. We need you. I need you. I need someone to talk to besides Nightwalker. I want you to hike with us, and if kissing Nightwalker is part of the deal, then so be it.”
It was a relief to know that Mooch wasn’t hurt or upset. Because the truth was, I liked Mooch just as much as I liked Nightwalker. I liked them in different ways, but my attraction toward Nightwalker didn’t outweigh my appreciation of Mooch. Nightwalker was turning into a trail romance, but Mooch was becoming a real-life friend.
That night, Nightwalker and I went on our second date. We sat by a pond with clear water. On the sandy bottom, there were little black worms swimming amid the debris of fallen twigs and leaves. Night-walker picked up one of the black, eel-like creatures.
“You know what this is?” he asked.
“What?”
“A leech!” he answered, throwing it on me.
“Ahhhhh, sick! Don’t ever do that again!”
“Aw, c’mon, they’re not that bad.” Then he picked another one up and started playing with it in the palm of his hand. It was about three inches long, and it could knot itself up into a perfectly round ball that looked like a black pearl. It was weird, not to mention slimy, but at the same time it was mesmerizing.
I was poking at the leech, making it contract into a perfect sphere, when Nightwalker started talking again.
“So . . .” he said. “The kiss. Are you okay with it?”
“Um, I think so. I mean, I like you. But I just don’t know. What does it mean? We’re almost done with the trail. What’s going to happen after that?”
Nightwalker paused for a minute. “I don’t know what’s going to happen after the trail. I don’t know where either one of us will be or what we’ll be doing. But I do know that I like you, and I know that we’re together now.”
“But we’re so different. Our stories are completely different, what we believe is so different . . . And what I believe is really important to me.”
“I know it is. And that’s why I want to know about it, because if it’s important to you, then it’s important to me. I may not agree with everything, but I respect what you believe.”
“Well, I do like you—Ahhhhh, ouch! Get it off, get it off, get it off!”
The leech had attached itself to my thumb.
The Presidential Range presented an entire day of vertical gain toward Mount Washington, the highest peak in New England. Our plan for the day wasn’t to summit Mount Washington, but to climb all the “step mountains” leading up to the peak. I called them “step mountains” because there