Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [55]
“No, really,” I replied. “I’ll probably have to stop and do some maintenance, and you don’t want to hang around for that.”
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t bother me. It’s natural.”
“Well, I’d really just prefer to be by myself right now.”
“Okay, I’ll just hike a little bit in front, in case you need me.”
Need him? I didn’t need him. What I desperately needed was to get rid of him! I had tried everything I could think of to free myself of Moot, except being brutally honest—which probably would have worked, but it wasn’t in my repertoire. I had tried to hike fast, but Moot was faster. I had tried to hike really far, but Moot kept up. I had tried to hike painstakingly slowly, but Moot decelerated. And when I told him I really liked hiking solo and could not imagine having a hiking partner, he agreed!
The small gap between us that morning served as a temporary respite, but soon Moot was waiting for me every few minutes to make sure I felt okay. He also decided to alternate hiking just a little ahead of me and a little bit behind me so he didn’t create a large gap.
Once, when he was hiking behind me, I had the idea to hide in the woods and force him to pass me unknowingly.
I began to speed up. I needed to gain some distance if I was going to be able to dash off the trail unnoticed. After a quick burst of speed, I noticed a well-covered grove a few dozen yards off the trail. This was my chance!
I shimmied up underneath the branches of a broad rhododendron. There, covered with leaves, with my chest against the ground, I waited.
I peered up with anticipation, knowing that Moot would soon be passing just a few hundred feet away and hoping he wouldn’t see me. But what if he did? What would I say? I cowered even farther beneath the cover of the rhododendron, then stilled everything but my heavy breathing and my anxious heart.
As the seconds slowly passed, I began to wonder how a reasonable twenty-one-year-old girl could find herself hiding under a rhododendron tree to escape the only human companionship for miles around. Lying there with my nose pressed close to the organic smell of the earth, I didn’t feel clever or elusive, I just felt pathetic. I didn’t know which was worse, not being able to honestly tell Moot that I didn’t want to hike with him, or trying to hide from him under a bush. My body felt warm with nerves and shame. I wanted to get rid of Moot, but this didn’t feel right. I hadn’t come out here to hide from my problems, but to face them.
I decided that instead of playing the victim, I was going to stand up, walk back to the trail, and when Moot arrived, I would tell him that I no longer wanted to hike or camp with him.
Ten seconds after I returned to the trail, Moot rounded the corner behind me.
I tried. I really did. I even got out most of the words. “Moot, I don’t want to hike with you anymore . . .”
But then I paused. The look on his face suggested that I had just run him through with my hiking stick. I couldn’t handle the guilt or his pathetic attempts at sputtering out a response. So I interrupted.
“Moot, I don’t want to hike with you anymore . . . today.”
When he heard the word “today,” the gleam reappeared in his eyes.
“That’s okay,” he said, ready to compromise. “I know you’re having a hard day so I’ll hike ahead and hitch into Pearisburg to find the hostel. I’ll save you a bunk and see you when you get to town.”
Staring at the ground, because I couldn’t look Moot in the eyes, I replied, “Okay, I’ll see you in town.”
I knew I would have to go into town that evening to resupply, but I was determined to make it back to the trail before nightfall and elude Moot. There was no way I was stepping foot inside the hostel!
So now I was lying. Why was it so hard for me to be honest? I should have just stayed underneath the rhododendron—I’d rather be a coward than a liar.
As I hiked slowly toward the road, I came across Chilly, who had passed us both that morning. He said Moot had leap-frogged him an hour ago and was more than likely already in town at the hostel.
When we arrived