Tes:
I know but thank you for noticing.
And I’ll take your avoidance of the question as distraction.
But that’s ok because dicks are just around the corner, and we all know the best way to get over somebody…
After sending off a bunch of photos to Tes of her diving trip yesterday, Noa tucked her phone into the pocket of her jean shorts before focussing again on the trail they were walking. She’d talked Alex into taking a break, as her heart feltlike it was going to crawl up her throat from the heavy exertion she wasn’t used to.
Her breaths were laboured as she pushed forward up the rocky terrain. Sweat coated her upper lip, and she was reminded of why she had made it her mission to avoid all forms of cardio for most of her life. Her kind-of workout involved pushing herself with weight training. Cardio was her version of hell, and she’d made that clear as she groaned and grumbled for the last twenty minutes of their trek.
Blisters burned the bottom of her feet from the trainers that she had not had the foresight to break in before their trip, and the weight of her backpack pressed heavily on her back. The straps chafed her already-burnt shoulders. She cursed herself for not packing light like Alex had suggested, but she wouldn’t tell him that.
She tried to focus again on the events of yesterday as a distraction and a huge, jaw-aching smile split across her face at the memory. She felt like there was nothing in the world that could top it.
Her and Alex were making their way up to the top of John-Suwan Viewpoint. Lola and the other girls had recommended it. They’d made the trek whilst she was diving yesterday and their photos from the top looked breathtaking. But they’d missed the part about the slow torture they’d face to get there in their description.
As they walked, Noa took the time to reflect on her trip so far. She felt like something had changed inside her in such a short space of time. She was having the most incredible time and had met some amazing people. She felt nothing but grateful for the experience, so far. And she was coming to realise that, sometimes due to her incessant planning, maybe she was missing out on some of the best bits, some of theunexpected and messy bits that came from the grey areas in life. Somehow, from her breakup with Lucas, something that she had never planned for and felt like the end of the world only a month ago, had led to the adventure of a lifetime. And she couldn’t bring herself to be sad about that right now.
Despite feeling like guilt should be tearing apart her chest at this stage, it just wasn’t. It merely felt like a quiet murmur in the back of her mind. It was fleeting, and didn’t feel like it would break her like it had a few weeks ago. Instead, she felt free. Lucas had been right to make the call when he did, and distance had given her that clarity. She decided that, when she got home, she would try and take this lesson with her, to live in the now and realise that the present was where the beauty really lay. No matter what the future brought her, whether it fit her master plan or followed societal expectations or not, she suddenly knew she would be okay.
Distracted, deep in thought, and losing her footing on the steep rocky trail, Noa stumbled backward until a firm hand caught her and grabbed her ass to steady her. She had almost forgotten he was there. He had been so quiet. It was like he knew she needed this time to think. She had been so wrong about what this trip would be like with him on it, and she almost felt bad for that. Almost.
‘Easy, tiger,’ he smirked.
She looked down at where his hand still rested on her Lycra-covered ass, then back up at him.
‘I could say the same to you.’
He laughed and removed his hand, lifting it up in fake surrender.
‘Hey, I needed something to grab onto. I couldn’t exactly miss that it was there. I can’t be blamed.’
She mocked offence and put her hands on her hips to really sell it.
‘Are you saying I have a fat ass?’ she whisper-shouted.
‘I’m saying… you have a great ass.’
Suddenly, it felt like there was no air around them, which was surprising considering they were in the outdoors. Noa couldn’t believe he would be so brazen like that, and she didn’t know what to say in response or where to look. So, instead, she swung herself back around, carried on walking up the trail, and threw a ‘stop looking at my ass’ in his direction.
But, adding a little bit more of a sway to her strides, she decided she might not be all that mad even if he was.
After another fifteen minutes of walking and no more near misses, Noa stopped, looking around her inquisitively.
‘The girls never said anything about it taking this long. We don’t even look anywhere near the top,’ she exclaimed, squinting to try and see through the endless green shrubbery that surrounded them.
‘No, we lost the trail about twenty minutes ago, but I figured why not just see where we end up,’ Alex shrugged.
‘What!’ Noa squawked, not even trying to hide her horror.
He looked unfazed, like this wasn’t the part in a Netflix documentary where the tourists got lost on their hike and were never seen again, presumed to have been eaten by bears.
Shit, do they have bears in Thailand? Why hadn’t she looked into that sooner?
Shit, shit, shit.
‘Noa, breathe,’ he responded.