Page 40 of My Favorite Bad Decision
My stomach drops to my feet. “Fuck.”
Miller startles and looks in the direction of the glove, as if he is going to jump off the cliff after it.
“It’s gone,” I tell him.Fuck. It’s 20 below right now and I am going to be without a glove for at least the next two hours. We’ve got to trek up to the summit, and then it’ll be another hour and a half before the air starts to warm. The odds of me coming out of this without frostbite are zero.
Miller looks at my hand and then rips his own glove off, handing it to me. “Just wear this.”
“I’m not taking your glove,” I tell him. “I’m the idiot who left mine in the snow. It was stupid.”
“I’m not letting you get frostbite,” he says firmly.
“I’m not wearing your glove.”
“Fine, then we’ll both get frostbite,” he says, shoving the glove in his backpack.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask, staring at him. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“I never claimed not to be.”
He is so infuriating and so sweet. I guess I could suggest that we alternate wearing it, but no, this iscrazy. I am not wearing his glove. We are at a standoff.
“Here,” he says, reaching out his bare hand to encompass mine. “Ninety-eight-point-six degrees. It’s perfect.”
“The outside ofyourhand won’t be ninety-eight point six,” I argue. He grunts at me and shoves our joint hands in his large pocket.
When we reach the summit at last, we do so with our hands linked inside his big, warm pocket.
I can’t imagine reaching it any other way.
12
KIT
DAY 7: UHURU PEAK TO MWEKA CAMP
18,000 feet to 10,000 feet
The descent happens lightning fast. It took us six hours to reach the summit, but a little over an hour to get back to last night’s camp. The gravel skids under our feet—if Gerald were here, I’m sure he’d offer us a dire warning about this. We use climbing poles as we skitter and slide down the hill. It’s more like skiing than it is hiking, and it’s also more terrifying than anything we’ve had to do over the past six days.
Miller, as usual, doubts my ability to manage this and remains inches from my side. Now, however, I wouldn’t want him to be anywhere else.
Everyone’s moving at such varied paces that he decides when the two of us will take a break and pulls me off toward a boulder. It’s only as I sit down that I realize my thighs are shaking from the exertion. I never dreamed going down would be this taxing.
He hands me half of a chocolate bar. “You looking forward to getting home?” he asks.
I blink at him. I thought I’d be looking forward to it. I thought I’d be desperate for it. Weirdly, I’m not.
“I’m looking forward to a shower and a real bed and food that isn’t stew,” I reply. “But the rest of it…” I shrug.
He elbows me. “You’ve got your supermodel mother’s looks and your billionaire father’s fortune to spend, and the best you can do is shrug?”
I hitch a shoulder as I pull my balaclava off. Despite the cold, I’m now sweating. “My life is a Tuesday.”
His head tilts. “Huh?”
“Thursday, you’re excited for the weekend, right?” I ask. “You’re making plans. And then you get to the weekend. Friday and Saturday are great. Sunday night is depressing; Monday’s just drudgery. You don’t want to get out of bed. Tuesday also sucks, but you know that if you keep moving forward, it could get better. My life used to be a Thursday or even a Friday. And now it’s a Tuesday. I don’t hate my life. I’m just moving through it, waiting to get to a Thursday that never seems to arrive.”
His tongue slides over his lip. “So what’s Thursday, then? A wedding to this boyfriend you ostensibly love?”
