Page 65 of Into the Mountains
“As if there was any doubt.” He flashes me a sideways grin over his shoulder and if I could melt right now I would. Call me the Wicked Witch of the West and you could defeat me with that grin.
A few feet away from where we can get out, I see movement from the corner of my eye. From the way Elias screeches, he must have seen it too. He scrambles away from the water snake slithering on its way and loses his balance. All I can do is watch as he panics over a harmless creature and subsequently tips himself right into the river.
Now my laughter is wholly because of him. He’s scrambling in the water, trying to swim back to the canoe to get back in, but almost tips me in with him. Taking mercy on him, I hop out and help him push it to an empty spot next to the others.
We manage to get the canoe pushed securely onto the muddy shore and I collapse in a drier spot a few feet away. I wish I could say I held back the laughter bubbling in my chest, but I let it boil over and simmer in the air until he walks over. Dust clouds around him as he sits next to me, not even an inch of space between us.
“I can’t believe you’re laughing at me right now.” He tries to be serious, but a smile cracks through his facade. “After the heroic act I performed when it came to your fear of birds, you laugh at me for having a very rational fear of snakes?”
“Hey, my fear of birds is rational. And that snake was harmless.” I point over to it, now floating near the canoe. “Because it’s a stick.”
“Well, I didn’t know that! I don’t know different types of snakes, either. When I see one, I stick to my number one rule.”
“And what’s that?”
“Run the other way. Or in this case, swim.” We descend into laughter again.
“Alright, alright. So birds and snakes can’t be future pets, got it,” I say before I have a chance to think about my words.
“Definitely not,” he agrees as we both ignore the implication that we have some sort of future together.
My ears perk at the birds chirping in the air, which would usually cause me to tense, but they’re in the trees. I think I’m safe. Plus, I have an oar. Suddenly, I picture us being swarmed by birds with nothing to defend ourselves but two oars, and we both swing them back and forth at the demons trying to peck us to death.
“What could you possibly be laughing at now?”
“You don’t want to know.” My mom always talked about how active my imagination was. She’d constantly be amazed about the stories I managed to create when we were playing pretend. I don’t think she ever realized just now vividly my mind actuallyworked. And still does. I can create the scenes in my head and picture them as if I were in a theater watching them on a screen in front of me.
“I actually do want to know,” he insists.
The embarrassment starts in my ears and spreads its way down my neck and into my chest. Sometimes I can’t really help the images that I picture. Most of the time, I run with them, and other times I let them pass and move on to focus on a task I need to check off my to-do list. This one seems so outlandish though, the idea of speaking it out loud is actually mortifying.
“I physically don’t think I can get the words out.”
“Why not?” Bless him, he sounds so genuine. Like he really does want to know.
“It’s going to sound insane and then you’re going to look at me like I’m crazy.”
“What if I promise to not do that?”
“You’ll end up breaking it.” The hurt in his face when he turns his face toward mine strikes me in the chest like an arrow to the heart. I didn’t think about my words before I said them and I wish I could pull them back in, tuck them away in the file cabinet of things that shouldn’t be spoken. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’s okay. For what it’s worth, I do want to know, even if it’s embarrassing and I really do promise I won’t give you shit for it.”
“Alright, fine. But keep in mind my imagination is weird and I’ve always been the weird girl.”
He doesn’t say anything, just waits patiently. I explain to him the bird noises I heard and described where my thoughts went from there. I can tell he’s trying to stifle some laughter, but there’s no way he’s not going to cave.
“That’s uh….” He covers his mouth with his fist, biting his knuckles to keep from laughing.
“Ridiculous?”
“A little ridiculous, yeah.” Our laughter mixes together and tangles in the air, a web of combined bliss.
“That’s just how my mind works.”
“I like it. And you forget that stuff is in my normal everyday life. Ethan has an imagination similar to yours. He’s happiest with his books and the way he comes up with his own stories always amazes me. The creativity that exists in that kid is something I will never be tired of witnessing.” The look on his face is one of a proud father who loves seeing who his boy is growing up to become. I’ve only known Ethan for a short time and even then, I’ve loved seeing him grow.
“Does he write his own stories?”
