Page 36 of Secret Nights and Northern Lights
Ben’s right hand stays gripping the handlebar to steer us, but his left hand reaches back and lands on my outer thigh with a squeeze of reassurance. From years of deciphering each other’s body language, I know he’s telling me that he’s got me. That it’s all going to be okay. That he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me. Logically, I know that’s the best he can do in this situation. Stopping abruptly would put us in far more danger of losing ourguides than to keep going with Fridrik’s snowmobile in sight. But that doesn’t stop my legs from trembling or my lungs from struggling for air in this too-tight helmet.
I scoot as far forward in my seat as I can go, releasing the handles at my sides and wrapping both arms around Ben’s waist instead. I cling to him like a backpack, and he releases my thigh to press his arm over the two of mine wrapped around his waist, holding me securely in place and slipping his gloved fingers between mine. I concentrate on slowing my breaths until the flash of red up ahead comes closer, indicating Fridrik has come to a stop. We pull up beside him a moment later, and Ben cuts the engine, but I don’t let go of him.
“This is it!” Fridrik states triumphantly.
Ben twists his body around and removes my helmet before removing his own. I still don’t let go of him as I pull deep gasps of air into my lungs.
The visibility up here is less than twenty feet max in any direction. It’s completely disorienting. If we were to be separated from our guides, we’d never find our way back. We’d die up here with no inkling of which direction was the way down, most likely falling into a glacial crevasse while we searched.
“The highest point of the glacier!” Fridrik continues, so proud and so oblivious. “Please take all the photos you want.”
Natalia pulls up beside us and flips her visor up, and I squeeze Ben tighter, silently conveying that I will murder him in a gruesome manner if he gets off this snowmobile to spend a second longer than necessary in this solid-white world.
“There’s not anything here for me to shoot,” Ben says to my utter relief. “No visibility.”
“Just one of you two then,” Fridrik insists.
Ben hesitates, seemingly torn between getting me out of here as fast as possible and not embarrassing me by pointing out my fear, then passes the guide his phone and slings an arm around my shoulder so it looks less like I’m now adhered to his skin. Again, I grimace into the camera. These photos are sure to be some of my best.
“Fridrik,” Natalia says as he snaps at least fifteen different shots, “I think our guests here would like to get back to civilization.”
Thank god for women who can decipher each other’s body language.
“You don’t like all the white?” Fridrik asks, seemingly baffled as he motions around us.
Finding my shaky voice, I say, “I do not like it, Fridrik. I do not like it at all.”
Taking the not-so-subtle hint, Fridrik hands Ben’s phone back and says to him sinisterly, “Since it’s just us, we’ll go as fast as you want on the way down.”
We fly back down the glacier at a speed I am certain is not approved for this “beginner’s tour.” Regardless, I’m fine with it because the sooner we emerge from the fucking clouds so I can see the world again, the better.
Soon, the opaque fog transforms to a transparent mist as visibility returns like a veil being lifted, and I breathe a little easier as my fear abates along with the fog.
And yet…I still don’t let go of Ben.
Chapter 11
Tip #6 when visiting Iceland:Sometimes you just have to say,Fuck the itinerary.
We skip lunch—honestly, how could I stomach food after the duress I just experienced?—and drive the twenty-minute journey to our next stop, Skógafoss waterfall and its lesser-known neighbor, Kvernufoss. Skógafoss is up first, and according to Suki’s notes, if we take the wooden staircase located to the side of the waterfall, we’ll be rewarded with hiking trails that follow along the river and offer amazing views of Iceland’s coastline.
We turn into the parking lot, my eyes immediately landing on the waterfall in all its glory. Equally glorious: how close the parking lot is to the falls.
Then I notice the staircase weaving its way up the right side of the falls, filled with people resembling the miniature mountain climber from the cliffhanger game onThe Price Is Rightas theymake their way to…where exactly? Heaven?I quickly flip back through Suki’s notes I printed out at the hotel and shoved in my notebook.
Listed in a print so small I must have overlooked it is a sentence that fills me with dread:
The staircase at Skógafoss has approximately 500 steps leading up a steep incline, not for the faint of heart.
It’s official: Iceland is trying to kill me.
Before we get out of the car, my phone chimes several times in a row as a barrage of text messages suddenly pour in. I unlock my screen to catch up on a whole thread of responses to the photo I sent my brothers when I was feeling good about myself, pre–panic attack.
Marcus
I don’t know what you’re about to do in that jumpsuit but I’m guessing it isn’t a knitting convention.
Mason
