“Oye!” he yells. “Where the fuck are you going?”
I don’t even look at him.
“Hey! Gemma! What about my stuff?” he cries out, louder now.
I open the door and Amber turns to him. “We’ll mail all your crap to your shitty gym,” she says. “Don’t worry, we won’t forget about the steroids.”
The door shuts behind us and I can hear his embarrassed protests, but now we’re on the trail and we’re quickly running down the path, the sneakers I have tied against my pack banging on my ass as we go.
We round a bend and see Josh standing up ahead. He’s got his whiskey bottle in hand and is taking a shot.
“It’s like eight in the morning,” Amber admonishes as we catch up to him but she grabs the bottle and takes a shot herself, wincing all the way.
“Yeah,” Josh says, “but I’ve already been punched in the face so I think I’ve got a head start on the day.”
I take the whiskey and tip a bit down my throat. I cough, wiping my mouth with my sleeve, and give it back to Josh. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
“In China, I think,” Amber says, glancing at the time on her phone.
We head down the track, our feet quick.
And then there were three.
“You know,” Amber says to me as we lean against the rails of the ship, the towering peaks of Milford Sound rising above us on either side, like mystical overlords, “if you want to make a fuss about Nick, you know, letting you go from your job, you could. I don’t know what the rules are in this country but back home you could totally sue his ass.”
“Nah,” I say, my eyes trained on the rock faces, marveling at the way time and ice have sculpted them. “I’m not going to bother with that.”
“But how can you get another job at a gym if he’s going to” she says as she makes air quotes “ ‘trash you all over town’?”
“Maybe I won’t get a job at a gym.”
“What are you going to do?”
I don’t know. I can only shrug, wanting her to drop the subject. It’s all too much to think about right now. I just want to be numb.
Josh comes back from downstairs holding paper cups of coffee, trying not to spill as the ship rolls back and forth. We’re nearing the mouth of the sound, Anita Bay, where the Tasman Sea funnels in, and it’s starting to get rougher.
He hands one to me and as I take the cup, his finger brushes against mine. I try and ignore the thrill it shoots into me. He’s only adding to my confusion and yet I can’t stop bringing my thoughts to him.
When the three of us finally made our way to the Divide Shelter, at the other end of the Routeburn Track, we had to wait around a bit because we were early. The whole time I kept looking over my shoulder, thinking Nick was going to come running out of the forest like a crazy ape, beating his fists into his chest, but luckily the bus showed up before that could happen.
Milford Sound wasn’t too far away, and soon we were boarding a small ship with a bunch of other tourists, swatting at the sandflies that gather around the shore.
The Sound is exactly how you see it on all the New Zealand postcards and travel advertisements. Mitre Peak is the focal point, a giant, soaring monolith sticking straight out of the water, but all the surrounding mountains, with their waterfalls and sheer cliff faces, are equally impressive.
I think normally I’d be oohing and aahing a bit more, but after seeing the beauty of the Routeburn Track—and after everything that had happened this morning—it’s all a bit anticlimactic.
So my thoughts keep going to Josh. He leans against the railing beside me, sipping the coffee, and I want to stare at him instead of one of the world’s wonders. He’s the wonder of my new world. His arm is pressed up against mine and I’m caught in a tangle of conflicting feelings.
On one hand, if I want to pursue things with Josh, I’m free to. I’m not with anyone. Nick and I are over. I don’t have to feel guilty, I don’t have to make the hard choices. There’s no one in our way.
Yet I am in our way. Because there is the other hand, the one that tells me getting involved with Josh would be a bad idea. I care too much about him now for this to be just a fling, and eventually he is going to leave and that ache in my chest might turn into a full-on wound.
The only way this can possibly work is if I can find a way to detach even further. Have fun, a lot of fun, a lot of good, hot sex, and try my hardest to keep my heart where it belongs.
I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to take a chance.
But as I stare up at Josh’s strong, beautiful face and he catches my eyes, his lips quirking into a cocky smile, I don’t think I’m strong enough to not take one.