Planning a hike for late November wasn’t one of my brightest ideas. In my head, the best time to suggest that Rin breaks up with Stephanie would be while we do one of his favorite things–hiking. 

I like hiking. But Rin loves hiking.

So even when a thin layer of frost coated the ground on Saturday morning, he still drove up to my door with a bright smile and an even brighter pair of green joggers. 

Because of the iciness on the ground and the disgustingly low temperatures, the trail I picked out wasn’t anything crazy. A little over two hours each way with plenty of resting spots along the path. Still, Rin’s face lit up as he pulled up to the bottom of the trail.

“Sorry this isn’t one of your 10-hour long hikes,” I joked, biting my lip as I watched his reaction. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d disappointed him with the beginners path.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he said, dropping an arm behind my headrest. “I’m just glad you’re here with me.”

He unbuckled his seatbelt and practically skipped away from the car. I took longer to leave the vehicle. Most of that delay came from cooling my face. It was freezing outside. There was no reason for my face to be hot. Still, I fanned my cheeks until I’d returned to Rin’s side.

After an aggravating warm up which included Rin doing that hula-hoop-hip-stretch-thing, we finally got started. 

Quickly, my avoidance of fitness caught up with me. The burning in my calves and thighs was immediate. My feet ached hotly. And with the cold dry air, my chest felt dryer than the sahara. I tried my best to hide the discomfort. After all, I only came out here for Rin. But the guy was too attentive. 

When I started lagging behind his pace because of my wheezing breath, he slowed down with me. When I kept taking breaks to get my poor feet off the ground, he put my hand on his shoulder and asked me to lean on him. There was never any judgment about how I’d gotten so unfit or irritation that this four hour hike might take a lot longer than four hours. He still talked to me the same, smiled at me the same, and looked at me the same.

We arrived at the first fork in the path. A map showed directions for how to continue down “beginner track 1” (the path I chose for us) or how to veer off onto another. Rin reviewed the map while I flopped onto the bench, happy to get a break. 

This–the sticky feeling in my throat as it begged for water–was my reminder to get back into exercise. Maybe work some cardio into my scheming.

Taking a swig from my bottle, I noticed that Rin wasn’t facing the map anymore. He watched me instead, eyes unfocused as they took in my form. 

Had his patience run out? Did he regret going on a hike with me?

“I’m surprised you didn’t invite your friend James to come with us.”

“Why would I do that?”

Rin shrugged, kicking the toe of his foot into the frozen dirt.

“You guys are pretty close aren’t you?”

The fidgeting, the stance, the slightly pouty lips.

“Rin, are you jealous?” I couldn’t stop myself from laughing, my smile almost painful. “Is that why you guys still don’t get along?”

“We get along just fine,” he snapped back, which wasn’t very convincing. “And I’m not jealous. Everyone wants to be friends with you. He’s just lucky he got your attention.”

“You talk like I’m so popular,” I rolled my eyes, my face feeling warm again. “And don’t forget how awkward I was in middle school. If you went through puberty before I did, you would have run off to be a ‘cool kid.’”

“Never,” he replied softly, eyes slowly tracing my face. “Never in a million years.”

With a smirk, he put his arm out to me. I felt shaky when I grabbed his hand and let him pull me up to a stand. The shakiness only got worse when that resulted in us standing with only a few inches between us. Our breath fogged up due to the weather and in between my own anxious breaths, his face would emerge, peaceful and content to just look at me. 

“Ready to go?”

I was glad he started tugging us along without waiting for me to speak because speaking felt difficult at that moment. A lump blocked any movement in my throat and it was easier to just squeeze his hand harder. Hopefully the pressure let him know that I was grateful. Happy that he was my friend after all this time.

The incline got steeper and Rin was steady even when I relied more on his hand than my own legs. The burn turned ferocious before very long.

“Don’t think about the pain,” Rin advised, sounding irritatingly fresh and not tired. “Find something else to focus on.”

I could focus on the way he kept wiping the sweat off his neck. It was just so exaggerated how he did it, rolling his head around along with the swipe. Clenching his jaw dramatically when he saw the moisture. Staring off distantly like he worked with abercrombie and fitch. There was no camera out here. Just me! And I totally wasn’t watching each and every time he did it.

And since I wasn’t watching, that couldn’t be my distraction.

The crunch of our feet against the rocks was a soothing pattern. I tried to focus on the noise and become comfortable with the even tempo. It helped with the pain but the sound of our shoes against the ground wasn’t enough. Before long my mind wandered to the point of this hike. 

I hadn’t prepared my speech yet. I’d spent so long keeping Rin busy–planning outings with friends, stressing over this hike–that I forgot what this all was leading up to. I heard my own voice in my head, delivering the final words.

Things have been rocky between you and Stephanie

Stephanie

I remember how distraught she looked standing outside the school. She had a million questions that Rin couldn’t answer. How hard would it be to move on from a break up when neither person in the relationship understood why they broke up?

And I feel like that might be a sign

And what about Rin? The most miserable I’ve ever seen him wasn’t because of something Stephanie did. It wasn’t because of the inevitable high school heartbreak. It was because of me. 

And here he was, smiling and joking and trying to make me feel better when I’m the cause of his misery.

That you and Stephanie shouldn’t be together

But there was a reason I was so sure they couldn’t work. I’d seen something and felt something, even if I can’t remember what that was anymore. I couldn’t have done all of this without a reason.

I wouldn’t.

“We did it!” The trees started to clear, cool sunlight creating a silhouette around Rin’s body. Rin stepped on the first of five stairs leading to a viewing deck, stretching an arm high into the sky. “We’re at the top!”

The place where our hands met was clammy, so slick that it was hard to hold on. Yet even after an hour, Rin refused to let go. He held my hand until I’d made it up the stairs, waiting until I’d seen the view to let go.

All of the foot pain and thigh aching and gasping for air could be forgotten when you’re looking at a view like that. Even from one of the lowest viewing decks, the city looked gorgeous. From this mountain, I couldn’t hear the ceaseless noise of Toronto or be drowned out by the lights. A gentle fog coated the buildings so the city I usually saw as smelly and hectic just felt calm.

My right hand waved through the air beside me. I didn’t know I was searching for Rin’s hand until I came up empty.

Above the disappointment of not being able to touch him was the panic. How did I lose him at the top of a mountain?

“Up here!”

I spun around to see Rin perched at the top of a boulder. The huge mound of rock was one of the many surrounding the viewing deck. The only difference was that his was a bit shorter and flatter at the top so it was theoretically possible to climb to the top of it. But theory didn’t align with how my knees quivered at the thought of Rin jumping off of it.

“How did you get there?!” I yelled more than asked because I really didn’t want to know. The last thing I wanted was for him to try to drag me up there with him.

“I climbed!” He answered. Then, he got down into a deep squat, wrapping one hand around the nearest tree and reaching the other one out to me. Then the idiot really smiled like his idea wasn’t the craziest thing I’ve heard all year.

“You are not being serious,” I insisted even as his grin got wider. “You are not Spiderman! You could fall! I could fall! We can’t make it back down with a broken leg-”

“El,” he leaned down even further, letting me see when the light hit his irises. His voice was steady and communicated a confidence I didn’t know I needed. “You need to trust me.”

So I pushed off the side of that boulder, getting just high enough to reach Rin’s hand where he pulled me the rest of the way up. I endured those few embarrassing seconds of peddling my feet against the rock to build enough momentum to reach the top because I do trust him. 

I trust him with my phone password and credit card pin. I trust him with the flower pot we put the spare key under (the fourth one which had the mold). I even trust him with my secrets. All except for one–the fact that I lied to Stephanie behind his back. 

So if I trust him so much, why couldn’t I stand back while he fell in love with Stephanie? Why couldn’t I trust him to protect himself?

Rin tugged on my hand a bit when I made it onto the rock, creating distance between me and the edge. I wasn’t expecting the pull so I stumbled forward, forcing him to grab my arms to steady me. I clung desperately onto his jacket, my body not yet accepting that I was safe.

“It’s alright, I got you.”

I looked up from my shaky feet to Rin, processing the warm, comforting way he looked at me, and relaxed. In seconds we were both laughing, the silliness of getting us both on top of this random rock setting in. From this close, every breath Rin took brought his chest against mine. Even with the air still cold enough to freeze my breath, it was hot. There wasn’t much space on this rock to move so we stayed there, flush against one another. 

I should say it now, rip the bandaid off. Then he can decide during the hike back if he will go through with it.

“Rin?”

He’d been enjoying the view, the city skyline reflected in the darkness of his eyes. The wind tousled his damp bangs, gently pushing them from his face. When he looked at me, it was my own face that filled his vision. Me with my wet, curly hair and pale skin and eyes that said-

“I think you should-”

Break up with Stephanie.

Break up with Stephanie.

Break up with-

I’m in love with you

I choked on the words, my jaw going slack. That’s what my eyes were saying. I love you. They practically screamed the words when Rin was so close, his mouth a sliver away.

I wriggled in his arms, anxiously wanting to get space while also knowing I couldn’t on this small ledge. Rin was stable against my shifting but it wasn’t hard to see how worried he was getting.

“Elly, are you-”

“I think you should get back together with Stephanie.”

The unease I’d felt about the two of them for months finally made sense. There was no logic. No reason. No flaw in Stephanie I could ever find. It was just jealousy. I was jealous and scared that once he fell for Stephanie, there was truly no chance he could ever love me. 

But before I fell in love with Rin, I loved him. I loved him as my best friend. And without the veil shielding my eyes from the truth, I couldn't go through with this. I've been selfish many times before. Especially in these last couple of weeks. But I wouldn’t be selfish again.

“Why? You know she’s being ridiculous,” he scoffed, biting the inner side of cheek. “She blew up at me for no reason. I never even stood her up!”

I winced, glancing at the trees like they could be my escape. Maybe if I was better with roughing it in the wilderness, they could have been. But reality told me that Rin wasn’t anywhere close to forgiving Steph. So I had some damage control to do.

It was one thing to succeed with my totally awesome plan. It was another thing to try to reverse it. Undoing the mess I made might be a bigger hassle than I realized. Yet the easiest way to clear this all up was to tell him the truth.

Rin would be livid: there’s no way he wouldn’t be. When he finds out what I did, he might even push me off this boulder. And I wouldn’t blame him! But the truth would make it easy for him to understand why Steph wasn’t at fault. I just have to get out the words.

“It must have been a misunderstanding.”

That wasn’t quite “I hacked your account and pretended to be you so she would get stood up,” but it got the job done.

“You know her, Rin. Better than I do,” I said, watching his gaze flicker back to me unsurely. “She cares about you and cares about people. If she said that you stood her up, there must have been a reason.” 

“I don’t know . . . ”

His hands left my arms, falling limply to his sides. It was hard to ignore the feeling of loss but now wasn’t the time to be selfish. I just had to guide him to check his Instagram conversation with her without making it obvious that I know the truth.

“Did you check your text conversation?” I asked.

“I checked to see if she texted me every day.”

I knew he hadn’t been checking notifications. My new found understanding of my feelings made that confirmation that much harder to hear. But it’s fine. Non-selfish Elly’s now in control. 

“What about Facebook? Or Instagram?”

Rin’s eyes lit up and he grappled to find his phone. The movement almost had me stumbling off the edge but after he righted me, Rin rushed to his Instagram messages. 

It was strange trying to act surprised when Rin pulled up a conversation he’d never been a part of. Even stranger to accept his theory that a hacker was trying to get something from her. With this new information, Rin was in no place to enjoy the view.

Getting down from the boulder was terrifying and was a bleak reminder of my own mortality. But with our feet back on solid, non-life-threatening ground, we started a speedy descent down the mountain. 

Rin still tried to engage me in conversation and still was ready to help if my legs tensed up. But I knew his mind was elsewhere, figuring out the words to say to get Stephanie back. 

If it wasn’t so important to save his relationship from the brink of a break up, I wouldn’t have told him the truth. But there’s a lot going on. My own confession can wait. 

Just to be clear: I will tell him what happened. I don’t think our friendship will survive if I don’t. But I don’t have to tell him today. We have time.

There’s still time.