The Trouble with Flying (11 page)

I quickly type a reply (Yes, please. I’m sorry too.), then place my phone on the floor. I wonder if Aiden’s awake now. Is he waiting for my reply? I was hoping his family might be staying at the resort nearby, but no. Down the passage and around the corner is the room Aiden is sharing with—guess who?—Matt and his brother.

I turn onto my back and stare at the ceiling.
Still want to be friends?
There are a great many areas in my life where I don’t know what I want, but I know I want Aiden as a friend. A tiny part of me wants more than that, but mostly I just want what we had on the plane. Honest conversation. A connection. The feeling that someone understands me and doesn’t think I’m a total fruit loop.

I sit up and look across the room. Elize and Simone are both still asleep. Elize’s hair—the topmost layers dyed white-blonde, and the underneath layers dyed black—is fanned out across her pillow. Simone is snuggled so far beneath her duvet, I can only just see the top of her dark brown head. I’d love to turn over and do exactly the same thing, but since the ratio of people to bathrooms is about five to one, I should probably take my chance while there’s still hot water and no queue.

I quietly gather up my toiletries, towel, and some clothes, and tiptoe out of the room. My bare feet make no noise on the carpeted floor as I head towards the bathroom. I see the open door, and I let out a silent
Yes!
at the fact that I won’t have to wait for anyone. But as I reach the doorway, someone turns the corner at the end of the passage and almost walks right into me.

“Whoa, sorry,” Aiden says, running a hand through his messy hair. He blinks, and from the look on his face, I’m pretty sure he woke up about ten seconds ago.

“Um, you can go,” I say quickly, stepping back.

“What? No, you’re all ready and … stuff.” He gestures to the collection of belongings in my arms, which I hug against my chest. I’m somewhat decently clothed in sleep shorts and a T-shirt, but still. No bra. I hug my bundle closer.

“It’s fine,” I say. “I mean, you’re gonna be quick, aren’t you? You’re just gonna …” Oh hell, why am I making reference to what he may or may not be doing in the bathroom? Just SHUT UP, Sarah!

“It’s cool,” Aiden says, raising his hands and stepping past me. “I’ll find another one. You can use this one.”

I step inside, close the door, and groan as I slump against it. Why do I have to embarrass myself every time I open my mouth? I fling my towel over the side of the shower and undress. I’m about to turn on the water when a bang on the door startles me. “Hurry up in there,” Elize calls. “There’s a queue.”

***

Matt suggested last night that we go for a hike today, an idea I was excited about until Aiden turned out to be one of the eight other people who also thought it was a great idea. As much as I want to spend time with him, it’s weird when Matt is also around. It’s as if the me Matt knows is a little different from the me Aiden knows, and I’m not sure how to be both of them at the same time.

I sit on one of the couches in the lounge downstairs after lunch, lacing up my shoes while Elize plaits Simone’s hair and Emily covers every inch of her pale skin with sunscreen. I haven’t had a chance to speak to Aiden’s older sister—which means I’d probably stutter something unintelligible if she started talking to me now—but from the snippets of conversation I overheard last night and this morning, she seems like a nice person. Probably the kind of person I could be friends with if I were brave enough to get over my debilitating shyness.

“How intense is this hike?” she asks, her words as accented as Aiden’s. “Do any of you know? I’m a bit worried I’ll slow everyone down.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage just fine,” Aiden says as he walks into the lounge. He removes his sunglasses—when have sunglasses
ever
looked so sexy?—and sits beside his sister. “Matt said it’s about four hours in total, with some steep bits here and there, but nothing too hectic. I’m sure your long legs can make it to the top and back just as easily as anyone else.”

Emily gives Aiden a friendly punch on the arm. “Not all of us have just come back from a walking holiday. We can’t all be as fit as you.”

“So, Emily, I heard you’re getting married soon,” Elize says as she winds a hairband around the end of Simon’s plait. “That’s cool. First wedding for your family. I’m hoping I’ll beat Simone, but you never know what might happen.”

Across the room, Aiden looks away and shifts slightly on the couch, and I wonder if he has something against Emily’s fiancé. Emily’s eyes flick towards her brother for a moment, but then she looks at Elize. “Yes, it’s incredibly exciting,” she says as a smile that obviously can’t be suppressed spreads across her face. “I’m soon to be Mrs Winterbottom.”

Simone scrunches up her face and says, “Really? You sure you want to be a
Winterbottom
for the rest of your life?”

Emily smiles. “I know, I know, it’s not the nicest surname, but … I love him, so it’s a sacrifice I’m happy to make.”

“Your poor children,” Elize says with a sigh. “My best friend since, like, forever has suffered from an embarrassing surname her entire life, so I know how mean kids can be about weird names.”

“Was it really that bad?” Emily asks. “What’s her surname?”

“Haasbroek.”

“Oh.” Emily’s face is politely blank. Aiden looks at me and raises an eyebrow.

“Bunnypants,” I supply.

“
Oh
,” Emily says, then covers her mouth as she starts laughing.

Matt jogs into the lounge and stops beside the couch I’m sitting on. “Okay, so two people have bailed to join the easy walk all the adults are doing, so we’re just waiting for Malcolm and Aunt Hannah, and then we can go.”

Half an hour later, when Matt’s older brother Malcolm and Aunt Hannah have joined us, we head along the path that rings the lake. On the other side, we climb through trees towards the foot of the mountain where the hike starts. Matt and Malcolm talk about the future of Malcolm’s start-up business, Emily and her mother discuss wedding details, Elize tosses her hair about and hangs onto every word Aiden says, and Simone and I find ourselves with no one to talk to.

The first hour drags by as we climb rocks and follow sandy paths, always looking out for the next blue arrow painted onto a rock or wooden stump to point the way. The arrows have survived years of varying weather conditions, but some have almost faded completely. Matt’s eyes are sharp, though, and he never misses an arrow.

After listening to Elize’s giggle for far too long, Aiden manages to convince her to ask Emily about her wedding plans. As Elize takes her sister’s hand and hurries forward to catch up to Emily, Aiden slows until he’s walking beside me.

“Enjoying your hike?” I ask him, wiping the back of my hand across my sweaty brow.

“More than I was a moment ago,” he says, his voice low enough not to carry forwards. “How about you?”

“It was getting a little lonely back here, but I love the mountains no matter who’s keeping me company.”

“Really?” Aiden lowers his voice further. “Four hours of Elize might change your mind.”

I laugh. “Mountains are possibly my most favourite thing in all creation. Even Elize can’t ruin them for me.”

“Your most favourite thing, huh? Better than the ocean?”

“Yes.”

“Better than magical forests?”

“Yes.”

“Better than … zoo biscuits?”

I start laughing, but it fills me with a warm kind of glow that he remembers my zoo biscuit addiction. “Darn, I knew I forgot to bring something with on this hike.” I step over a small pile of stones in the middle of our path, then ask, “What did Emily mean when she said you’d just been on a walking holiday?”

“Oh, yeah, I had a bit of a holiday before I came here. France first, then Switzerland, then Italy. In my last week I did one of those guided walking tours along the coast. That’s what Emily was referring to.”

“Wow, that sounds like an amazing holiday.” An odd feeling that I quickly identify as jealousy pokes at my insides. “So you went with …”

“Oh, it was just me. I, uh, felt like I needed a break from real life for a bit.”

“You did all that on your own?”

“Yes. Well, aside from the many other tourists, but I gather that’s not what you mean.”

“And you didn’t get lonely?”

“I thought I might, but it was surprisingly enjoyable being left to make my own decisions. To only go where I wanted to go. Eat what I wanted to eat. It was great. I had a month off from reality and all the people I know, and by the time I got back home, I had a day left to pack for South Africa.”

I stop walking and look at him. “And you did all that without once getting on a plane?”

He smiles. “Trains are a wonderful invention.”

Up ahead, Matt decides we should stop for a few minutes to drink some water and admire the view. We catch up to the rest of the group, and Matt hands me my water bottle from the backpack he’s been carrying. I take a few gulps, then place my hands on my hips as I turn back and look at how far we’ve come. The trees we walked through behind the lake are small, dark green blobs beside an uneven circle of blue that looks like a giant mirror.

“Beautiful,” Aiden murmurs.

“Oh, it gets much better than this,” I tell him. “The top is incredible. Like you’ve got the whole world at your feet.”

Aiden looks somewhat alarmed. “Sounds high.”

“Don’t worry, man,” Matt says. “It’s totally safe.” He packs my water bottle away and turns to look up the path ahead. “This next bit is steeper, but whoever built the path put logs across it, like stairs. So that helps.”

“I’m leading now,” Malcolm says, stepping past his brother and heading up the stairway of logs at a pace that seems far from enjoyable. “You’ve been in front for too long.”

“Dude! You were right next to me!” Matt says, climbing quickly after him.

“Hey, this isn’t a race, remember,” Emily shouts after them. “Or you’ll be waiting at the top for hours before the rest of us get there.”

She climbs after him, followed by Aunt Hannah, Elize, and Simone. Aiden gestures for me to go ahead of him. “So,” he says after another minute or so of climbing, “was coming home as horrible as you thought it was going to be?”

“Well … I still miss Julia a lot, but … the other complication … didn’t turn out the way I thought it was going to.”
And I still haven’t figured out if I’m happy about that or not.
I glance behind me and see a perplexed expression on Aiden’s face. Hardly surprising, since I probably couldn’t have been more cryptic if I’d tried. I look forward again—just in time to trip over the next log. “Whoa—” I try to throw my hands out to break my fall, but Aiden grabs one of them first and pulls me upright. “Thanks,” I say, wondering if the jolt of adrenaline rushing through me is from the shock of almost landing face first in the dirt or from Aiden’s hand on mine.

“Everything okay down there?”

At the sound of Matt’s distant shout, Aiden pulls his hand swiftly from mine. I look up, shielding my face from the sun’s glare with one hand, and see Matt and Malcolm standing on the edge of a rock some way ahead of us. I give them a thumbs up and shout, “Yeah. Just me being clumsy.” I wiggle my foot around to make sure it’s still fine to walk on, then continue. “Anyway,” I say to Aiden. “So coming home wasn’t all that bad. The best part was probably finding a bag of biltong waiting for me on my bed.”
Seriously? The best part was the
biltong
?
“And, you know, seeing my family,” I add quickly. “Obviously.”

“Biltong?” he asks.

“Yeah, you know. Dried meat. Salty. Spicy.” When Aiden doesn’t reply, I add, “Jerky, I think the Americans call it, although the South African version is obviously better.”

“Oh, right,” Aiden says. “I know what you’re talking about.”

“Do you like it?”

“I think it’s one of the most revolting items of food ever created by man.”

I turn around and stare at him with my hands on my hips. “What? It’s delicious!”

“I’m sure it is,” he says, wiping his face with the sleeve of his T-shirt. “To those who can stomach the idea of it.”

“But it’s
meat
. Real men like meat, don’t they?” I say with a teasing smile.

He gives me that awesome grin of his. The one I haven’t seen since the airport. The one that shows off his dimple. “Oh, I like meat. I just prefer it when it isn’t both raw and shrivelled up at the same time.”

I configure my face into an offended expression. “Biltong isn’t shrivelled up.”

“Whatever you say.” He waves me forward with his hands. “Keep walking. We’re getting left behind.”

The large rock Matt and Malcolm were standing on marks the end of the log stairs. I fit my fingers into the cracks along the side and pull myself up, trying not to think about the excellent view Aiden currently has of my butt. I scramble onto the rock and stand. Aiden pulls himself up easily while I spot the next blue arrow painted on the rough surface next to my feet. It wouldn’t have been a problem if I hadn’t, though, because we could simply follow the sound of Simone whining about how hot it is and Elize telling her to stop being a baby.

“So, your sister’s fiancé,” I say to Aiden. “Do you like him?”

“Uh, yeah. He’s cool. I’m happy for the two of them.”

If I’m hoping to find out what that weird moment between Aiden and Emily was all about earlier, I’m probably going to have to be more direct with my questions.
You can do it, Sarah. Ask a personal question without messing up and having it come out totally weird.
“Um, earlier when we were in the lounge getting ready for the walk, Elize asked—”

“There you are,” Matt says as Aiden and I climb around a boulder and find him and Malcolm sitting on a ledge sticking out over open space. Emily, Aunt Hannah, Simone, and Elize appear to be helping themselves to a box of biscuits from Matt’s backpack. “You guys are taking forever.”

“Stop exaggerating,” Emily says. “We only got here, like, five seconds ago.”

“Okay, fine,” Malcolm says. “You’re all taking forever, then. Matt and I have been sitting here for at least ten minutes.”