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The beautiful green countryside leaves, giving way to dry desert landscapes. New Mexico is a state with culture, one that is close to nature especially. Sam did her research and she loves how beautiful it looks as the sun goes down. Josh jokes, because of course he does, about something she doesn't catch because the beauty of nature and sunsets is all that she's focused on. Even as New Mexico disappears in her rearview mirror. They end up in California after Sam sleeps through Arizona, and it's hauntingly surreal, palm trees flying in the breeze as the sun rises over an expansive sea to their left. Josh drives too fast through it all, too fast for Sam's liking, but it's okay. They may be on a road trip but that doesn't mean they don’t have a destination in mind. And the fact that Josh was willing to entertain it meant so much to Sam.
It had been a year since Sam's dad passed away, almost a year to the day. She still has his ashes. It felt like they were burning a hole in her the longer she kept them around. Josh had been unusually quiet about all of it, so the hole was burning and getting bigger. To the point where Sam actually got angry. She scared herself. She never gets angry, her dad was nonconfrontational, her mom was a peace loving hippie, as her dad likes. Liked. Liked to tell her. So Sam can’t get angry. She has no right. People lose parents all the time and don't throw a fit. But none of that stops the anger from growing in the hole that was burned away. The anger fit nicely in there and it was better than the emptiness the hole offered. So she grabbed it by the horns and let it carry her.
Sam yelled at Josh for not being there, even though he was in a way, in the only way he knew how to be. He was around. He gave affection like a cat, though not through touch. He would get her vegan and vegetarian foods when he was out and she didn't have to remind him. And he only made a few jokes about rabbit food. The jokes were another form of him trying to help, trying to be there. Like a cat just sitting beside you and purring. But if the cat was a grown man who's voice started to get weirdly grating as the anniversary of her dad's passing grew closer. The jokes weren't something Sam could take anymore. And so Josh, her partner of almost eight years, became the target of her ire. It wasn't fair. Sam isn't even sure what's actually fair in all this.
Josh was quiet the whole time Sam ripped into him, which only made the anger worse. He hasn't been saying anything important the whole week leading up to it and now, a couple days before, he's not saying anything at all. She knows he wants to. She knows Josh can get angry. Angrier than she is right now. She needs that. Sam needs Josh to yell at her like he yelled at all of them up on the mountain. She needs it. The pushback. And to see Josh feel something that isn't disinterest or mirth. She needs it, and she needs it aimed at her. Sam deserves it. She got angry at him for doing nothing wrong. But in that, he did do nothing. He sat by. He put on Netflix once or twice, a horror movie or comedy or both, that's what she could pick up anyway. He would sit and watch while Sam sat beside him and pretended to be watching too.
It wasn't Josh's fault. It really wasn't. He knows that, and he knows she's letting anger out that isn't his place to try and talk back to. He lets it run it's course and, because of that, Sam only feels worse. She drops to the couch, the television still playing something she doesn't care about. She cries for the first time since her dad died. She thought she was heartless and horrible for not crying before. But she now realized she was waiting. Waiting for the reality to set in. And it did. It punched her in the gut and expected her to keep going like it hadn't. She needed to be strong. Sam can't cry, she can't let other people see this getting to her because she's the caretaker. They shouldn't have to take care of her. But Josh does. He actually embraces her. He lets her cry on him, sets her head in the crook of his neck. It only makes her cry harder. She's never done this for Josh. He's never let her. So this isn't right. But she lets herself latch onto him anyway.
It's two days after that, that Sam mentions Oregon to Josh, a place her dad and mom loved, where they first met. She stays up with him all night telling him about the stories her dad told her about their trips to Oregon. She focuses on Crater National Park, a beautiful place. A dormant volcano now brimming with trees and greenery, which was surrounded by a circle of land, a lake separating the two. Sam talks about finding pictures of it stashed away in the attic. Pictures of the lake, of the volcano and land, and pictures of the two of them beside it all. She remembers them taking her there when she was really little. They stopped going after her mom passed. Her dad quit his job during that time and they had no money to spend on road trips anymore. She lets it slip to Josh how much she misses it.
The very next morning, Josh has both of their bags packed and her dad's urn placed beside everything. He asks her if she wants to take it. That maybe they can spread his ashes at the park. And Sam nearly crushes him in a bear hug. She restrains herself to simply answering yes. If she gives him a big hug on the way to the car, well that's between her and her dad, who she's sure is watching and clenching his fist that he can't embarrass her.
Sam smiles to herself as she thinks about what Josh is doing for her. She would have fought back but it's perfect, something she can't argue with. A road trip, which let her see amazing sights on their way. She's pretty sure her road trips as a kid were a big part of why she loves nature as much as she does. Why she loves the world, no matter how gray it may seem without certain people in it. There's always other people there to make it brighter. Sam watches Josh as he drives, feeling like a giddy schoolgirl all over again. It's moments like these, Josh's grey eyes shining in the light of the warm Californian sun, a halo of orange clouds rushing by him, that she remembers why she loves him so much. And why she loves earth by extension. They're here on it together. Enjoying it together. That's all she could ever ask for.
Sam doesn't remember falling asleep but does remember coming to at a gas station. For a brief moment she panics, noticing immediately that Josh isn't in the driver's seat. She has to close her eyes and breath, remind herself where she is and where Josh most likely is. He's in the gas station, getting something, paying for something. The more she thinks about it, the calmer she becomes. With that comes a feeling of shame, of feeling so worked up over nothing. But that passes quickly too, because Sam is nothing if not a rational person, and what she's been through in the past, rationally, warrants panicked reactions to the disappearance of a loved one. That rationality doesn’t stop her from feeling marginally better when Josh slides into the seat beside her, a water for Sam and Monster for himself in hand. Sam would pick on him for his choice in beverage, but he needs all the energy he can get. California is a monster to drive through. Josh would laugh at her if he had heard that horrible pun. Sam laughs for him.
It takes several more hours before they're out of California, by then, Sam's finished her water, Josh has slammed down his Monster and the two are ready to arrive in Oregon already. And they do, Sam spies the sign during a game of eye-spy she starts. She punches Josh lightly in the arm and points to the sign. Her smile grows, feeling like it's going to split her face when she catches Josh smile over at her before settling his eyes back on the road ahead of them. They were in the home stretch. They'd be at the park sooner than later. Sam feels that hole that burnt itself inside of her mending, the flesh of her emotions tying themselves back together, sinew and all.
The park is beautiful and homey. The nostalgia of being there sweeping over her in gentle waves. Josh stays a couple steps behind her for a bit, before Sam decides he's being ridiculous and grabs his hand. She pulls him along, and, to his credit, he goes willingly. Which is a contrast to every other hike they've been on. The thought just makes this day, no matter the death associated with it, feel better. That Josh, who is most comfortable behind a camera, runs along with her as they fight their way to the lake. Sure he complains, but Sam would hate it if he didn't. He wouldn't be Josh if he didn't. And she needed Josh. No matter how corny that sounds.
They watch the trees blow in the September breeze and the clear water of the lake come and go, occasionally splashing beside them or by the decommissioned volcano across from them. It's beautiful and Sam couldn't ask for a better place to put her father to rest. Finally. She carefully takes his urn out of her bag and opens it. She almost expects the wind to carry it out, like she's in a cartoon. She blames it on her too-beautiful-to-be-real surroundings and turns the thing upside down. Her dad flies out, the wind catching the ash and carrying it to the lake before them. Sam smiles. She feels like she hasn't stopped smiling. But the thought that her dad is now a part of nature, a part of something she loves so much is almost too much. She feels tears burn at the back of her eyes. And she lets them come.
Josh is smirking back at Sam when she looks up to him moments later. She can’t help herself, she leaps onto him and wraps her whole body around his. He lets out a very manly yelp and covers it with a chuckle, grabbing onto her thighs as she settles herself. She nuzzles his neck and presses a few kisses there, which earn her a high pitched laugh she swears she hasn't heard from Josh in a millennia. The laugh has her pulling away to laugh. And then they're there together, laughing, breathing the afternoon air rolling in from the lake. That's when it hits Sam.
Everything will be okay. Something she hadn't felt for a long time.
But there, wrapped around Josh, she felt the everything-will-be-okay feeling.
She loves him, and she doesn't think she's loved anyone like him before or will love anyone like him after. And for the first time in a while, the feeling of an after doesn't scare her.
Because she knows there's going to be a hell of a middle.