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It looks familiar. So familiar. Veronica knows that she’s seen this stream a dozen times.
“Hello, stream,” she says to it, knowing no one can hear her anyway, so now is as good a time to talk to a creek as it can get. “Welcome back. I thought I’d lost you.”
She wishes she’d lost it.
This whole afternoon was such a horrible idea. And Veronica isn’t one for horrible ideas; she’s not, she swears. She’s a smart, capable person who knows her own motor abilities.
It wasn’t her idea, to hike this mountain trail. She’s not even sure of its name, if she’s honest. No, it was her boyfriend’s idea. JD called it a date; he said it’d be a fun thing, a change of pace. An opportunity to use this surprisingly sunny Saturday in the usually cold Ohio spring. Something to do instead of rotting in one of their rooms again for the entire weekend. Veronica loves rotting; more than she should, probably. Plus, she’s the most unathletic of people; she’s not sure how she’s still passing gym. Spending her Saturday hiking a trail seems like one of the most unappealing ideas she’s ever heard.
But JD seemed so excited about it when he brought it up a few days ago, and when she tried resisting, he gave her this look. He hates when she calls it puppy eyes, but that’s exactly what it is; he widens his eyes and pouts his lips just right to make his dimples show and he looks like a six-foot-tall dog that’s been kicked onto a sidewalk and it’s so dumb and it gets her to do anything he wants. It’s adorable. She hates it. Mostly she hates that it works.
So, because her boyfriend is unfairly cute when it’s the most inconvenient for her, Veronica woke up at the crack of dawn (eight in the morning) on one of her only two days off of school. She put on the one pair of sporty shoes she owned, threw on leggings that felt too tight on her skin and a t-shirt she was pretty sure she’d freeze her ass off in but JD had said it’d be warm and she for some reason trusted him, and tied up her hair in a ponytail with the first thing she could grab (she scoffed when she noticed it was a red scrunchie; not exactly like Heather Chandler’s, but it was similar enough that it gave her a petty bit of motivation. They’re not friends anymore, not even close, but Heather still gets on Veronica’s nerves). She filled up a water bottle that was probably too small, threw it in an overly-prepared backpack that had everything from sunscreen to an extra shoelace (“Just in case,” she’d explained to JD when he’d laughed at her, but when he kept laughing she almost poked him in his stupid cute eye with it), waited for JD to arrive, and then they were on their way. Going out to hike the great outdoors.
So far, it’s… like… not that great.
In the beginning, JD seems all excited. Like, adorably, genuinely ecstatic. He’s practically bouncing on his feet as they’re starting up the mountain he chose specifically, and Veronica can’t really complain about her tiredness when he looks like that. She’s usually more the foot-bouncer in this relationship, but she far from minds the sudden shift. She kind of wants to ruffle his hair, mess up the “effortless” look she’s sure isn’t as effortless as he claims (although JD is annoyingly perfect so it might be possible), but she doesn’t. Because she knows that he’d retaliate and that she’d retaliate too because they’re both insanely competitive and it’d somehow end on the floor and she does not want to be rolling around in the grass. Because, well, ew.
After a little bit of walking (like, embarrassingly little), though, the appeal of JD’s adorableness wears off. And Veronica’s losing steam and getting tired and sore and she’s got goosebumps all over because she keeps waiting for it to get hotter and she brought, like, everything in her backpack except a hoodie. And she makes the mistake of asking JD how long they have left before they can turn back in a voice that sounds pathetically tired to her own ears, and instead of being sweet and telling her that they can just go back and that she’s beautiful and he doesn’t care that she’s tragically and probably concerningly unathletic because he loves her, JD laughs. This full-blown laugh that makes her wish she wasn’t this tired so she could punch the daylights out of him. He laughs, and asks how she’s already tired, and says that they haven’t even been at this for an hour, and he mocks her for five straight minutes. She tells him, several times, that if he keeps at it she’ll keep walking by herself; that she doesn’t need him if he’s mean to her. It only makes him laugh harder.
At some point, after he makes another asshole-y comment that she wishes she wasn’t smiling at, Veronica decides to take matters into her own hands. So, she uses the strength she doesn’t really have and starts running; seriously, sprinting away from him. He’s still laughing when he asks where the hell she’s going; she’s laughing, too. She plans to just run far enough to hide behind a fairly distant tree and yell boo at him when he approaches; childish, she knows, but some classics you never mess with. So, she finds a tree and waits. And waits.
And waits.
And that’s when she realizes she’d fucked up.
Because somehow, she’s lost JD. And she’s not the type to lose things; never has been. Not a beauty pageant, school election, mother-of-pearl earrings… but it seems that she’s lost her mind, now, as well as her boyfriend. Who, in all of his tall, black-wearing glory, is supposed to be mighty hard to lose. But somehow she’s done it. The impossible; she’s hidden in a tree to make JD jump and now he’s disappeared and she’s all alone in the woods, just her and her lack of physical skills and her dumb backpack that has everything in it but a hoodie and a map.
Maybe it doesn’t have everything, actually.
She’s freaking out now. A full-fledged panicking; she feels a pit drop in her stomach, feels her heart starting to beat really fast. She’s not built for this crap; she’s not agile enough, not mentally strong enough. She doesn’t know what to do, with herself and her impractical backpack. She should walk around, probably, try to find JD; if she gets lost she can turn back. Yeah. That’s a good plan.
And that’s how Veronica finds herself here; circling the same stream she’s seen a thousand times. She’s been walking for… she’s not even sure how long, but it feels like forever. She’s cold, and tired, and sore, and terrified. She can hear noises as she’s walking; she sees a bunch of little forest creatures as she makes her way around the woods, rabbits and hedgehogs and squirrels and tiny adorable animals who’d give her rabies if she gets too close, but every sound they make has her jumping. What if there’s a bear here? With her luck, there’s probably a bear here. Missing Girlfriend Gets Mauled By Bear is going to be the headline news tomorrow, she already knows it; all because she’s been stupid enough to run from JD.
She’s made a circle now, she realizes as she passes the stream a… third? Fourth? Fifty-eighth time? She’s made a giant circle around this section of the woods. She’s made her own footprints, the one she’s mindlessly following. Where’s the trail? She’s lost it so long ago; that slippery, naughty trail. Oh, it knows her one desire. To go higher up this goddamn… wherever the hell she is, she’s not even sure she’s on the mountain anymore. And it wants to see her fail. She cannot fail.
Of course she’ll fail.
She’s realizing as she keeps walking, circling the same path over and over and shaking out her arms to try and lose both the cold and the panic, that while she’s totally unequipped for a mountain hike with her boyfriend, she’s even less equipped for a mountain hike without said boyfriend. She lacks the proper skills for it; she doesn’t have that expertise, of walking. Not getting winded and losing steam after less than an hour. Not starting to hyperventilate when something goes horribly, terribly wrong and it’s all her fault. Because all she can do is walk in circles and try to not go insane, and try to summon JD with mind powers she doesn’t have because she’s not freaking Matilda, and she can’t even go as far as to see the edge of the forest because there are all these goddamn trees around.
Jesus, Veronica is so done for; there’s no doubt now. Goodbye to her well-being, since she’s going to be stuck in this forest forever. She can see all the tiny, harmless woodland creatures that admittedly terrify her because everything is terrifying to her right now nodding; as if agreeing with her spiraling thoughts. She’s beyond spiraling right now, actually; she’s fully freaking out. Regretting every life decision she’s ever made. She should’ve just stayed in bed this weekend; should’ve just not woken up at eight in the freaking morning, which is so early for no reason. She really should’ve waited behind a closer tree. Why did she sprint so far? She hates running. And now, because she’s an idiot, her clean, untainted, pure, unblemished body had been fully invaded by nature and all of its disgusting wonders; there’s scratches all over her hands from all the branches and plants and leaves (leaves should not be sharp), she’s itchy all over from God knows what, her legs hurt like hell, her head is spinning because she keep forgetting to drink and she finished her water bottle earlier anyway, so now she has to pee, and she’s still so cold and damn JD and damn her for trusting him because he’s never cold and she’s always cold and usually it’s fine because he gives her his coat or something but now he’s not here and she’s in the middle of the woods and she’s going to get eaten by a goddamn bear and she hates nature and she’s going to fucking murder JD-
Whoa. She needs to calm down.
She just needs to inhale and exhale; that always works, right? Maybe she should scream. If a girl screams help! In the forest, can anyone hear her yell? Worth a shot, she supposes.
”Help!”
Oh, great, now her voice sounds like she’s about to start crying.
This mountain trail is her one-way trail to hell, she swears to the God she’s now as far from believing in as she’s ever been. If God exists, he wouldn’t send her an incredible and perfect boyfriend she can’t say no to and have said boyfriend get really excited over a hiking trip that she ends up totally lost in. She wants to kill God. Or, well, she wants to kill JD; which would be easier to do if there’s no God.
Oh, just wait until she finds JD (If she finds JD). She’s not just going to kill him; no, she’s going to make him wish he was never born. She’s not just going to curse at him, finally unleash the colorful string of cusswords that’s been building in her head for the past however long it’s been since eight; she’s going to do something worse. More specific; more horrific. She’s going to scare him, genuinely, more than just yelling boo from behind a tree; he deserves it. She’s going to think of something really creative, something that’ll truly petrify him the same way she’s petrified right now. She’ll definitely have time to rehearse it, if things continue in this concerning pattern.
Wait, you know what? If she can threaten JD like this, she can totally face this huge forest. She’ll just treat it like a person she’s mad at; not a giant stretch of woods she’d chop off with her bare hands if she could. Yeah, that’s a good attitude. She can do this.
Because she might be as lost as any girl could get, she might have been getting poked and penetrated by every stupid branch in the universe, she might be so exceedingly upset that she’s been holding back tears for like thirty minutes, but she can do this. She’ll climb this mountain all night long, if she needs to; until she’s not threatened, but becomes the threat. She is not letting this trail win. Not a chance in hell. She might be exhausted, but she is not finished yet. Oh no, not even close.
And then she hears a buzzing sound, and suddenly a swarm of bugs comes flying her way.
Bees.
Yeah, she’s going to die here.
Turns out; if you yell in the forest just enough, someone does hear you. Veronica, unfortunately, learns that while bees are attacking her and she’s screaming for her life and blindly swatting at the air like that’s even going to do anything. Because in her screeching, and, fine she’ll admit it, defeated sobbing, she hears a voice calling for her. A very familiar voice.
“Veronica?” JD calls for her; he doesn’t sound too far away. She keeps screaming, although the bees have gone by now, but her whole face is stung and swollen and the tears burn on her raw skin.
And soon, he’s there; he seems almost as winded as her, probably from sheer concern. She wants to behead him. She settles for letting him take her into her arms and basically crashing.
He holds her, and the touch hurts on the stings of her arms but she doesn’t care. She relaxes until she’s falling, and he goes down with her, and now they’re on the same grass she’d been so opposed to sitting on before. She’s crying, sobbing like maniac, from pain and anxiety and relief and she’s not even sure. But JD’s shushing her, like she’s some kind of baby, and he’s so sweet and she wants to hide in a bush for the rest of her life.
“I couldn’t find you,” she cries instead of hiding, because she can’t do anything right today.
“I know,” JD says, and he sounds just as relived as her. Oh, great, so he was worried. She ruined his whole day. Fantastic. “I’m sorry.”
She’s the worst person on this earth.
Turns out, one of the things Veronica did pack in the useless backpack she wants to throw against a wall is Calamine lotion. For bee stings, specifically. For once today, she doesn’t despise past her. JD gently puts the lotion on her face while she gets her arms, and she’s never been this humiliated. She’s been stung by a bee once in her entire life, when she was in the second grade; it’d fallen out of her hair and stung right at her shoulder. Hurt like a bitch for a whole week. She’d cried about three times less than she’s crying right now.
“I’m sorry I ruined your hike,” she mutters as she applies the paste onto a sting at her arm and winces. JD waits for her face to relax before he goes for a spot near her eyebrow.
“You didn’t ruin anything,” he reassures, and she scoffs because yeah right. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“This is all my fault,” she continues anyway, because she’s been talking to trees and creeks and hedgehogs for the past two hours (apparently JD has a watch, the smart asshole) and human interaction is actually quite nice.
“You’re fine,” JD dismisses, putting the paste on a sting at her cheek now. She’s less itchy, she has to admit. At least the backpack’s not totally useless. “Why did you run off, anyway?” Veronica scoffs again, because even thinking about it sounds so dumb in her mind.
“I wanted to scare you," she admits, shaking her head at her own idiocy. “Like, jumpscare you. From a tree.”
JD laughs, and it’s annoying and she loves it. “Why?”
Veronica shrugs as much as she can without moving most of her arms. “You were being annoying,” she mumbles. JD grins.
“I’m always annoying,” he says, and she notices she’s not crying anymore.
“Nature’s not for you, huh?” JD asks her, and she can feel her cheeks turning red. Maybe it’s a good thing she’s so stung; that way he can’t see it. Still, she shakes her head.
“I hate nature,” she admits. JD nods.
“Took you long enough.”
He offers to carry her home; she wishes she was dead. He does it anyway.
She does end up hiking up the whole trail, actually. Just… a while later. A month or so. When it’s a little warmer, and she’s more prepared. JD doesn’t make fun of her; not that much, at least. She’s calmer. She doesn’t run off, doesn’t lose her boyfriend, doesn’t get stung by bees. And somehow, on sore, unathletic legs, she reaches the end. And hikes all the way back.
It’s horrible. She hates it. But at least she gets to pass the stream again and tell it to go suck it.