Why did Drake pull away from me at the fire? Was it because I pulled away from him down at the creek? Or did Shane’s talk make him think we needed to set better goals for our relationship? Maybe he was trying to be sensitive because I said I thought people were treating us differently.
As the rest of the camp settled down, Sierra’s thoughts kept spinning. Wes must have said something to him when they were fishing. Sierra camped on that thought a long time and concluded, That’s probably what happened. I’d better have a talk with that overly well-meaning brother of mine.
Fumbling for her flashlight and sticking her stocking feet into her cold boots, Sierra quietly slipped out of her tent and tiptoed to the guy’s area. She remembered Drake and Randy setting up a tent close to the trail. Her flashlight revealed only one pair of boots outside a small tent. That had to be Wesley’s.
“Wes,” She whispered, crouching down and slowly unzipping the opening. “I have to talk to you.” She slipped inside and cautiously reached for his foot at the end of his sleeping bag, giving it a playful yank and saying, “It’s me—Sierra. Are you awake?”
“Harumpf,” he mumbled.
“Wake up, will you? I need to talk to you.”
“What’s wrong?” the sleepy voice asked.
She had her flashlight pointed toward the front of the tent because she knew how much Wes hated people to shine flashlights in his face. In the muted light, she saw him prop himself up. He looked as if he had a stocking cap on his head.
“You said something to Drake, didn’t you?” she whispered, hoping none of the people in the nearby tents were still awake and could hear her.
“Huh?”
“Well, just listen to me, okay? Don’t cut in and try to give me advice. Just hear me out, because I’ve been giving this a lot of thought.”
Sierra adjusted her scrunched-up, cross-legged position at the foot of his sleeping bag, and with a deep breath, she plunged in.
“I think I’ve been running on emotions lately, you know? Everything I’ve done or said has been based on how I felt. It’s like I’m being swept away by my emotions, and I don’t even know what I truly feel anymore.”
She ran her hands through her unruly hair and said, “For instance, when Randy and I started to hold hands, I liked it. I loved the attention.”
“Sierra,” he whispered.
“Let me finish, okay?” She had intended to yell at her brother for whatever it was he said to Drake. Now here she was, pouring her heart out to him. “What I’m realizing is that I loved the attention more than I loved Randy. Not that I loved Randy, or that I thought I loved him and now I don’t, but I mean…well, you know what I mean. The attention was more important than who it was coming from. Well, when Drake came over that night, he put his arm around me, and that felt even better than with Randy, you know? My feelings kept growing, and then all I could think of was whether Drake was going to kiss me.”
“Sierra,” he whispered again.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Don’t-Pollute-the-Water. He didn’t kiss me. But I really, really wanted him to. And then, after you left the stream, I don’t know why, but everything changed. I suddenly didn’t want him to kiss me.”
Sierra caught a quick breath and said, “He told me I was beautiful today. Do you know what that does to a woman when a guy tells her she’s beautiful? I felt like I could follow him to the ends of the earth just because he paid attention to me and made me feel wonderful. Then everything flip-flopped inside of me, and I realized I didn’t want to be one of his many girlfriends. Do you know what I mean? My feelings totally changed. It’s like Shane’s quote from Lewis. I’ve had a steady diet of all my feelings and nothing else. I haven’t been reading my Bible, and when I try to pray, my mind wanders. I’m full of all these feelings, but you know what, Wes? I feel so empty.”
He reached his hand out of the sleeping bag and gently touched her arm. “Sierra,” he whispered more urgently.
“I’m such a jumble of feelings, Wes. Last week Mom told me to show her what I’m made of, and I think I’m discovering that I’m full of mush. All feelings and no substance at all.”
“That’s not true,” he said, sitting up. Something was funny about his voice. “Listen, I’ve been trying to tell you—”
Sierra reached for her flashlight and shone it in the face of the man who had been hearing her confession. Her heart stopped. Before Sierra could shriek, Randy leaned over and covered her mouth with his hand.
“SHH,” RANDY URGED, his hand still over her mouth. “Don’t say anything. I’m going to take my hand away, but you have to promise me you won’t say a word.”
Sierra nodded. Her heart was pounding in her throat. How could he have let me say all those things? I told him everything! This is so humiliating!
“Now it’s your turn to listen to me,” Randy whispered. “Don’t say anything. Just listen.”
He sat in front of her, the flashlight now tilted toward the back of the tent.
“I think you’re right about your emotions being in control, Sierra. But don’t beat yourself up just because you’re a sensitive, emotional person.”
“Randy,” she whispered.
“Shh. Let me finish. We’re all learning. I have to admit I was getting pretty emotionally involved when we started to hold hands. I’m glad I got to hear what you just said because now I know it meant something different to you. I was starting to think we were more than friends. I didn’t know you liked Drake so much.”
“Randy,” she tried again.
“I’m not done. What I want to say is, don’t start using guys to build your self-esteem. It’s not fair to us. I think you’ve already decided it’s Drake you want. Fine. Just know you can’t have it both ways. If you go with him, I’m out of the picture.”
“Randy, you’re my buddy.”
“Not the way I have been. Not if you have a boyfriend. I wouldn’t do that to you or Drake.”
“Do what?”
“You really don’t get it, do you?” Randy said.
Sierra started to feel angry. Hadn’t she just poured out her soul, expressing how confused and mush-headed she felt? Why did he have to throw it back at her? Fresh tears welled up, and her lower lip began to quiver. Refusing to let Randy see her cry, Sierra took the easiest way out—she camouflaged her hurt with anger.
“Just forget everything, Randy. Forget we had this talk. You’re the one who doesn’t understand.”
He reached over and took her arm in an effort to calm her down. “Sierra,” he said.
She jerked away from him and scrambled to get through the closed tent entrance. As she gave the zipper a yank, she caught her hair in it and let out a muffled yelp.
“Wait,” Randy said. He leaned forward, fumbling to help with the zipper, not knowing her hair was caught.
“Don’t!” Sierra snapped. She leaned too far against the side of the tent, and the whole side began to sag. “Randy!” She called out, just as the tent caved in on them.
The flashlight was buried in the fall, and so in utter darkness and confusion, Randy and Sierra clamored over each other trying to set things right. “My hair,” Sierra cried. “Let go of my hair.”
“I haven’t got your hair! Get off my leg. I can’t move.”
“My hair’s caught in the zipper. Ouch! There, I got it loose. Randy? Where did the main pole go?”
“I can’t see a thing. You’re blocking the light.”
“I am not. You’re sitting on it.”
From outside, Wes’s voice boomed above their squabbling. “What’s going on in there?”
“Get me out of here!” Sierra pleaded.
Other voices joined Wes’s. “Is that Sierra in there with Randy?”
“I thought the girls were supposed to stay out of the guys’ tents.”
“What’s she doing with Randy? I thought she was going with Drake.”
“Somebody shine a light over here,” Shane said.
Within three seconds, the area
around the tent lit up with half a dozen spectators’ flashlights. Sierra found the zipper and opened the tent the rest of the way so she could crawl out. A dozen curious faces loomed above the searching flashlights.
“Sierra,” Wes said, sounding exactly like their dad when he was mad, “what were you doing? You know the rules.”
“I thought it was your tent,” Sierra said, wiping back a runaway tear.
“I tried to tell her,” Randy called from inside the collapsed tent.
“Why did you want to get in my tent? To steal my socks?”
“No,” Sierra said, glancing at the audience and then back at Wes. “I wanted to talk to you. I thought it was your tent, and I didn’t think the rule applied if I was talking to my brother.”
“In the middle of the night?” Shane asked.
“It was important.”
“I can vouch for that,” Randy called out. “It was important.”
“Randy, don’t say anything,” Sierra pleaded. “You guys, can we forget this ever happened? It’s freezing out here.”
“Okay,” Shane conceded. “Everyone back to bed. Their own beds.”
As the group dispersed, Sierra could only imagine what they were all thinking. Especially Randy. And Drake.
She turned, and Drake stood before her.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
Sierra couldn’t see his expression in the dark, but she couldn’t miss his broad chest wrapped in a down jacket.
“Where were you?” For some reason she felt mad at Drake. This whole mess was his fault.
“I switched tents. There was more legroom in with Wes.” He turned his flashlight toward her feet. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.” He accompanied her the twenty or so feet back to the girls’ side and to her “front door.”
“Is everything all right?” he whispered.
“I don’t know.”
She scooted into her tent before Drake could ask any more questions. Right now she didn’t want to talk to anyone, except maybe God.
AFTER A RESTLESS NIGHT, Sierra woke with cold feet and a cold nose. She had placed the hood of her sleeping bag over her head sometime during the night and pulled the drawstring so only her nose stuck out. Fiddling to undo the thing, she noticed she could see her breath.
Reluctantly, Sierra wiggled out of her warm sleeping bag and unzipped the door of her tent. Smoothing back her mane of matted curls, she poked her head out, ready to greet the new day. The new day greeted her right back with tickles of snowflakes on her upturned face. Alight, powdered-sugar dusting of snow covered the campsite. All the tents bore a fine layer of snow on their seam lines, and the tree boughs looked flocked and ready for a Christmas tree lot. The campsite had turned into a fairy world.
Wes was the only one out of his tent. He wore his bandana around his head like a pirate and was trying to start a fire.
Sierra had slept in all her warm clothes and jacket so the only items to put on were her baseball cap and her boots, which were extremely cold. Shuffling through the silent wonderland, she joined Wes and gave him her best smile.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“When are you not in trouble?” Wes teased.
Sierra fed kindling into his smoldering attempt at a fire.
“What did you want to talk to me about last night?”
Sierra looked over her shoulder to make sure no one else was up. “Guys and feelings and being all mixed up.”
“You’re just discovering what a basket case you are?”
Sierra playfully punched her brother in the arm.
“Do it again,” he said. “That felt warm.”
“I’m serious. Will you help me figure all this out?”
Wes gave her a crinkle-eyed smile. “Of course.” He put his arm around her, gave her a squeeze, and kissed her on top of her baseball cap. “This is a big step for you, isn’t it? Asking for help, I mean. You’re usually so independent.”
Sierra nodded and snuggled closer to him for warmth.
“Last night while I was trying to sleep, I realized I was being too independent because I was separating God from a whole area of my life. I wasn’t getting off to a very good start at dating.”
“It’s never too late to start over. His mercies are new every morning, you know.”
Sierra looked up through the trees at the stuffed cotton sky and tried to catch a snowflake on her tongue.
“I hope my friends feel that way, too.”
Behind them, they heard a tent unzip.
“Hey, it snowed!” Shane exclaimed. “Wake up, everybody. We have to get off this mountain.”
They broke camp immediately, packed up, and began the steady descent back the way they had come. The wind sliced their face, which made the going difficult and the group silent. It was quite a contrast to their hike the day before. The trip was supposed to last another day, with their making camp three miles up the trail at the 6,000-foot elevation. That wasn’t a good idea now.
Sierra and Wes seemed to be the only two who were comfortable with the snow and perhaps the only hikers prepared for the cold. Sierra encouraged the others to keep eating as they hiked and to drink even if they didn’t feel thirsty. Wes briefed them on the early signs of hypothermia and made sure everyone started out with dry clothes.
The strenuous journey back provided Sierra with a lot of time to think. In some ways, this hike symbolized her adventure into dating. She realized she had entered into the experience with a light heart, enjoying every bit of it as she went along. Retracing her steps in the wind and snow made her think of three potentially stormy conversations she needed to have and how difficult they were going to be.
Her first conversation was with Amy, and Sierra launched into it when they stopped halfway for some rest and food. They were only 1,000 feet below where they had camped, yet here there was no trace of snow, and in the shelter of the forest, the wind bullied the trees but pretty much left the hikers alone.
Sierra pulled Amy off to the side, away from the others. They sat together on their backpacks, and Sierra offered Amy half of her granola bar.
“I owe you an apology,” Sierra began.
“What for?”
“For the way everything started out with Drake. I knew you were interested in him, but I didn’t know how much. I don’t think I was listening well enough. I think I would have handled things differently if I had understood your feelings better. I’m sorry, Amy.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “No big deal.”
“Yes, it is a big deal. You told me it was fine with you if I went out with Drake, but as soon as I did, things changed between you and me. I value your friendship, Amy. I don’t ever want a guy to come between us.”
“Thanks, Sierra.” Amy’s cheeks were red from windburn, and her lips looked chapped. “I have to be honest with you and say that although I was really interested in Drake a few months ago, my interest started to drop off when I saw he didn’t feel the same about me. Then, when he started to pay attention to you, I felt jealous. I thought if I couldn’t have him, why should you?”
Sierra rubbed the tops of her thighs to warm them. “I understand.”
“It wasn’t right for me to think that. I had a hard time with it when he asked you out. Now I feel okay about it. And you’re right, our relationship did get kind of weird. I shouldn’t have acted like everything was fine. I just didn’t know what to do. Sorry I ditched you and went in Jana’s tent.”
“That’s okay.”
“Last week was a bad week for me, with my parents fighting and everything. I don’t know what’s going on with them, but they seemed fine when I left Monday. Things were back to normal.”
“Are things back to normal with us?” Sierra asked.
“Only if we can start to walk again,” Amy said. “I’m freezing.”
They helped each other up and joined the group with their arms linked.
One down, two t
o go.
The rest of the journey, Sierra prayed. Her thoughts were coming together more clearly than they had in a while. She had a lot to pray about.
“What a beautiful sight!” Shane said as they entered the parking lot and saw their van and trailer, the only vehicle there. “Does anyone remember where I put the keys?”
Shane quickly deflected their looks of disbelief. “I’m only kidding, you guys. Lighten up!”
Lighten up they did. The packs were eagerly stowed in the trailer, and the tired, dirty bunch packed into the van. This time Sierra ended up sitting between Amy and Jana, and the three of them slept on each others’ shoulders all the way home.
When they arrived at the church parking lot, they saw evidence that it had rained earlier, but now the summer evening lit up soft halos around the cherry trees lining the parking lot. Everything looked just as they had left it.
“How come I feel like a different person,” Amy asked, “and nothing changed here?”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Sierra said. “A little hardship is good for a person. We need to get our world rattled every now and then.” Reaching for her backpack, she added, “I think it shows us what we’re made of.”
“Well, I can’t believe this whole backpacking thing is your idea of a good time,” Amy said. “I can’t wait to have a hot shower and microwave something. I definitely would not have made a good pioneer woman!”
Wes handed Amy her backpack from the trailer. Sierra thought she saw a hint of a smile on his face. The right woman for Wes would be one who knew how to start a fire with one match and looked good in a bandana.
The other weary hikers said good-bye and drove off. Randy, Drake, and Wes helped Shane unhitch the trailer and haul it around to the church’s side yard. Then Shane took off, and Wes, Sierra, Randy, Amy, and Drake were the only ones left.
“You guys want to come over?” Wes asked, looking at Sierra out of the corner of his eye. She wished he hadn’t invited them. Everything felt settled with Amy, but Sierra was still processing her thoughts and wanted to have a chance to talk with Drake and Randy separately.