e i g h t

*

By the time everyone else gets up, I’ve regained my composure thanks to Arjun, who put on some clothes and walked around the camp with me. I talked him through everything that happened, right from the start. And I really mean the start – I took him right back to seven years ago, when George and I met on our first day of Year Seven in a brand new school, and I ended with last month.

The moment I saw George in a coffee shop with a guy I didn’t know, a couple of towns over. The moment he told me, when I asked what he’d been up to in the hopes he was a cousin, that he had been working all day. The moment I realised he was lying to me, and some desperate part of me hoped it was a new lie, and the moment I knew it wasn’t.

I didn’t cry again when I told Arjun the whole sordid story, even when I re-enacted that horrible last conversation with George. I found out that the guy’s name was Will and he thought I was just his boyfriend’s needy school friend. I found out that they had been together for as long as George and I had been together.

Arjun listened. He’s a good listener. By the time I was done, I was exhausted. I felt as though I had been carrying a weight I didn’t know about until he bore half of the load. He listened and he empathised, and he reassured me that I wasn’t crazy for the amount of online Will stalking I did as soon as the truth was out, when I tortured myself scrolling through his feed, filled with photos of him and George.

Our circles didn’t overlap at all. He was at a different school in a different town, not even one of the schools that played sports matches against ours; we had no mutual friends, no-one to realise something was going on.

Though hardly anyone at school knew George and I were together. We had kept our relationship on the down low – only Lily had any idea – and I thought it was what I had wanted: I was still figuring out what we were and who I was, and I liked that George never pushed it, that he let me take it slow. But after that, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was just George who had wanted to keep it quiet, that he had wanted to have his fun with me without jeopardising what he had with Will.

It felt good to share with Arjun in that strange, surreal moment before anyone else woke up, and now we’re back in the van for a three-hour drive to Joshua Tree National Park, and he has seen the rawest part of my heart.

I feel better. A bit less tense; a bit more me. I’ve never been the kind to stress. I’ve always been the type to take life in my stride, to roll with the punches and see the silver lining in every cloud, and that has made the past month suck even more. I think I lost myself almost as much as I lost George.

Half an hour into the drive, I turn to Arjun and ask, “When do I get to hear about Taylor?”

He looks at me like he forgot he ever mentioned his ex, and then he lets out a quiet laugh. “Nothing remotely as dramatic as your break-up story,” he says. “We were together for a bit more than a year, until a few months ago, and she ended it when she decided I was too boring.”

She. Taylor’s a girl. I try to banish the niggle of disappointment that I have no right to feel.

“That’s really harsh,” I say. “Really harsh. Boring? Seriously?”

“Apparently.” He shrugs. “The relationship had run its course, to be honest. We got together in Year Twelve, and I think it was doomed from the start. I reckon the only reason we stayed together so long was to save face and avoid the awkwardness of breaking up while still doing two A-levels together.”

“That could’ve been a bit awkward.”

“Considering there were only four of us doing geography, yeah. Majorly awkward. Plus, I was head boy and she was head girl, so we were in the spotlight a bit. Could have damaged the school’s reputation if we had a messy mid-Year Thirteen break-up.”

“Oh, yeah, can’t have the golden children acting up like that,” I tease. It feels good to tease. I roll back my shoulders and let out a sigh. “Head boy, huh?”

“You know it.” He pokes his thumb at his chest. “Not sure I fully deserved it. I think there may have been some sort of diversity quota at play, considering my year was ninety-five percent white, but the prefects were, like, sixty-five percent minority.”

“How many prefects do you need for sixty-five percent to be a whole number?” I ask. It’s a genuine question. I really can’t do maths.

He grins. “There were ten of us. Three were white, and ... Becca Tan was half-Chinese,” he says, triumphantly, “so I think you’ll find my percentage is dead on. Prasha Acharya, Deshni Shantha and I made up the South Asian requirement, even though Prasha used to get detention every week, and Deshni was a solid B-student.”

“What about you? Gotta do something right to be head boy.”

“Gotta be something right,” he says, circling his face, then adds, “I’m kidding. I got good grades; I was on the debating team and the hockey team, and I was a bit of a teachers’ pet.”

“Well, there you go,” I say. “How come you had to resit the year, then?”

“I made the mistake of setting my sights on Cambridge, which needed three A stars. I only got one, and two As.”

“Holy shit. You’re smart.”

He gives me a slightly awkward smile. “Not the smartest, by a long shot. I shit you not, there was a guy in my year who was convinced he’d be head boy – whereas I didn’t give a crap – and I legit heard him say I only got it because I was the right shade of brown.”

I can’t help but splutter, a mix of surprise and horror, and Arjun laughs.

“Funnily enough,” he says, his tone a light surprise, “my name means white.”

On the seat between us, my phone lights up with a game notification, and Arjun looks down and asks, “Is that your family?”

I nod. My lock screen is a photo of the five of us from a family holiday last year, when we spent a week down in Devon. Mum and Dad are standing with their arms around each other, and the three of us are in front of them, me with one arm around Flo and one arm around Rocco. Our dog is standing next to Flo, staring up at her with a goofy doggy grin.

I can see Arjun’s eyes skimming my face and my parents, trying to tally the dissimilarity, and I give it a moment before I explain.

“Mum’s not my biological mother,” I say. He looks up like I caught him in the act, as though he shouldn’t have been wondering.

“Oh yeah? I was just thinking, you don’t look that similar. I was wondering if maybe you were just really tanned,” he says.

“My dad’s half-Italian and Mum’s Filipina, and my birth mother’s Indian,” I say, “but I never lived with her and I haven’t seen her since I was five.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.”

He looks up, eyes slightly widened. “Not the best mother, I guess.”

“Nope. But she was a teenager when she had me, and I guess she was just in over her head.” I shrug. I don’t hold it against her. I barely even remember her, to be honest. The last time I saw my mother was the first time I met Mum, thirteen years ago, when she showed up at my house on Christmas Eve and Dad introduced her as his girlfriend.

At the time, I had no idea they’d only met three days before.

“Wow. Young parents.”

“Yup. Dad was sixteen,” I say. Now, at thirty-five, my dad looks ten years younger, and Mum may be in denial about being in her forties, but she doesn’t look it. She has good genes: her mother, my lola, is in her seventies, but hardly looks a day over fifty.

“Wow. That’s so young. You guys look more like, well, half-brothers or something,” he says, zooming in on dad’s face and then Mum’s. “So this is your step-mum?”

“No. She adopted me after she and Dad got married, when I was eight. I remember being really excited that I could call her Mum, ‘cause until then I hadn’t really had one,” I say. “Leela never seemed to count herself as a parent. I think she saw me as more of an irritating inconvenience she had to birth, rather than her son.”

There’s no bitterness in my words. Just total apathy. I don’t have the space in my heart to care about the woman who rejected me the moment I was born. Every now and then I’ll open up Instagram and type Leela Mehta and her profile will pop up, and I’ll scroll through photos of her partying with her friends as though she’s a teenager until the documentation of her life bores me.

I’m not sure why she and my dad ever got together, though I guess they were kids. Dad was fourteen when they started dating. When I was fourteen, I was awkwardly dating April. Not that we ever slept together. And I think we only kissed, like, four times. Literally the only compatible thing about us was our names.

“Your family’s freaking beautiful,” Arjun says. He’s still holding my phone. “So they must be your half-siblings?”

“Yeah, but I don’t call them that,” I say. I tell him about Flo and Rocco  and talking about my family brings a smile to my face as I swipe through photos of the five of us and our dog, Burt. We adopted him from the shelter where he was abandoned as a puppy, and he’s like Flo’s baby. She was seven when we got him, and she promised our parents that she’d do everything if we got a dog. They rolled their eyes and got him anyway, and Flo stepped up. She’s taught him all sorts of tricks and now that she’s old enough, she walks him to the park most days.

“You’re quite far apart,” Arjun muses, scanning my siblings’ faces.

“Six years between me and Flo; six years between Flo and Rocco. And he’s six now, so if there’s going to be a fourth, I expect an announcement any day now,” I joke, then put my phone away. “Anyway. How about you?”

“I have a very nuclear family. Two parents, who have been married for nearly thirty years, and an older sister, Meera. I’m actually meeting her in San Francisco, at the end of this trip. You might meet her, if you’re still around.” He shows me a photo of the two of them standing together, his sister’s skin a slightly lighter shade of brown; she’s blessed with striking eyebrows and a mane of black waves.

“I’m staying in San Francisco for a few days at the end, but I don’t want to intrude on your family time,” I say. So far all I’ve done is put down a twenty-pound deposit on four nights in a hostel, and made a vague mental plan to check out the bridge and the piers and the bay.

“You’d hardly be intruding,” Arjun says. “Meera’s going to be there for a conference, so if you want company while she’s being boring, I’ll be around. I’m only going to be a tourist anyway.” He tilts his head at me, eyebrows raised, and I find myself nodding. I may have booked this trip to get away, but now the thought of exploring San Francisco alone is far less appealing that doing it with Arjun.

“Yeah,” I muse. “That’d be nice. It might be a bit less scary, if there’s someone to explore with.” Picking at the hem of my shirt, I add, “There were times that L.A. overwhelmed me a bit, and I felt like the tiniest of plankton in the hugest of oceans. And I can’t follow directions for shit.”

“Well, in that case, I’m not letting you out of my sight,” Arjun says. “I spent a few days in San Francisco last year, so I know the most basic of ropes. I reckon we can figure it out, with two brains and two sets of Google maps. Unless we’re sick of each other by then.” He glances at his watch, one of those fancy ones that tells way more than just the time. “We’ve still got another ten nights together.”

“I’ll be on my best behaviour,” I say. “No more George-related breakdowns, I promise.”

“Don’t promise that.” He shakes his head, his voice more serious now. “Breakdowns can be good. You let out what you’ve been holding in – it’s healthy. I’d rather deal with another George-related breakdown than the aftermath of a spontaneous combustion because you kept too many emotions to yourself.”

I look across at him, at the sincerity of his expression, and I nod in agreement. His eyes alone are so compelling, I find myself wanting to please him.

“Ever thought about switching your philosophy degree for, like, psychology?”

His lips twitch, almost forming a smile. Just the barest hint of one, then he presses them into a tight line and sucks in a deep breath through his nose. “I’ve thought about it, actually,” he says.

“Might be worth another thought.”

“Cheers.”

“Thanks for today,” I say. “Not sure what I would have done without you. Probably broken my phone or sent some texts I’d regret.”

He waves a hand and says, “My pleasure. I mean it, too. Any time you want to talk, just ... talk. I won’t pretend I know what you’re going through but I know it helps to share.”

*

The drive to Joshua Tree National Park is long and flat, made up mostly of desert that seems to stretch on forever, sand and empty train tracks skimming the horizon. Every now and then, there’s a random train deserted on the rails. It’s kind of eerie, like a forgotten locomotive graveyard, until Sam explains that it’s just for storage. Less creepy, but still a strange sight.

Brannan is in charge of the music for the three-hour drive, which turns into four thanks to a closed road and a bit of poor map-reading on Sam’s behalf, but the music is surprisingly good. Brannan plays a mix of peak road trip songs, including some of the ones we sang last night, spliced with the occasional Irish hit and a few chart-toppers.

Good tunes and good conversation – mostly with Arjun, though every now and then Sam will throw out a group question that turns into a discussion – means that the four hours fly by, and soon Sam is pulling up on the side of the road. A dry, dusty patch of ground has been claimed as a car park, and we spill out of the van into acrid desert heat.

The sky is blue, unadulterated blue, and the yellow ground is dotted with strange trees, thick branches topped with spiky green leaves. They seem to grow straight out of the ground, the trunk the same width the whole way from the base to the ends of the branches. These are the Joshua trees, I soon learn. They’re weird, but strangely compelling.

I take a bunch of photos for Flo, and I get Arjun to take some pictures that I’m actually in. No doubt now more than ever, Mum and Dad are going to want proof that I’m alive and ok, so I paint on my best smile as I stand in front of one of the funny trees with my arms outstretched.

“There’s a hiking trail up here,” Sam says. He must see my look of alarm, and Young-mi’s too, because he adds, “Nothing too strenuous, don’t worry, but it’s such a beautiful area that deserves more than a five-minute stop on the way to Arizona.”

Nature seems to work differently here. Bare brown branches snake out between the gaps in piles of boulders, desert flowers sprigging up where it seems like nothing should be able to grow. Sam leads the way, steering us away from other people’s desire paths, where they’ve trodden down plants to make a shortcut.

It’s getting harder to breathe. I need to work out. Arjun, Mr Hockey Player, has no issues, continuing to talk as we navigate the rocky path. My responses become single words, and then grunts. My total lack of muscle is showing me up, and my apparently poor lung capacity, but I don’t want to pause. Everyone else is soldiering on so I keep up the pace, though Young-mi and I are still a good few metres behind the others.

And then it’s worth every strangled breath.

An oasis appears. Literally, out of nowhere, we are suddenly faced with the most incredible blue lake. The water’s so still that the rocky boulder mountain around it is reflected perfectly, as though the surface is a mirror, and it takes my breath away. I mean, I was already pretty breathless from the hike, which probably wasn’t even fifteen minutes, but this is a whole new level of breathless.

It’s the kind of simple beauty that makes you take a step back to re-evaluate your life, and I’m totally speechless for a solid minute as I just stare. There isn’t even the slightest hint of a breeze, nothing to disturb the perfect serenity of the water. I can’t get over how blue it is. How clear. How flawless the reflection is.

When we all get over our awe, Sam digs out a tripod that he unfolds and balances in front of the water, and we take our first group photo. I’m sandwiched between Arjun and Young-mi, my arms around their shoulders and their arms around my waist, and my blissful beam is genuine.

I fill my camera roll with photos, and I take a video as I turn in a slow circle, not only for myself, to remember the beauty, but also to show Flo. I want to bring her here someday, though I’m not sure I’d ever find it. It seems so ... random. A crop of boulders and sturdy trees hiding this unspoiled paradise, somewhere that someday, someone stumbled upon and probably wept on their knees.

I’ve always been sensitive – George used to tease me for getting emotional at the slightest things – but tearing up over Mother Nature is new for me, and I know this is only the beginning. This trek is centred around the most awe-inspiring feats of nature that the American west has to offer, and I’m not ready. But I also wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

*

i hope you liked this chapter! the second half of it was such a joy to write as i went to this amazing oasis in the joshua tree national park and i was blown away by the bluest lake i'd ever seen in the middle of nowhere. below are a couple of photos from that trip, including a picture of my group! it was quite a bit bigger than march's - i think there were fourteen of us including our trek leader - but nine characters is already too many to write so that would have been impossible!

very important: please let me know if you can see the collage, and what device you're using. i.e., i read via the app on my android phone. some people had issues on the last photo chapter and i want to figure out why