t w e n t y - t h r e e

*

The first thing I notice when I wake up is that I'm still sprawled across Arjun's lap and there's a damp patch on his jumper where I've snored and drooled. The second thing I notice is that I feel remarkably less sick, as though I could sit up right now and not be downed by a violent wave of nausea and regret. The third thing I notice is that although I've been asleep for over an hour, I can still feel the weight of his hand on my head.

I shift and accidentally elbow his thigh in my effort to sit up, grappling with my seatbelt and rubbing bleary eyes. It's not an elegant move when I've been curled up horizontally for so long, my legs fizzing when I let them down.

"Ah, Sleeping Beauty has risen," Arjun says, adjusting himself in his seat. He's probably been uncomfortable for eons and he's just too nice to wake me up or shove me off his lap. "Just in time, too. We're about to get to Badwater Basin."

"Shit, already?"

"Already," he says with his trademark smile, that kind of wry, half-cocked grin. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd gone and died on me."

"I wouldn't be so inconsiderate," I say, stretching out the tight crick in my neck.

"How're you feeling? Did the sleep help?"

"A lot. I feel a lot more human now, and less like roadkill, though I could drain a lake right now." I haul my bag onto my knees and search through for a drink, but I come up with an empty bottle. Arjun wordlessly passes me one from his stash down the side of our seats, and I manage what I hope looks like a grateful smile when I twist off the cap and glug half before I gasp for breath.

"There's plenty more where that came from," Arjun says, "and you're gonna need it. We're about to hit the hottest heat you've ever known. Don't go dehydrating on me, ok?"

"I won't. How hot is it?"

He pulls out his phone and shows me his weather app, which shows our location as Furnace Creek, and the temperature as fifty degrees Celsius. I can't even imagine that kind of heat when the worst I've ever known is probably thirty-five, and that's enough to have me uselessly sweating as I seek shade.

"It's dry heat, though," he says, "so at least it won't be sticky and humid."

"Pit stop!" Sam calls out as we pull into the Furnace Creek visitor centre. "We're going to stop here for about fifteen minutes so you can pee and fill up your water bottles before we head to Badwater Basin, which is about twenty minutes from here."

I don't realise how cool the van is until Adedayo swings open the sliding door and I'm hit by a wall of heat that almost knocks me back into my seat. It has me breathless for a moment, totally stunned by the attack of hot air, and the name of this place makes sense. It literally feels like walking into a furnace.

A display board outside the centre proudly declares that it is currently 123.8°F and even without the conversion, I'd know that that is crazy fucking hot. I can feel it in the way sweat beads my hairline the moment I get off the bus, my limbs instantly sluggish from the heat.

Fifteen minutes flies by, during which time I finish and refill my water twice, and I wait until Arjun's back from the loo before I head in. Getting back in the van is like a godsend, returning to conditioned air and the seat that must be shaping to my arse.

As we come to a stop twenty minutes later, Sam turns around and says, "The hottest temperature ever recorded in the U.S. was one hundred thirty-four degrees, recorded right here in Death Valley, over a century ago. Today, it's just over one twenty-nine degrees – that's about fifty-four degrees Celsius, for all you metric fans."

Carrie coughs and not so subtly says, "Every country but this one."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Celsius or Fahrenheit, it's hella hot out here. I don't want any of y'all passing out on me, so we'll probably only be here about ... ten minutes. Enough time to check out the basin and the salt plains and get your pics before heatstroke gets the better of you. Then we'll head up to Zabriskie Point – about thirty minutes away – before we have a few hours in the van on the way to tonight's campsite. Everyone got that?"

We all nod, knowing that the moment we're back in the van in ten minutes, Sam will go over our itinerary again, and we tumble out into the dry, acrid heat.

The ground is rock hard beneath my feet, cracked earth that leads to a wooden promenade, beyond which is a huge expanse of white. The salt flats, stretching far and wide across this vast valley.

"This is the lowest point in America," Arjun says. "Can you believe that? How crazy is it that the sea ­– the fucking ocean – is nearly a hundred metres above us right now?"

I instinctively look up, as though I'll see the Pacific Ocean crashing over me from more than a hundred miles away. I can't get my head around that, even when I see it in writing on the infamous Badwater Basin sign that tells me the exact numbers.

Right now, I am two hundred and eighty-two feet, or eighty-five point five metres, below sea level. I can't get my fumbling brain to wrap itself around that, addled by sleep and last night's drinks and everything else cluttering my thoughts.

"Are you gonna get a photo?" Arjun asks me, holding out his hand for my phone, snapping me out of my thoughts long enough for me to pass it to him and stand behind the sign, painting on a grin against the blinding sun and the powerful heat.

Everyone does the same, rotating positions and phones and cameras until everyone has a cheesy shot with the sign and the white plains in the background. By the time I've taken a few pictures, including a panoramic and an awe-filled video, I'm uncomfortably overheated. It may not be humid here, but I'm already damp with sweat, oppressive heat striking me with every step I take. I don't think I can make it to the end of the promenade without collapsing into a puddle.

Arjun heads off that way with Young-mi and a few of the others while I lean against a wooden post and down another half bottle. The water's already getting warm and gross from a few minutes in this powerful heat, but it's better than nothing.

"What're you thinking?" comes a familiar voice that, I deduce after a quick glance at her earrings, belongs to Klara. She's right by my side, barely a foot between us.

"That I'm gonna expire," I say.

"Mmm. It's rather warm," she says, crossing her ankles as she scoops her hair off her neck. Her movements are elegant, from the arch of her neck to the way she arranges long legs when she leans against the post next to me.

"How about you? What's on your mind?"

She purses her lips and folds her arms once she's secured her hair in a topknot. "I was wondering..." She trails off, and I think she's finished until she suddenly blurts out, "Have you and Arjun fucked yet?"

Bad time to have a mouthful of water, which I simultaneously inhale and spit out. An uncontrollable coughing fit tightens my chest and my ribs and only when it subsides does my shock and embarrassment settle in, with an exclamation of, "What the fuck, Klara!?"

She shrugs like what she just asked is the most routine question, like she just asked what I want for lunch. "I was just wondering. Kristin and I have a bet going on, whether you and Arjun or Carrie and Ade will be the first to hook up."

I don't know what to say to that because Klara and I have hardly even spoken – Kristin and I even less – and yet these words are coming out of her mouth. If they're betting on Arjun and me hooking up, then they must see something. Or maybe they just see my pathetic desperation.

"Um, no. We haven't hooked up, god. You can't go around saying things like that or you'll give me a fucking heart attack."

She throws back her head and laughs, shaking her head at me. "You're such a cute little goose, March. I didn't mean to shock you. And I'm truly sorry if I jumped to any conclusions, but the way you two are ... I don't know, I just assumed. Especially on the drive here."

"I slept the whole way."

"On his lap," she points out. Valid. "Your head was very close to his crotch."

"I'm well aware."

"He was playing with your hair."

"I had a headache; he was giving me a head massage," I say, glad that no-one else seems to be in hearing range of this conversation.

"Oh, March. Oh, you sweet little cookie." She pats my hand. "My wonderful, naïve friend."

"I'm not naïve," I say, mirroring her position with folded arms and crossed ankles. "I'm just..."

I'm just deciding whether or not to lie to you.

I hesitate for a tad too long, until I decide that seeing as Klara's no fool, I might as well be honest. "I'm protecting myself."

She cocks her head at me.

"I don't even know if he's into guys, let alone if he likes me," I say, well aware of the dangers of widening the circle of people who know about my debilitating crush, "so it's best to just ... not get my hopes up."

If only it were that easy.

I think there's a subconscious part of me that thinks that if Young-mi knows, and Klara knows – and clearly Kristin too – then at some point, it will inevitably come out to Arjun and save me an awkward conversation, and I'll know how he feels. I want him to know that I want him, but I don't want to have to tell him.

"Oh, March, honey," Klara says, her smile dropping into a sad pout. She touches my hand, a brief moment of too-hot contact. "I'm sorry. You guys seem so close, I thought it was, you know..." She mimes with her hands. "Mutual. A two-way street."

"In my dreams."

She lets out a long sigh and a contemplative hum. "Well, you never know until you know. In my experience – and I have my fair share of experience – the guys who let you sleep in their lap and play with your hair and want selfies with you are the ones who like you."

"I don't know," I say. "He's probably straight, anyway."

"What, because he dated a girl?" Klara scoffs and shakes her head at me. "Come on, March. Don't be so old-fashioned. Were you straight when you were dating Lily?"

"No," I say, my argument shrivelling up.

"Someone's dating history has nothing to do with their sexuality." She folds her arms and tuts. "I've only ever been with cis girls, but that doesn't invalidate my pansexuality," she says. "Yes, Arjun might be straight, but don't jump to that conclusion just because he dated a girl."

"Anyway." She shrugs. A hopeful flutter squirms in my belly. "I already lost the bet," she says, quietly tutting. "According to Young-mi – and the sounds from the room next door last night - Carrie and Ade are definitely fucking."

*

The van is sweltering after sitting stagnant for ten minutes and it's torture to get into what feels like a sauna. Everyone has fashioned fans out of folded paper but all it does is move the hot air around.

The engine is on but the aircon isn't, and Sam turns around with his elbow hooked over his seat. "Bit of bad news for y'all."

"Please don't say we're broken down," Kristin says with a groan. The more I talk to Klara, the easier it is to differentiate them. They have ever so slightly different mannerisms, and I doubt Kristin would ever come up to me and ask if I've fucked Arjun.

"Nope, we're all good," Sam says, "but in this kind of crazy heat, and with an uphill drive ahead, we can't have the aircon on else the engine will overheat."

A collective groan of horror and despair goes around the van. I can't deal with this heat, which has taught me about new places I can sweat. Somehow my knees and fingers are sweating, every inch of my skin rebelling.

"I'll roll down the windows but I really don't wanna break down in the middle of Death Valley, so we need to take it slow and steady and treat this old girl well." He pats the dashboard fondly.

It's torture. It's actually, actual torture, expiring in the back of a sweltering van as Sam slowly drives us away from Badwater Basin. I think it must be the gate to hell, as though if I ventured far enough along those eerie expanses of salty flat ground, I'd find a portal to the underworld. The weather here is unbelievable and all I can do in my still-hungover state is to try to survive. It's too much of an effort to talk or do anything but focus on not sweating out every ounce of liquid in my body.

Everyone is uncomfortable. I'm not alone in my sweaty disaster: Klara is madly fanning herself with a sheet of paper while Carrie is virtually panting. Young-mi is visibly distressed, horror on her face as though she has been faced with some atrocity worse than fifty-four degrees in the lowest point in the country. The front windows are rolled down – none of the others open – but we're not going fast enough for cool air to rush at us. Rather, the air that rolls through the van from outside is only slightly less disgustingly hot than the interior.

"This isn't how I thought I'd die," Arjun says, his water bottle crumpling in his hand as he drains it, his head tipped back. "For some reason, I though I'd make it to ninety. I guess I misheard; I'm gonna die at nineteen."

"My body was not made to withstand this kind of treatment," I mutter, wishing I could at least rest my head against the glass, but the window is hotter than anything else. I feel like I'm trapped in a greenhouse in the eye of the sun.

The road winds slowly and steadily upwards, the engine straining under the overpowering heat and the constant incline as we crawl away from the pit of Death Valley. I can't stop checking the time. Sam said we're going to stop at Zabriskie Point, half an hour from Badwater Basin, and I'm counting down the minutes until I can get out of the van before I actually cook from the inside out.

Five down. Then ten. Then twenty. We're getting higher, the air getting cooler, and I don't feel so close to death by the time we come to a stop and Kristin launches herself at the door, yanking it open to spill out.

The air is still hot, but there's a breeze up here that I swear is heaven-sent. A deliciously cool wind blows at us, and our breath is stolen by the view that falls away beyond us. We're high up above the valley now, which seems odd when I never felt we were getting very far, and it sprawls out like an unfolding undulation.

Troughs and peaks roll away from us, mountains and valleys spread out as far as I can see, brightly lit in the middle-of-the-day sun that pummels my back. Sweat springs to my skin again and I swipe at it with the back of my arm, which is just as damp.

The view is literally breathtaking. I can't capture it properly with my camera but I try. I wish I could truly contain every view and every experience in my phone, to snatch moments that I can return to and remember every time I scroll through my gallery. Not that I'll ever forget this. My pictures may be crap, but they'll be enough to spark my memories.

We're all standing around in various states of fanning ourselves and snapping photos. Arjun takes a video as he spins in a circle and I know he's captured me with his lens, probably looking like a gormless twat as I try to cool down and take in the scenery while still dealing with the leftover tendrils of my hangover.

"You'll need to edit that if it's going anywhere," I tell him when he stops recording.

"Nah, I think I got it pretty perfect the first time around," he says with a grin. He shows me the video, panning across the horizon and the impressive, jagged peaks that roar out of the valley, and his grin widens when my face passes across the screen. I don't quite look like a gormless twat – I look worse. I look like I'm looking right at Arjun, and I look totally in love.

Oh, god. Is that what I look like when I look at him?

Fucking hell. There's no way he doesn't know that I am desperately pining for him like some horny little dog. At least I can hold myself back from humping his leg, though that was pretty fucking hard when I had my head in his lap.

"I look gross," I say, just to say something, and I wrinkle my nose. I actually don't look terrible – in the video, you can't quite see how sweaty I am, how shiny my forehead must be – but I do look grossly infatuated. I might as well just thrust my boner in his face.

I should definitely not think things like that, which only enrich the images in my head and make it more likely that I'll end up with another inappropriate erection. Fucking hell, I am in too deep. It's too hard to keep Mum's advice in my head, and all too easy to listen to Klara and Young-mi. They know I like Arjun. They seem to think he likes me too. He hasn't given me any signs that counter that, exactly.

Only two other people have touched my hair like he did, and they were both people I was sleeping with at the time. Whether that means anything or not, I really don't know.

"Where'd you go?" Arjun asks, waving his hand in front of my face. "How's the solar system doing? You're looking a little spacey there, March."

"Sorry, I just totally zoned out," I say, shaking my head and rolling my shoulders to snap out of my inappropriate thoughts. I can't deal with them right now – I need to be alone for that.

Arjun chuckles as Sam begins herding us back into the van – airconditioned now – to drive to our campsite for tonight. "Well," Arjun says, "it looked like you were somewhere good. Take me next time."

The campsite better have showers, because I am in desperate need of a cold one.

*

i hope you liked this chapter! who's your favourite groupie?

below are my photos from badwater basin & death valley, where it really was 54 degrees celsius / nearly 130 fahrenheit when i was there!