In six months, Gwen Johnston turns thirty, and when she does, she vows she'll have her life together. She'll no longer be jumping from one job to another, from one relationship to the next. A new, more mature, Gwen will have emerged. She's giving he...
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Gwen's lists are pretty fucking funny, at least to me. By the time she was done creating her rules last night, there were more than fifty, and I can guarantee she won't remember half of them. They seemed to disappear from her consciousness the minute she wrote them down, as though the act of putting them to paper banished the possibility of any of it happening.
After we've stashed our bags in the back of the cab instead of the truck bed, I start the vehicle and Gwen searches for a radio station. When she lands on something she likes, I decide now is a good time for her first rule reminder. There is a good chance she will hate both the rules and me by the end of today. Rule number one is in full effect—do not be nice to Gwen.
I flip away from the station she's picked and set it on something that plays music more to my taste.
"Hey!" Gwen says, and she swats my hand away.
"Rule breaker," I say, and I make a tsking sound. "Rule ten is no physical contact of any sort, and rule number thirty-six, the only one I added to your list, was that the driver gets to pick the music in the truck."
She lets out a long-suffering sigh. "Do you have a photographic memory or something?"
"Yes, that's exactly what I have."
"That's cheating."
"A genetic gift is not cheating—ask any athlete at the Olympics."
"I think I liked it better when you were quiet and anti-social," she mutters.
"No, you didn't." I can say that with absolute certainty. She lived to try to get me to talk.
"No," she says, sliding a glance my way. "I didn't. But what's that saying about being careful what you wish for?"
"You might just get it."
"Why are you so much more talkative?" She twists in her seat to stare at me. "I'm not saying I don't like it, but it's a big change."
"I'm better one-to-one." Partly true, but I've been wondering myself at how much lighter I've felt the last couple of days. Since the boat trip. As if giving myself permission to enjoy something has released a valve I didn't even realize I'd tightened so much. Then deciding to ask Gwen to travel with me seemed to loosen the grip on my emotions a little more.
I've got five and a half months before I go back to the DRC, and while the start of my trip might have been forced, it doesn't mean the rest of it needs to be. Take it one day at a time.
Unlike Gwen, I'm not worried we'll end up in some grand, doomed love affair. Romantically, I've loved one woman—Diana. Experiencing that once was enough. No desire to have it happen again. Emotional turmoil isn't something I crave.
"When we get to Jasper, can you let me off at the entrance for the Sulphur Skyline Hike? Do you want me to put it into your phone's GPS?"
"Go ahead," I say, and I nod at where my phone is slotted into the console. "Are you meeting an organized group there?"
