How has Camila Grace Bell always had that effect on me? I laughed while trying desperately to hold back my affection for a girl two years younger than me. I combatted feelings that felt like more than friendship or lust, and I harbored guilt for years for thoughts and feelings I couldn’t control. Even that morning, my thoughts were dangerous and wrong.
“Good morning,” she said, not masking her surprise at the sight of me at her tent.
A ping-pong match started in my chest from just the sound of her voice, and I didn’t know how to stop it. “Just coming by to give everyone a wake-up call.” I dared another look at her, which was a mistake.
“Oh,” she said slowly, her eyes dimming some. “I see.”
Ignoring the guilt that was compiling in all the empty spaces of my head and heart, I continued, “We’re heading to the trailhead in an hour.”
Something flickered in her expression before everything hardened. “Great.” She stepped past me. “Then I have time for a shower.”
She walked away, toward the bathhouse, and I couldn’t stop watching her leave.
My favorite part of leading various hikes was the reactions of our guests as we navigated the incline between Mount Sneffels and Wolcott Mountain. Bear sightings were frequent, the wildflowers were aplenty, and the crystal-blue lakes made the hike one of the most scenic and rewarding one could possibly experience in their lifetime.
While I guided the tour, that didn’t always mean that I led it. A few of the more ambitious hikers always liked to walk a little faster than the rest of the pack, which was fine by me. My job was to give everyone stopping points so that we didn’t get too spread out, and ensure that the stragglers didn’t get too far behind. Camila, of course, had taken the lead. Trip, unsurprisingly, was right behind her, while Trip’s sister, Raven, was trying desperately to keep up with me.
Josie and the rest of the hikers were taking up the tail of our group as we ascended over the craggy peaks and endless mountain valleys. I wouldn’t alter anyone’s pace, though, even if I did want to secretly corner Camila somewhere on an uncharted path and take a truly good look at her. But to be attracted to a girl still in high school—a Bell, no less—was wrong, and I would keep reminding myself of that.
I’d left Telluride for a reason. It had been a decision I’d been weighing, but after everything that had happened and everything I’d learned that night, I couldn’t stay. But seeing Camila again reminded me just how innocent she was in all of it and that the ticking time bomb hadn’t just started. It had been ticking since I’d first met the feisty vineyard girl, and it was getting louder, threatening to go off when none of us were ready.
Though it was mean of me to purposely try to out-walk Raven, when it came to the steeper inclines, she slowed down slightly, and I picked up the pace. I’d never had anything against Raven. She was nice, pretty, and sweet. But she also reeked of a desperation I didn’t understand. I’d never gotten to know her the way I had with Camila. I wouldn’t even have considered Raven and me friends, but she seemed to have some other ideas about us.
I took the crumbling rock stairs two at a time and reached the next section of flat land to find Camila in the distance. She was at the first jaw-dropping scenic point, standing right at the tip of a cliff that overlooked an open valley with wildflowers surrounding us. Only she would find comfort at the edge of a steep ravine.
Taking a deep inhalation, I moved toward her. Trip was nowhere in sight when I climbed the rocks to stand beside her. Maybe he’d gone on ahead. All that mattered was that for a moment, we were alone again.
Neither of us said a word as we stood there, basking in the tranquil sounds of nature all around us—from the water flowing over the creek rocks that marked 1.5 miles into our journey, to the susurrus of fir trees as they blew in the wind, and to the wildlife singing their familiar songs.
Crisp air filled our lungs as our gazes panned from one end of the valley to the other. Birds fluttered past us and soared through the endless blue sky.
“Look at that,” she whispered.
I searched above us to find whatever she was seeing just as her hand clutched mine.
“An eagle.” She gasped. “Wait, two eagles.” She pointed at the sky with her free hand and traced the path of the birds as they flew low overhead. One of them swept the valley below before rising again into the sky to soar with the other. Their wings were rounded in shape and short in size.
“Those are red-tailed hawks,” I corrected her without thinking twice about it.
Her head snapped to me. “They’re what?”
“Red-tailed hawks.”
“How do you know that? They just look like big white birds to me.”
The annoyance in her voice over the fact that I knew something she didn’t made me smile. “I used to go bird watching with my mom on the reservation. She was fascinated by these guys, in particular. Their feathers are actually brown on top, but their underbellies are pale, almost white.” I squinted at the sky, where the hawks had risen to soar again in a wide circle overhead. “They love open spaces like this.”
We watched them duck into the valley before they rose back up into the sky.
“Are they—together?”
I smiled again. “Pairs who are courting usually soar together like that.” I nodded at where the male bird was parting ways with the female. “Watch.”
Her eyes faced forward completely, and she gasped as the hawk climbed high into the air and dove as if in a free fall with half-closed wings. When it rose again, it spiraled in its ascent until he was joined with the female again, and they locked their talons together and spun each other in midair.
“Wow,” Camila gushed, her small eyes wider than I’d ever seen them. “What was that?”
“A courtship flight. It’s a territorial ritual they engage in before breeding.”
We watched quietly as the hawks danced through the air then finally swooped down toward the thick with woods beneath us and disappeared.
Long after the birds had left our sight, I could feel Camila’s eyes on me. I met her stare. Unspoken words drifted between us, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I had so much to say. My reasons for leaving were so much more than what I’d confessed to her, and my feelings for her were somehow stronger than they ever had been. Years apart had done nothing to erase the forbidden ache I felt for my Wild One. And I wanted to tell her all of that.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”
Camila and I snapped our heads toward the voice coming from the other side of the trail. Trip stood there among the weeds, looking in the other direction. He was frozen still, and I knew he’d spotted a bear before I saw its black fur rippling as the silent beast crept toward him.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Camila turned her head sharply to me. She’d never heard me cuss, because I’d never found a use for such words until my move to Ouray. Being around so many different campers since working there had changed me. I’d become more outspoken and less worried about what anyone else’s agendas were. I lived for me and for the mountains, and my vocabulary had grown more colorful for it.
“Don’t move a muscle,” I called to Trip. “He’s more afraid of you than you are of him. Remember that. Got any bear spray on you?”