Picking Stones Chapter 2

"Too Early"

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3 & 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6 & 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter 10; Chapter 11; Chapter 12 & 13; Chapter 14, 15, & 16; Chapter 17 & 18; Chapter 19; Chapter 20; Chapter 21; Chapter 22; Chapter 23 & 24; Chapter 25 & 26; Chapter 27; Chapter 28; Chapter 29; Chapter 30; Chapter 31 (Final Chapter)

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Too Early

My eyes opened first. Neck and back stiffness rocketed to life a few moments later. Sunlight was peeking through the paper blinds. They had a crease in them; I always told Beth to not lean her stuff against the window. She never listened. I turned around and unearthed the arm I had spent the last few hours sleeping on. My phone was ringing, somewhere.

Where the hell was it? A million thoughts billowed into my brain all at once. Last night, exhaustion, the tingling in my arm, the whereabouts of my phone. I wanted to scream but found no voice. The dead right arm swept across my body. It fell to the floor. There’s the phone, I saw, right next to my fallen hand.

Brain sent signals to hand to grab phone. Nothing. Just pins and needles sending pulses of anxiety straight into my chest. It gripped me tighter and tighter as I struggled to get a full breath. The incessant ringing seemed to grow louder. I shook my arm; it hung low. Sucking in a breath, I tried to go deep. Whatever invisible source forcing the lungs to constrict made me gasp for more.

The ringing phone had grown deafening. Neighbors must have been waking at this point. I’d be sure to hear about it from annoying neighbor #3 tomorrow.

Wait. Hold on. My thumb twitched. It was almost back. Looking down at the phone, I saw Phil’s face on the screen. The time showed a few minutes after six. He had told me I needed to be ready for six sharp so we would get a good parking spot at the hiking trail.

He was here. I was late.

With whatever the opposite of grace and fluidity was, I pushed the rest of my body off the couch and into the real world. Heart rate began returning to normal. While I brushed my teeth I tried to remember if I had any dreams the night before.

Nope. Just that terrifying inky blackness. The thought of which forces my eyes wide open just as I’m about to doze off. A reminder of what’s to come.

Phil’s yellow Wrangler was jerking to a harsh stop at every light on Austin Street. Hard Rock was blaring from the speakers. With each screeching halt he turned his head with a wry smile and peered at me through his sunglasses. Nausea came over me then and as I write this. Sorry if I inflicted any on you, too.

“I wouldn’t be rushing if we had left when we were supposed to,” he said as he pulled his hat snug over his curly brown hair. I had postponed our departure by a mere eleven minutes, and ignored his comment, trying not to get sick. In response to my nonresponse, he cranked up the music and finally lurched the car onto the Grand Central.

I tried to sleep. No dice. Once my eyes couldn’t escape the sun blinking through the suspension cables of the Whitestone Bridge, I knew it was time to give up. It didn’t help that the car gave a harsh shake at every little imperfection it drove over on the road.

The GPS showed just under an hour to Cold Spring. The boots on my feet felt snug. A slight frost was melting off the windows. I should’ve dressed warmer. It was only early October, and today was the first day it felt cold.

As we drove further north, the scenery changed. Little by little, the beauty Phil had sworn we’d see was revealing itself to us. Everything that happened yesterday was barely registering in my brain. It was bizarre. I felt my head slowly sinking further back.

Everything around me seemed to fade. A fog wrapped around my mind. The breakup wasn’t even a factor. I wondered why I decided to agree to join Phil on this hike. After years of him asking and me rejecting, the one time I finally agreed was the day after Beth left me. It didn’t make much sense. Was there a connection between the two?

Nope. I shook off the thought. It wasn’t like me, thinking like that. It was dumb. Straightening myself in the passenger seat, I dragged myself out of whatever came over me and then re-acclimated with the real world. Phil was singing along to a song that was blasting through the car speakers.

A minute later the Hudson River came into view. Mountains stretched behind the river. Houses were tucked between the greenery, a beautiful sight. We crossed over a small bridge and veered right up the road before finally cutting through the village tucked at the base of the mountain.

Washburn Trailhead was etched into the blue sign that greeted us as Phil pulled into the parking lot. He saw the look on my face, “Wait till we get up top.” He was beaming with pride.

“You don’t own the land, Phil,” I said. He laughed and slammed the brakes.

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“Did you see all the cars in the lot? That’s why I was emphasizing the importance of leaving early. Once people start showing up this trail turns into a nightmare.”

Phil was still going on about leaving eleven minutes late. There was a total of three cars in the parking lot when we arrived.

Four feet trudged up a gravel path. It had a steep incline and there was nothing to see. A sweat broke out on my forehead. Good thing I dressed light.

Just as I thought that, a cold wind whipped around us. I shivered. The hair raised on my neck. That feeling again. Not from the cold, but of being watched by something.

“I gotta admit, I was expecting to see some views,” I said. It had been ten minutes of us just walking up that gravel path. It was ten feet wide with no end in sight. Thick green trees loomed above us on both sides of the trail. The leaves didn’t turn in this part of New York until later in October.

“Just wait on it,” Phil said. “It’ll be worth it.”

What I didn’t tell him was that it already was. There was a peaceful silence, even with the crunching of the gravel beneath our feet. I never experienced nature before. Never went camping or anything like it. Being out there that morning, it was kind of therapeutic.

But like all therapy, it made a few bad memories boil up to the surface. Well, no, not bad, just painful. Things that were gone. Things I had missed. Two in particular, actually.

The trail faded, my breath got lighter, I was sent somewhere else. The leaves shaking in the wind were replaced with the hum of an air conditioner. There was a book in my hands that was pretty beat up. The Westing Game.

It was the middle of the summer; I couldn’t have been older than eleven. The last page turned. Book closed. I could see myself placing the book on the old dresser next to the couch, where my grandfather’s old cash register from his shoe repair sat. My grandparents had kept it as a memory of a passed time.

The sound of a frying pan came sizzling to life. I could almost smell whatever it was my grandmother was cooking. The next was the jingle of the door opening, my grandfather home from the park. He’d been retired since I was three, and the two of them had spent their golden years babysitting the grandkids.

Before he had a chance to think, I was begging him to take me to the library. He knew it would be a two-hour endeavor of waiting in the car for me as I scoured the shelves. In the part of Queens where I grew up, there was never parking. At least the car had air conditioning.

My grandmother wouldn’t give him a choice—not that he’d say no to me—and we’d be off in his silver Chevy Impala. Fast forward ten minutes and I was lost in the library, hunting down any title that caught my eye. Hours later I’d jump in the car carrying a pile of books. The rest of the day was spent sitting next to my grandfather as I read and thought up my own stories until my parents came home from work and picked us up.

He was gone now. The rest of his life spent watching us grow up and become uninterested in him as he and my grandmother scorned vacations and going out into the world just to watch ungrateful grandkids ready to jump out of the house at the first opportunity.

Was it worth it? I wondered if he’d be disappointed about how I turned out. All those rides to the library, the stacks of books lining his house that I’d read, the stories and articles I had written. Just to take the safe route and drop it all like some bad and distant memory. Of course he was disappointed—er, would be disappointed. It’s not like he could see now. I guess it’s better off that way. Right?

The trail blurred back into view. Then it ended. We stood in front of a huge quarry. Tan rock and sand were cut into the side of the mountain. It was massive, but not very pretty. Squinting my eyes, I could make out a lining of trees at the top.

Phil could read the disappointment in my face. He tapped my shoulder. “Read the sign, dude.” My eyes followed the direction his finger pointed to see a wooden sign with the word “Trail” painted in white. Next to the sign was a little opening in the trees and a gray rocky trail that disappeared behind a curve.

“Great,” I said. “I was hoping the hike was over.”

Phil groaned and led us through the trees and onto the trail.

“If one desires to find inner peace, one must first learn to let go of their natural instincts,” he said.

“Where’s that from?” I asked.

“It’s from me just now,” he said with a laugh. “It means chill out and don’t make me regret bringing you with me today.”

He was starting to break me, as usual. I laughed and tried to keep up behind him. Not an easy feat when he was already clear ahead of me. The two of us had been friends since grammar school. He was a wedding photographer, and he seemed to have the life. As much as I hated to admit it, I envied Phil in a lot of ways.

The two of us had been inseparable as kids and ended up going to college together. Our timelines split after we graduated. Phil had tried talking me into a “life-changing” Europe trip for post-graduation. He had convinced me, as usual, until I got the call. An internship opportunity that started the week after I was set to get my diploma. It was with the company I still worked for. I had to cancel on Europe and opted for a weekend trip to the Jersey Shore pounding beer and funnel cakes while he went off to Amsterdam and returned “enlightened.”

According to Phil, his “true self” had come home, while the carcass of his former self had been left lying in a hostel bed somewhere on Kalverstraat. His ego had been shed in some life altering experience. Once he got home, he decided that he needed to pursue his passion for photography. Now he’s got his own business and with that, the life.

It’s hard for him to understand that we live in different worlds. He’s got the time to sit around and think about his feelings and tries to get me to do the same. It’s been six years of blathering about it and yet he still hasn’t gotten the hint that I don’t want to hear it.

We hoisted ourselves up two large boulders and I caught sight of the parking lot far below us. A hawk soared overhead, and I followed it until it got lost over the river. My mind was busy juggling the pros and cons of telling him about Beth leaving me. I tried to focus on whatever Phil was saying—not easy. It was something about a singing bowl he had just bought.

“I’m telling you, Will. You need a singing bowl. I feel like half of your problems will disappear just from the stress release. It’s only a couple hundred bucks, and it gets LOUD. After a couple minutes it had me letting go of everything. For a second I thought I was in the same plane the truffle experience brought me to.”

I snorted. The truffle experience was what had spurred his life changing experience in Amsterdam. “You need trust me on this and try it.”

“Try what? The singing bowl or the truffles?”

“The singing bowl! But wait, the truffles too. Actually, both at the same time would be incredible!” He grabbed my arm and I yanked it away.

“Are you trying to piss me off?” I said.

“How does that piss you off? I’m just talking. You’re too high strung. I think it’ll do you a lot of good to try and relax for once. Speaking of, have you tried writing again?”

My temples were tight. I shut my eyes and sucked in air. He wanted the best for me, but always brings it to this. Thinking he knows what I need better than I do. I scrambled up another boulder and took a break to catch my breath. Looking at his face, I knew he was just about ready to get into how much happier I’d be if I had pursued writing. I didn’t feel like fighting with him—just yet at least. There was another two hours before we finished the hike. I needed to end the conversation.

The river was churning. Behind it stood another mountain, I think Phil said it was called Butter Mountain on account of it looking like a big lump of butter, or so the Dutch thought. Looking down, I saw we were at the top of the quarry. A freight train rolled along the river and wrapped itself against the lump of butter. I took in a gulp of air.

“Beth and I broke up.”

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