I was almost blinded by the sun directly upon my eyes and for a second I couldn't make out where we were. I jumped out of the car blindly and felt myself sway from hours of dormancy.
The air was cold, despite the brilliant sunlight and when my eyes finally adjusted, the breath was robbed of me when I beheld the cliff before us. We were parked just a little distance away from the edge of the cliff and beyond that all I could see was a sea of clouds.
The others were still slumbering. Sam had his head resting on Josh's who was still leaning against his shoulder. Tyler was hugging Sam's arm. Darren and Brian at the back had their heads turned the opposite direction to each other.
I looked back at the cliff and there sitting dangerously close to the edge was Claire, leaning back on her elbows as she looked out at the clouds as if they were fluffy pillows, beckoning us– luring us into jumping into its deceptive safety.
I staggered toward her and stopped just a few feet behind. "Wow," I said, my breath fogging in front of my face.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" She asked without turning to look at me. "This was why I insisted we start our journey at night so that we'd be here in the morning for this."
I carefully edged closer and sat next to her. "How did you know about this place? I don't think anyone else is around."
Indeed, the plain behind us looked untouched by any other humans.
She shrugged. "Just something I came across after...high school."
Meaning after Jake died, she'd came here alone.
"What the fuck," Sam said in greeting and I flinched, having not heard him come up behind us.
"Whoa!" Tyler screamed from the car and his voice echoed back a few seconds later.
Sam grinned and screamed to hear his own echo.
The others woke up from that and came out of the car to marvel at the sight. Claire sagged on her ground and closed her eyes.
"Did you not sleep at all?"
She gave a lazy shake of her head. "We got here half an hour ago and I didn't want to stop before as it would've been dangerous for everyone to go to sleep."
"I told you to wake me up if you got tired."
"I'm fine. Besides you looked like you hadn't had a good night's sleep in a while."
Which was true. Ever since Brian suggested we take a break from each other, I hadn't slept peacefully. I couldn't manage anything but a troubled sleep because I had to get used to an empty bed after I had shared it with him for five or so years.
"I don't think we'll leave here anytime soon. You should sleep in the car."
"It's fine," she repeated but Sam overheard her and without warning, hauled her up in his arms causing her to shriek, and walked her to the car.
"No arguing. Sleep," he said as he settled her on the seat and made sure she was comfortable.
Brian sat a little far away from us, wordlessly looking into the drop.
Darren came up and sat next to me. He nodded toward Brian. "You need to talk to him."
"I know," I said and dragged my gaze away.
***
Claire must've been super tired because she didn't wake until it was way past lunchtime and my stomach was growling. We had some snacks we packed but decided we should find a restaurant to eat at. There wasn't be much choice in this region so we settled for the first thing that would give us food.
While continuing on through hills and forests, we found a shabby hotel close to evening and safe to say we had a raging appetite once we settled in for dinner and almost wiped a whole week's worth of their groceries.
Then we decided to stay the night. It slipped my mind that my friends would try to do something and I was too late when they declared there were just three rooms and Josh and Sam would share one, Claire, Darren and Tyler the second one which left Brian and I the last room.
Brian didn't protest against the arrangements and silently walked off toward our room. I glared at each of my friends and they only gave me suggestive glances and Claire told me to jump him the moment the door closed.
After a lot of stalling, I finally entered our room and realized Brian was in the shower. When he got out, I wordlessly walked past him to shower and brush my teeth. When I was done, he had made his bed on the floor with his back facing me.
It wasn't like we had never slept together and there was no comfortable space here to sleep on the floor and yet he still chose to sleep there rather on the big bed.
All my plans of not being the first one to talk and hoping he'd initiate a conversation went down the drain as I flared up with rage. "Is it so revolting to sleep next to me?" I asked, slamming my towel on the the bed. It made a loud slapping sound against the bedsheet.
He didn't turn toward me, just let out a harsh breath from his nose and mumbled, "Just go to sleep, Brooke."
"You ruined everything," I spit out. "Everything was going great. I don't know what happened to us. You never gave an explanation. You just decided one day I was no longer good enough for you and left. So much so that you can't even stomach sleeping next to me."
He buried himself further under the covers. "I don't want to talk about this."
"You broke my heart, Brian. And I don't have the slightest idea what I did wrong."
He didn't reply. I stormed to the bed and switched off the lights.
Alone in the big bed with Brian in the same room, I silently let my tears fall and soak my pillow, the way I'd done since he left me and I was left wondering what I did wrong, if I fell short of something, if he grew bored of me or if I was never good enough for him to begin with and he had tolerated me all this time and wasted both of our time and emotions in the process.