Chapter 12: : Chapter 12

Paul pulls a letter from the pocket of his jacket as soon as we get into the van the next morning. Yesterday we agreed he’d give me a letter every day and let the story unfold over the course of our trip. I want Gram with me every step of the way; stretching it out this way is like having her right next to me.

“Now we start with chronological order,” Paul says, handing the letter over.

Theo leans over from the driver’s seat. I can smell the coffee we drank together, the hotel soap scent that’s all over my skin, too.

“This is after we’d started dating,” Paul continues. “I figured you didn’t need to see any more of us fighting our feelings.”

I turn, taking in Paul’s fond smile, chest aching, before straightening in my seat. Theo’s gaze snags with mine on the way, his expression unreadable. His jaw is dusted with a few days’ worth of whiskers. I swear to god if he grows a beard, I’ll—

Blinking away from him and that dangerous train of thought, I open the letter, tracing the words. “How long had you been dating?”

“Several weeks,” Paul says. “We were still learning about each other, but the deep feelings came quickly.”

Theo thumbs at the letter’s corner, his voice low in my ear. “Let’s read.”

I take a breath, imagining Gram’s voice in my ear instead, saying these words out loud.

That last sentiment slices through my chest like a stone being dropped into water, settling deep. I think of my camera bag nestled in the trunk, of the pictures I’ll have to take today. How is it possible to want something as equally as you fear it?

My gaze strays to Theo, whose eyes are still moving across the paper. His jaw ticks when he finishes, his gaze lingering on whatever words have captivated him before he looks at me. I can’t read the emotion in his eyes, but it’s heavy enough to snag my chest.

I break our connection, turning back to Paul, who’s watching us with barely concealed amusement. “Gram ended up being a teacher, you know. She went to school—well, back to school—after my dad and uncles were older.”

Pride shines in Paul’s voice. “Yes, I heard through our mutual friends she’d done that.”

That piques my curiosity. “Did you ever get in touch with her yourself?”

“She sent me and Vera a wedding gift, along with a nice note, which I couldn’t help but write back to,” he says fondly. “But before that and after, no, we didn’t talk at all. Once we were in other relationships, it was best not to. I knew she was happy with Joe.”

“Did it hurt, hearing about her life?”

“Right after we separated, yes. But after a while, and especially after my divorce, hearing about all of the things she was doing gave me hope that I’d get it right at some point, too.”

That’s something I haven’t felt in so long—hope that things will shift into the shape I confidently sketched out when I was young.

“People rarely get it on the first try, Noelle,” Paul says quietly. His eyes slip past me to Theo. His arms are crossed over his chest, his eyes locked on his grandfather’s, searching. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t make you less of a success story in the end.”

Theo’s lips press together as he looks down. The right side of his hair is a little flat, and there’s a trace of a pillow mark on his cheek. He looks impossibly human right now; it taps a fissure into my heart.

Our gazes clash again, magnetic. It’s too powerful to look away from, so thank god it’s Theo who breaks the connection this time, shifting in his seat as he sticks the key in the ignition.

I wipe my palms on my thighs, folding the letter as the engine growls to life.

“Enough distractions,” Theo says. “Shepard has some pictures to take.”

Theo pulls into the parking lot at Tunnel View an hour later. It’s a popular viewpoint that overlooks El Capitan, Bridalveil Fall, and, in the distance, Half Dome, as well as an endless, lush spread of green. A few groups roam the parking lot, making their way to the stone wall that separates us from total majesty.

My brain is dreaming up photos instantly.

Theo’s got my backpack unzipped when I get to the trunk, but he doesn’t touch my camera. Instead, he stands there, arms crossed while I extract it from its case with shaky hands.

I take in his bodyguard-like stance and go back to last night—

I hold it up for inspection. “Is it everything you thought it’d be?”

“And more,” he says dryly, but there’s pleasure in his eyes. Without another word, he turns on his heel and makes his way toward the lookout.

Paul removes his camera, winding the strap around his neck, and I nearly choke on my tongue.

“Is that a Hasselblad?”

He holds up the gorgeous camera as we walk, like he doesn’t have four thousand dollars of extraordinary photography magic sitting in his palm. “My favorite. I’ve reverted back to film, mostly. I hardly use digital anymore.”

“Where do you get your prints developed?”

“I have a darkroom at home.” He nods to Theo. “Teddy set it up for me.”

My gaze follows Theo, tracking across his shoulders, looser this morning. I get the feeling he’d do anything for his granddad. It’s becoming an uncomfortable soft spot, the place where our kinship roots deeper with every detail Paul feeds me.

Paul pulls me out of my spiraling thoughts. “It’s okay if it takes time for photography to feel right again.”

“What do you mean?”

We stop next to Theo, who’s perched on the wall. The wind ruffles Paul’s hair back from his forehead, and he squints against the strengthening sunlight.

“After Kat left school, there was a time when I didn’t touch my camera. I felt disconnected from my love for it. Disconnected from life, really. When I picked it back up, it took me time to get reacquainted. I had to figure out what I wanted to find through the lens.” He squeezes my shoulder gently. “You’re old friends who haven’t talked in a while, Noelle. Get to know each other again.”

I nod, fumbling with my camera as I move to the edge of the lookout.

Theo backs up toward Paul, making space for me.

“Don’t choke.” He gives me a crooked smirk. It’s what he’d murmur when he passed me in the hallway on match days. Hearing him say it in a low voice was like hearing my opponent yell it across the court, except more delicious. Below the taunting tilt of the words was the assurance that I choke. He may have thought he was better than me, but he knew I was really fucking good.

Want and fear have been battling it out, but with Theo’s words, the want wins.

I check the ISO and aperture settings, adjust my shutter speed. Then, for the first time in six months, I put my eye to the viewfinder. My finger smooths over the shutter release, as light as the breeze that winds through my hair.

My mind goes blank, even as nerves dance under my skin. There are people around, but it’s a hum of energy, a soft buzz until it’s nothing. Until there’s no sound but my own heartbeat.

The last time I did this, I was with Gram. Somehow, I’m doing it now, and she’s here again. Or still.

I expel my emotion in the form of a watery exhale. Out of the corner of my eye, Theo rocks forward on his heels, but Paul cuffs his elbow.

I catch a solar flare in my lens and microscopically shift my weight on my right leg, leaning so it slices more fully into the shot. I press the shutter release. The gentle click of the lens sounds like a firework.

Like that, the anticipatory anxiety is gone. I take a few more shots. My arms crawl with goosebumps. I pull back to watch the hairs rise, the skin under turning textured, and wish I could capture that, too. Then I turn to Paul, who’s lowering his own camera, beaming, and feel my smile spread across my mouth like the sun over the valley.

I shift my gaze to Theo. He comes up behind me, curving over my shoulder like he did in his kitchen. It’s equally distracting, but not nearly as annoying, and that makes my heart beat with a thrill and fear.

“Let’s see if these are TikTok approvable, Shep.”

I press the playback menu and scroll through the pictures I just took, the ones I’ll eventually share with thousands of people. Ones they’ll hopefully love.

I wait for the voice in my head telling me I’ll never amount to anything, but it doesn’t come.

Instead, I hear my own voice, assuring me that, though these photos aren’t the best I’ve ever taken, at least I them. Maybe it doesn’t have to be my best to still be enough.

We spend the morning exploring the valley and drop in to the Ansel Adams Gallery. Paul waxes poetic about his technical skill and use of previsualization, as well as his enduring conservationist beliefs. Theo catches my eye at one point, his mouth twitching.

, he mouths, and I bite against a smile.

We eat lunch on the Ahwahnee Hotel’s patio and the temperature climbs with the sun. Before my sandwich arrives, I’m peeling off my thin fleece pullover. I’m wearing a cropped tank underneath, nothing special, but Theo’s eyes linger through the rest of lunch, sending a shot of electricity down my spine.

.

I drain my iced tea, but it does nothing to quench this specific thirst.

On our shuttle ride to our Mirror Lake hike, Paul insists on sitting across the aisle from us. I spend the entire time staring down at Theo’s thigh nearly pressed against mine.

Thighs should not be so beautiful, especially smashed against a plastic seat.

Besides the continued struggle with my attraction to Theo, though, the day has been perfect. I’m trying to remember the last time I felt this content, but I can’t. There’s no small amount of shock in the realization that some of that contentment is directly tied to Theo’s company, though I don’t dwell on the reason.

Paul’s hiking sticks tap against the hard-packed dirt as we get onto the trail. “I can’t believe I haven’t asked this yet, Noelle, but have you ever been to Yosemite?”

I adjust my backpack, nodding. “A few times with my family. It’s been years, though. I forgot how beautiful it is.”

“It’s my favorite place in the world,” Theo says from beside me.

I turn to him, surprised at this voluntary share. “Yeah?”

He nods. The sun filters down through the thick canopy of trees, dappling his face and hair with afternoon light, caressing his shoulders. “I don’t know how many times I forced my granddad to camp here—”

“At least twenty.”

Theo gives Paul the smile he reserves for him alone—pure happiness, unabashed affection. “There’s something about it. It’s quiet, but not a heavy kind of quiet. Just peaceful. Feels like you can breathe here.”

I stare at him, trying to work out exactly what he means.

I’ve felt it in grief, but I’ve also seen it in the low tones in which his dad used to speak to him, a firm hand gripping his shoulder, in the grim silence after Theo got a lit paper returned to him with a 93 written at the top. I have to make assumptions. He’ll never tell me, but it still feels like he’s revealed something.

“What’s your second favorite place?” I ask.

“New Zealand as a whole. Milford Sound especially. I cried a little.”

My mouth drops open. “No, you didn’t.”

He gives me a sly look. “I love that I could not tell you and you’ll wonder forever.”

“Your grandson is a total menace, Paul.”

His laugh is jovial. “Sweetheart, I know.”

I continue my line of questioning, curious now. “How many countries have you been to?”

“I’ve stalled out at forty-two. Haven’t had much of a chance to travel the past couple years,” Theo says, his mouth twisting with obvious displeasure.

I look over my shoulder at Paul. “And you?”

“Ninety-seven.” He nods his chin at Theo. “He’s trying to catch up with me.”

“Forty-two is pretty impressive.”

“Yeah,” Theo agrees, but it’s not smug. He seems in awe of it, and confirms that when he continues, “I realized early on what a privilege it was to be able to travel. Granddad drilled into my head that seeing the world is expensive, and it requires time people may not have. I can’t do anything about the time part of it, but Where To Next was born from the idea that everyone should be able to afford a full-package experience.”

“I love the off-season packages you offer,” I admit. “Gram and I went to Scotland a couple years ago and practically paid pennies.”

His attention turns keen. “Do you use it often?”

I lift a shoulder. “When I have the time and money. Before Gram died, I didn’t have much of either. There’s no way I would’ve gone on the trip without the off-season deal. Gram would’ve wanted to pay for my way, and it would’ve turned into this big argument of me not wanting to be a burden—”

Gah. Major overshare. I bite my lip to prevent further confessions, but Theo seems to have a one-track mind.

“Do you think it’s a necessary feature?” he presses.

“Yeah, everyone I know has used it at least once. It’s the biggest draw of your app, in my opinion.” I eye him. “Why are you asking? Are you using me as some sort of one-woman focus group?”

He runs a hand over his jaw, distracted now. “Yeah, I guess.”

We spend the next few minutes walking in silence before coming up to a portion of the trail where a creek is revealed, water rushing over huge craggy rocks. Behind it, a massive slab of mountain thrusts into the sky. My fingers start tingling, and my heart beats faster at the feeling in response. It’s been so long since I’ve wanted to shoot anything so badly my fingers tingled.

“Can we stop real quick?” I ask, already popping the cover off my lens. “I want to get a few shots here.”

“Go ahead,” Paul says.

I scramble toward the edge, staying a safe distance from the drop, though it’s not significant. It’s just rocky, and the water below looks freezing.

But when I look through the viewfinder, the angle is all wrong. The pictures I took this morning weren’t my best work, but I need to get up to speed quickly so I can capitalize on the attention and followers TikTok has afforded me. I want to make more videos. Need to, actually, and I want it to be with work that shines.

Which means I need to scoot closer so I can get this shot.

Theo’s voice is sharp behind me. “What are you doing? You’re going to fall in.”

I slide an inch forward so the toe of my hiking boot rests on a rock. “I’m not. I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you? Because you’re way too close to the edge.”

I peer through the viewfinder again. Almost there. If only Theo would shut up so I could concentrate. “I know my body placement better than you, Spencer.”

I inch forward. It’s almost perfect, almost—

“Shepard, don’t—”

But it’s too late. The heel of my hiking boot slips on a wet patch of rock, and I’m falling.