Nine Thousand Feet

New personal record: highest elevation at which I have ever embarrassed myself. We hiked up past nine thousand feet and I completely ran out of air and pretended I hadn't. Jacob let me pretend, partly because that's a thing you do for someone you love and partly because he finds my suffering hilarious.

But, you guys. The stars.

I grew up in Vermont. I thought I knew what a night sky looked like. I didn't. Up here, with no town glow for miles, the whole sky just opens. There are so many stars. It's almost rude. We found a patch of flowers and grass that was still warm from the day, lay back on it, and I tried to point out the constellations I knew. There might be four. Jacob let me be confidently wrong about every single one.

I got cold, which at nine thousand feet happens even to me. He gave me his jacket before I even asked. (Running theme of this whole trip: I pack four jackets, wear the same gray hoodie anyway, and Jacob ends up dressing me. I'm not even mad about it.)

Somewhere around the Milky Way I ran out of words, a fact Jacob noted out loud, for the record. Then he kissed the top of my head and we watched a satellite cross the entire sky, and I thought: a year ago I was scared of not being alone inside my own head. Now my favorite place in the world is quiet, right next to him.

Don't tell Ben that I said... never mind. This isn't about him.

— E