AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“As long as it takes,” he answered, already heading toward the front door.
“As long as it takes?” I asked a now empty room, following right behind him. “Nicholas! As long as it takes to do what? As long as it takes to do what?!”
It was beautiful out here.
I smiled to myself as I took in a breath of fresh air, letting the scent of mossy old trees and green, green grass fill my lungs. This was the part of hiking that never seemed to get old, even if I’d been on enough trails to cover a lifetime. It was the sort of thing that’d made me want to commit myself to nature, that made me want to be a part of Wild Woods, too.
I loved nature even though it seemed indifferent about me.
A one-way relationship that I wouldn’t have traded for anything else in the world.
Nicholas hadn’t said much to me since we’d started our trek, his focus on the steps ahead of us, his gaze often switching from the trail behind us to the further reaches of the forest. I wasn’t sure if he was counting our steps or figuring out our location, his silence making him even more impossible to read than usual.
Finally, my curiosity got the better of me, my pace now matching his, step for step.
“Nicholas, where are we going exactly?—”
“Nowhere,” he interrupted, with a wide grin on his face. “At least, nowhere in particular.”
“So, we’re hiking to nowhere?”
“We’re hiking to anywhere that we want to go,” he corrected. “We’re hiking until we decide we’ve had enough.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are we hiking until we’ve had enough, instead of, you know, having an actual destination in mind?”
“Because it’s not about the destination,” Nicholas replied. “It’s all about the journey.”
“Ugh. You should write one of those cheesy greeting cards from the grocery store.”
“Maybe.” Nicholas lightly chuckled before he knelt toward the forest ground. “But here. Come take a look at this.”
I knelt down next to him, now looking at a patch of bright purple flowers with spots of brown in each of their centers. It almost looked like the flowers had throats, open and exposed, waiting for their next meal.
“What are we looking at?” I asked.
“Heal-Alls,” Nicholas answered, one of his fingers gently brushing against a petal. “People used to use these for everything, because of their medicinal properties. Although, I think they were usually used to help heal sore throats.”
“Because they look like they have throats of their own?” I joked.
“Actually, yes.” Nicholas nodded as he spoke. “There wasn’t much in the way of science back then, so people just assumed that the way a plant looked was also what it was meant to be used for. Like nature itself was giving them helpful hints.”
“Huh,” I hummed before softly touching one of the flowers. “You learn something new every day.”
I glanced over at Nicholas, suspicion lining my gaze. His eyes soon met mine, his expression leaning toward being perplexed by the look on my face.
“Uh, Parker? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“What’s your deal, Nicholas?”
“You know, you’ve asked me that before.” He chuckled again. “And I thought I already made it pretty clear?—”
“I’m dead serious,” I interrupted, already shaking my head. “Nothing about you makes sense. You’re this gruff, firefighter type, but you’re also the most graceful person on their feet I’ve ever seen. I know you’re an athlete, too, with the whole rugby playing thing, but you don’t have any meathead tendencies, at all. I mean, you’re sitting here explaining the medicinal properties of flowers?—”
“People aren’t allowed to be more than one thing?”
