Day 4

Despite only a few short hours of sleep, JC was up and waiting for Alice to arrive in the lounge for their morning hike. He had a cup of hot coffee ready for her, prepared the way he’d noticed over the past few days. He doubted Donny had ever once made her coffee.

Alice wandered in a few minutes later, still wiping the sleep out of her eyes. She’d slept nearly ten hours and probably could have done more but she didn’t want to miss her now morning ritual with JC. She was a little sad she conked out before she could see him last night but she doubted she would have been much company given their previous conversation. The rest was definitely what she needed.

“Hey!” JC nearly sprang out of his chair at the sight of her. “How you doing? Did you sleep ok? Oh, I made you coffee,” he handed her the mug he’d prepared.

“Yeah, I’ll be taking that since it seems like you’ve had more than a few cups this morning,” she chuckled and took a sip. “Mmmm, it’s perfect, thank you.”

JC beamed. “So, you slept ok?”

“I did. Passed out hard, actually. Sorry that I missed you.”

“It’s ok. You needed the rest.”

“How’d you sleep?”

“Uh, didn’t really,” JC scratched the back of his neck. “I was up writing. Well, not writing really but jotting down lots of notes and stuff. Just, had a lot I wanted to get out.”

“Like a song?”

“Maybe. I was working on something yesterday morning but then, you know, after we talked, I just needed to unscramble some of my thoughts.”

“Ah,” Alice took another sip. She recognized now what was happening. Once all hell had broken loose back home, people began doting on her. Taking Patrick to school, making sure they had food, all those things you do for a family when someone dies to help out. In her case, however, it was more guilt than charity that was the driving force. “If only I’d known” seemed to be everyone’s refrain, even casual acquaintances. Alice wasn’t resentful, however; maybe if she had let people in, things would have been different.

There was guilt in JC’s eyes and Alice didn’t like it. She didn’t know how to explain to him he’d always been there for her without it coming off creepy. She wondered if that was part of it too; him knowing how she felt about him. At least he was writing, that was a positive sign dealing with his own issues in a roundabout way.

“Morning, Alice. Morning, Josh,” Ivan greeted them with their envelope and a smile.

“I notice you didn’t say “Good Morning”. Exactly what is in that envelope?” Alice crooked an eyebrow.

“No mud on the menu this morning, I promise,” Ivan chuckled and handed it over.

JC took the paper and opened it. “Animal Essence Discovery Walk,” JC announced. “Many animals roam this earth with a uniqueness all their own yet familiarity in their attitudes and desires. Enjoy the mountain air as the trail turns into open fields and you can witness the beauty of the various ecosystems intertwining and your place within them.”

“This is where the bear shows up,” Alice deadpanned.

“So is it a nature walk?”

“Can’t be that simple but looking forward to the view,” Alice downed the rest of her coffee and the duo made their way to the start of the course.

“Now that you have gotten to know each other, describe what type of animal your partner represents to you,” the first sign stated.

“Should have figured,” JC rolled his eyes. “Don’t say lion, people always call me a lion cuz I’m a Leo.”

“It fits though,” Alice started to walk. “You have the ferocity of a lion in you.”

“Maybe at one time but not now,” JC was steadfast in his answer, not regretful but just stating fact in his mind.

Alice truly tried to think about the JC she’d known for these past few days but she knew she was biased. “I think maybe a meerkat,” Alice finally spoke.

“A meerkat?” JC asked in surprise.

“Yeah, they’re curious, always watching things from a distance, not going into a situation until they’ve assessed it. They like to work in groups and are loyal and just want a peaceful coexistence with everyone else. They only get aggressive when they or those close to them are threatened.”

JC thought about it and couldn’t fault the basic logic. “So should I change my name to Timon for the rest of our time here?” he joked.

“No, because I am not going to be your Pumbaa,” Alice shot back with a smile.

“Yeah, Joey is definitely the Pumbaa to my Timon, in that case.”

“Now, see I would have said Lance is Timon in an *NSYNC/Lion King hybrid world.”

“What does that make me?” JC began to laugh.

“Definitely Zazu,” Alice joined in, enjoying the silly comparisons. “Justin is Simba, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Guess that makes Chris Rafiki, which I think actually works.”

“No one is Scar? Or Mufasa?”

“There’s no villain in the group, no matter how much the media wants there to be,” Alice told him. “Dare I ask what you’ve come up with for me?”

“For some reason a fox keeps popping in my brain.”

“A fox? They’re like slick and shit. I don’t see that in me,” Alice made a face.

“They know how to take care of themselves,” JC countered. “They know how to adapt to survive. They are timid and cautious but strike when the timing is right. They are also witty and intelligent.”

“Witty? When is the last time a fox made you laugh?”

“Just now,” JC chuckled and smiled at Alice as she gave him a funny look. She was beginning to see the compliment but still didn’t feel like it fit her.

“So now that we’ve figured out our Patronus, what’s next?”

JC let out a loud laugh. “See, witty. Is a meerkat even an option as a Patronus?”

“It’s an animal so I’d think yes? I don’t know how it all works.”

Another sign appeared and prompted them. “Think about the environment of this animal. What is the climate? Who is around them and how do they treat them? Are they domesticated or wild? Do they act on instinct or think through their actions? How do these things compare to you?”

“Uh, ok,” Alice tried to think. “Well, there are lots of types of foxes so climate is kind of hard. Like you said, they're solidarity creatures so they're gonna be wary and cautious of anyone in their space.”

“Like a meerkat too,” JC thought out loud.

“Wait, this doesn’t make any sense then,” Alice paused. “We didn’t do that when we met each other.”

“Alice, you literally ran from the sight of me,” JC gently reminded her. Alice frowned, still trying to actively forget that part. “I was honestly kind of scared to talk to you.”

“To me? Oh, yeah, makes sense I kind of freaked you out,” Alice started walking again.

“Actually, I meant before that. I used to be good about talking through my thoughts and feelings but it’s gotten a lot harder over the years. The idea of letting a stranger in when I can’t even talk to the people I love…yeah, it was scary.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s…I don’t know. It’s much easier in general than I thought it would be. I feel like I’m confiding in a good friend when I talk to you, which, I guess I am, actually.” Alice tried to hide her blush at JC’s statement. “At the same time, I now care about you. I don’t want to say something that will upset you.”

“JC, I’m pretty sure nearly everyone in your life is an adult. Part of being an adult is having hard conversations. I know I’m not the best example of that but if something was truly important to me, I’d confront Donny about it. I would pick and choose my battles, no doubt, and I knew what the outcome potentially might be for me to even bring up an issue…”

“I guess that’s oddly what I’m getting at. Is the risk worth the reward?”

“What? You afraid Lance is gonna pop you one or something?”

“No, what?” Alice’s response flustered JC. “I wish you wouldn’t make jokes about that. Nothing about what happened to you is funny.”

“No, it’s not,” Alice grew more serious, “but if I can’t joke about it, I’ll never be able to stop crying.” Alice stopped walking again and grabbed both of JC’s hands, turning him to face her. “What do you want to say?”

“Alice, it’s not my place to…”

“You stayed up nearly all night. Obviously something got to you so just let it out.”

“I just…I need to figure out exactly what I want to say,” he broke her hold on him and moved away.

“Stop being so scared of upsetting people and speak up for yourself,” she demanded, knowing full well the irony in she being the one to say that.

“Like you did?” JC quickly countered. “What did you just say? When you spoke up, you got ridiculed, like your opinion didn’t matter.”

“You think that’s what’ll happen?”

“I don’t know. Yes, maybe…” JC stumbled, realizing saying his fears out loud didn’t ring as true as they did in his heart. “How the hell did you do it all those years?”

“Survival instinct,” she simply stated. “Look what happened though? I hid, I didn’t reach out for help. There was far more I didn’t say than what I did. Yes, I survived, but at what cost? Surviving isn’t living.”

JC felt that last line deep in his soul. It spoke to the ache inside him that he knew that’s what he had been doing the past few years. He looked at Alice, trying to live again instead of just survive. Her struggles were so much worse than his but she was doing it day by day. Why did it feel so hard for him anymore?

“What sound does a meerkat make?” Alice asked him.

“Hell if I know. All I can picture is Timon in the grass skirt doing the hula,” JC replied.

Alice laughed and eyed JC. “Well, that’s a mental image I’m keeping. Did you happen to bring your phone? We can google it.”

“No, it’s in my room.”

“Well, make something up.”

“Why?”

“Because you need to let go and just scream. I was trying to keep it in the scope of this weird animal thing but fuck it, just scream.”

“Alice, I can’t just…”

JC was cut off as Alice let out a gutteral, painful scream into the wild. He jumped back as a hidden flock of birds took flight. He stared at Alice, unsure what to do, as she silenced herself and fixed her hair. “Ok, now you,” she instructed him.

“Are you crazy?”

“Pretty sure at this point, yes,” she smiled at him and JC couldn’t help but smile back. Alice grabbed JC’s hand once more. “JC, I got you. Just let go.”

JC eyed Alice skeptically again then turned and let out a yell. It was weak, emanating from his mouth only. He tried again, feeling the reverberation in his vocal chords but knew it still wasn’t right. He felt Alice squeeze his hand and he inhaled deeply, planting his feet steadily into the ground as he let the turmoil and pain that lived in his gut out in a roar that shook the leaves on the closest tree.

“There’s that lion I knew was in there,” Alice cooed as she came up behind JC and hugged his back. JC stood panting, feeling good but unsure all at the same time. He knew the cure couldn’t be that simple but damn if he didn’t feel a little better in the moment.

“Guessing you had a lot of practice with that?” JC asked timidly.

“My car has definitely seen me unravel many times over the years,” Alice let go and started walking again, pulling JC out of his daze to follow her.

“Is that really what got you through?” 

“It helped,” Alice answered. “I don’t have like a concrete list of things, I just did what I had to do. I mean, it’s a super weird comparison but the same could be said during your touring days. You had a really hectic life and you did what you had to do to get through each day before you could rest.”

“A real stretch there but I see where you’re going with it,” JC told her. “I wish I could have helped you more…”

“I knew it!” Alice pointed a finger at him. “Why do you feel guilty for a life you knew nothing about?”

JC stared at her, stunned. That was exactly how he’d been feeling and it was bothering the hell out of him. He logically knew there was literally nothing he could have done and yet… “Maybe if I had just paid attention, all those years ago…” he trailed off.

Alice bit the tip of her tongue between her teeth. She’d imagined it a million times, all the “what if’s” of her life that might have never let her fall prey to Donny but she knew in truth she would have ended up there in every scenario. Here was yet another reality she was going to have to face.

“I’d be Becca,” she calmly told JC. “We’d go out on a date, maybe two but your destiny was set. You were still gonna get ridiculously famous and travel the world. No girl could have survived that.”

JC thought back on Nikki and how his cheating in Europe had ended their relationship. Alice was sadly right. “Why do I feel like I could have done more?”

“Cuz you’re a good man who cares about his friends. You can’t keep putting your issues aside to help others though; by confronting your own, that is actually the best way to help.”

“Not really sure how that’s helping you,” JC mumbled.

“If you weren’t trying to work on yourself, you wouldn’t be here with me, now would you?” Alice smiled at him. “JC,” she breathed, “I know I keep saying it because it’s still hard for me to believe but this, with you, it’s more than I could have ever dreamed. Maybe I died that night and this is heaven.”

“Alice, that isn’t funny.”

“I know, I just, I’m trying to explain to you how much this truly means to me. Just having you listen yesterday…”

“Come here,” JC pulled her tight into an embrace. He didn’t know what to say but he was starting to realize just being there was enough. It was still weird to him that Alice had been harboring all these feelings for him for decades at this point. Being able to give her back just a tiny fraction of that love and appreciation gave him a satisfaction in his soul he didn’t know he was missing.

The duo stayed locked together for sometime, Alice once again taking in the feel of JC’s body against her own. This really was the closest to her own personal heaven she’d ever experienced but it was hard not to feel unworthy still. “I think we failed this challenge,” Alice mumbled into JC’s chest.

“This hike could have been a Buzzfeed quiz,” JC quipped, causing Alice to collapse further into him in laughter. 

“See, that was funny. Let more of that out,” Alice told him as she disengaged from his arms. “Come on, let’s attempt to make some sense of this weird ass exercise,” she started walking once again.

The trail finally leveled as promised to an expansive field, huge boulders smoothed by hundreds of years of weather surrounded the trail that wound along as far as the eye could see. “Consider this area your playground, your safe space,” the sign instructed them. “Now that you have discovered the animal essence inside you, let it out to explore the rest of the trail.”

“Do these people really think grown adults are going to scamper about like animals or something?” Alice re-read the sign for a third time. “I’m pretty sure scampering was something last accomplished in college.”

“It’s really gotta suck if you picked a non-land mammal. Like, if you’re a dolphin, do you just flop around on the ground? That’s depressing,” JC thought.

“Or what about a bird? Just flapping your arms as you walk around,” Alice grimaced.

The two turned towards each other. It was impossible to tell who was egging the other on first but the same thought ran instantly through their minds as smiles crept steadily across their faces. Both parties were nearly bursting at the seams as they simultaneously darted off in different directions, JC instantly hiding behind a rock and Alice rolling into some tall grass.

“This is so stupid,” Alice shouted, unable to contain her giggles any longer.

“Fox rule number one: don’t give away your position,” JC yelled back as he quickly moved to another rock, poking his head out and elongating his neck to scan the area. Alice watched him from the brush and literally covered her mouth to suppress her laughter.

She could hear JC moving about but couldn’t see him. He popped his head back out a few rocks away and Alice took the opportunity to scurry to a different spot once he disappeared again. This felt like some weird game of hide and go seek mixed with tag and she couldn’t believe she could be this carefree and silly anymore.

Alice crouched for a moment and thought. The little she knew about both species was that they were excellent at hiding. This could go on for hours if they were good enough and Alice couldn’t think of a better way to spend her day.

While Alice was pondering, however, JC quietly closed the gap between them. He came up behind and was just about to pounce when his foot stepped on a twig. He froze but it was too late as Alice sprinted from her spot and JC quickly took after her.

Alice screamed and laughed as she tried to outpace JC. She made a sharp turn and dove behind a rock but JC was too quick and he was on top of her before she could get back to her feet. “I guess the meerkat outfoxed the fox,” he straddled her waist triumphantly.

“Something tells me that move was more lion than meerkat,” Alice laughed as she tried to get her breathing back.

“Oh, you want the lion, huh?” JC teased. He grinned as he leaned down and gave a low growl in Alice’s ear. She giggled and tried to turn away so JC bit down firmly but not too hard on Alice’s now exposed neck.

Alice’s breath caught in her throat as her eyes went wide. It felt like time stopped as she took in every sensation: the feel of JC’s mustache brushing against her ear while his cheek bristled with stubble against her own. His hot breath, the way his body felt against her, keeping her pinned. She wasn’t scared at having a man making her feel trapped like she had been before, at least not this man.

JC could feel Alice’s moan reverberate in her throat more than hear it. The realization he’d crossed the line from playing around to something more hit him hard as he abruptly rolled off Alice. “Shit, I’m so sorry,” JC blushed. “I just, um, I got carried away, I guess.”

“It’s ok,” Alice cleared her throat, trying to shake off the feelings JC had arisen in her, at least for the moment. She stood up, her back to JC as she brushed herself off and attempted to compose herself. “I guess I was wrong, I think we aced this one.”

JC went to stand and winced. The looseness of his sweatpants helped mask the fact that he was starting to grow hard and he was grateful for the camouflage as he quickly adjusted himself before Alice could turn around. He truly hadn’t meant anything by his action but understood how Alice could have interrupted it that way. What he didn’t get was why he was now a bit turned on too.

“We should, uh, get back,” JC said awkwardly, feeling like he should say something but wanting to forget the incident all at the same time.

“Probably a good idea,” Alice turned back around with a small smile. JC smiled back and felt a bit more at ease seeing Alice already moving past the situation. He certainly didn’t want it to turn into “a thing”.

Alice had become a pro at hiding her feelings over the years and this was no exception. She knew JC was playing around but still, it felt…she literally couldn’t remember the last time she’d been physically aroused by a man instead of her own thoughts doing the work. She realized that might be something to be careful of when she did start dating again.

The two walked side by side quietly for a few moments before Alice reached over for JC’s hand. Part of it was selfishly wanting to touch him at every opportunity she could but mostly it was because she could see the wheels turning in his head plainly on his face. She wanted to make him feel at ease again.

JC looked down as he felt Alice’s fingers reach around his own. He smiled and breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled her in closer to his side. Despite knowing Alice’s feelings for him, she was still his friend and the last thing he wanted to do was lead her on in any way. Besides, he had a girlfriend back home, on the opposite side of the country, away from Alice. Something didn’t sit right with him realizing this would all be over in a few short days and Alice wouldn’t be there to hold his hand any longer.