Lotte’s eyes were closed, her head against the headrest as she mouthed the words to the song on the radio. On her lap, her fingers drummed the beat, and her shoulders swayed back and forth with the song.

Looking at her, my feelings were confused; conflicted. She wasn’t just the little sister of my best mate. She was a woman, her own person, someone I couldn’t tidily define anymore. She’d seemed too happy to see me at her hotel, despite what I’d put her through.

And those eyes. When she looked at me, really looked at me, it was as if I could see down into the depths of her soul—something I didn’t want the ability to see. For some reason, Lotte’s opinion of me mattered more than I cared to admit. And knowing I’d hurt her more than once didn’t settle easily on my conscience.

But for the moment, it was just her and me, on the open road.

I cranked up the radio volume, and she turned to me.

“What?” I asked.

She just smiled and leaned out the window, her arm moving like it was a part of the wind that we cruised through. The smile on her lips was so peaceful, so soft. With her eyes closed and her hair streaming out the window, she looked nothing like the Lotte I’d known for so many years. She looked free. Unrestrained by her own self.

The headache from weaning off the pain pills was little bother when we were like this. It was easy to ignore the pain that wrapped around my head, but it was harder to hide the shakes. It was why I was grateful for the grip of the steering wheel in my hands. I’d grabbed some anti-nausea medicine at a gas station and would be taking them as religiously as possible over the next few days.

I’d brought only a few days’ worth of pain pills with me. I’d worried, crossing the ocean, that they’d be discovered in my bag, but keeping them in an old prescription bottle had done the trick, and they’d been safely transported across the world. But because I only had a few days’ worth, I knew I had to ration them well so that when we were flying back home, I wasn’t a bloody mess on the plane.

The radio changed to a new song, and Lotte pulled her head back into the car. “God, that feels amazing,” she said, pressing the backs of her hands over her face. “The sun is so warm, and the wind is just warm enough.” Her hair was a wild mess around her face, but it looked good on her. She was this woman who was always so carefully restrained, and seeing her let loose was a pleasure.

“We’re only about thirty minutes away.” I turned the radio down.

“I can’t wait.”

I gave her a funny look. “Really? You seemed so adamantly against even attempting this.”

Shrugging, she said, “I had resigned myself to waiting out my time until I went home.”

“’Waiting out my time,’ makes it sound like a prison sentence,” I said on a laugh.

“Well, this boot sure feels like a chain.” She rapped her knuckles on the hard plastic. “But, I don’t know, it just feels better knowing you’re going to be there too.” She stopped speaking abruptly, and when I glanced at her, she was looking straight ahead. A light mist of pink colored her cheek.

“I’m glad I’m going with you, Lots.” And not just to help her, but for selfish reasons too. I liked the idea of being with her, being the one who helped her through this. Whatever my other transgressions, if I could help her physically finish this trip, I’d feel a little better about everything else I’d done to bring a frown to her face.

“I tried,” she began, picking at the bottom of her shirt. “I thought that I needed to get out of London, and really live this life with no regrets, you know?” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “After my sister died, and so young too, all I kept thinking about was how she didn’t really get to live this grand life that people constantly shove down our throats—this grand adventure you’re supposed to seek in your twenties.” She laughed humorlessly. “I’m glad I did it; glad I tried everything I did. But I’m realizing that grand adventure isn’t for me. I’m happy being home.”

“And if you hadn’t come, you wouldn’t have known that about yourself. You’d always have wondered.” I was thinking out loud when I said that, but she nodded along with me.

“Exactly. I’m never going to be a world traveler. And I think, for me, it was about accepting that about myself and not feeling less than for being a person who likes being at home.”

“You’re an accomplished dancer who managed a small business for a couple years before selling it to help out her late sister’s widower. I can’t think of any case where that would be less than, Lotte.”

That blush in her cheeks deepened, but she still stared straight forward.

“I guess, I just compare myself to Bianca. Even though she’s not traveled far and wide, she’s had a very rich few years. Met a lot of people. Had a lot of boyfriends. Done things I couldn’t imagine doing. I felt … boring, like I had nothing to show for my years. Routine had been the death of my confidence in myself. Like I wasn’t doing justice for my sister’s memory by staying put.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. When I put it into words, it sounds stupid.”

“It doesn’t. There’s this pressure to live a full life, but a full life doesn’t look the same to everyone. I have to work to make ends meet—art doesn’t provide that much for me—but I’m happy with what I’m doing, with what I’ve created.” I took the exit off of the highway and slowed down. “My soul is on fire for my art. And that’s enough for me.”

“You’re right. When I hurt my leg, it kind of woke me up. My first fear in that second was that I might never dance again. I think it took me having that injury to realize what was important to me and gallivanting around the States just wasn’t.”

“I’ve never seen you dance,” I said, realizing. “I’d like to.”

“It’ll have to wait until this thing is off,” she said, motioning to the boot. “And even then, I’m going to have to work really hard to get my leg back to where it was before. That’ll be hard, I think.”

Her lips were in a line, her eyes faraway. “There was a period of time,” I began, “where I wasn’t able to paint. It was … hard. A dark time for me. I felt like I couldn’t get any kind of emotional release without it. I hope that it’s not like that for you.”

She met my eyes. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” she said softly.

“It’s fine. It’s over.”

She looked like she wanted to say more, but she didn’t. She peered outside the window. “Looks like we’re getting close.”

City and greenery had changed to red rock, like being surrounded in a shallow canyon. I marveled over all of the shades of red, imagined recreating them on canvas. The sky was a brighter blue here than I was used to in the smog that the city created. The colors were so vibrant that Lotte and I both kept looking around like we’d been dropped into an entirely new world.

After paying the entrance fee, we began the drive through the park.

The road had been carved out in the middle sandstone towers, so the road was surrounded on both sides by rock that stood straight up in the air; like a tunnel without a roof.

“Wow,” Lotte said, reverence in her voice, as the curve in the road gave way to a view that lasted for miles. Tall rocks in every shade of red stood out, speckled across the landscape in front of us. Impressive statues of sandstone stood above us at every curve, standing the test of time and elements as the road curved around them, allowing the space for us to observe them in the way they deserved.

At the pull out, I navigated the car off the road and told Lotte to grab her camera.

“Can you believe this?” Lotte asked, her eyes alight with our surroundings. She held the camera in one hand, as if she was almost forgetting she had it.

Gently, I took the camera from her and captured her taking it in, three quick photos in succession. The wind blew her hair around her face and her eyes closed, and I captured another one, inspired by the movement of her body while surrounded by still rocks that were millions of years old.

“We’re barely into the park and already, I just feel so wowed by this. This, this was why I wanted to come here,” she said, and turned to me.

“Are you going to cry?” I asked her, half-afraid she would.

“Not yet.” She laughed and took in a deep breath. “The air just feels so different here. You know what I mean? I can’t explain it. It’s just incredible. All of this untouched land.”

I knew what she meant. We didn’t have landscapes like this back home, and I understood American’s fascination with visiting parks then. Getting the opportunity to experience something like this, something you couldn’t find anywhere else in the world, absolutely had its benefits.

We got back into the Jeep and continued on the drive, through curvy roads, alongside impressive towers of rock that created a deep shade over the land. Some of the rock were so polished-looking, that I was amazed by the effects of wind and rain on them, having softened them over time.

In some places, the rock rose so high out of the ground that you could make up all the individual layers of soil and sand and rock that had compounded over time.

“When I see all of those layers, all I can think about is how much history is held in each one, you know? Dinosaurs and cavemen and even the land the Native Americans inhabited before their home was taken over by a bunch of foreigners.” She blushed and gave me a cheeky smile. “I guess we’re not much different than those foreigners.”

“I know what you mean,” I said, pointing to the lines carved into the rock, like pages of a book, viewed from the side. Layer after layer, the rock told history that we hadn’t been around for. It was a humbling thing to realize, that so many had come before us. That this land had once been home to things that were long extinct and people who would not know the things we knew.

The land was covered in short, wiry green shrubs across red dirt and brown grass. I couldn’t recall actually seeing a tree, which I found interesting.

I pulled into the turn off for viewing La Sal Mountains, and we parked the car to get out and view it. “Over there,” I said, pointing to the mountains in the distance that were set apart from the rest of the landscape. These looked like the mountains I’d flown over, coming into Salt Lake.

“Come on,” Lotte said, taking the camera from me after I’d captured a few photos. “Let’s ask someone to get a photo of us.” Before I could possibly object, she’d roped a fellow tourist into letting us pose in front of the mountains.

I didn’t know how I should stand beside her. With my arm around her? Hugging her? But I didn’t really have a choice because Lotte stepped into me and my arms came around her like it was natural for us to be embracing. And maybe that was because it did feel natural.

With the sun kissing our shoulders and the gentle wind sending Lotte’s hair into my face, I felt this immeasurable calmness come over me. Like this was what I was meant to be doing; holding her as if she was, in some sense, mine.

The stranger snapped a few photos and handed us the camera. Lotte tucked her hair behind her ears as she reviewed the photos and then showed them to me. She looked impossibly small in my arms, delicate, but despite the differences in our stature, Lotte and I fit.

The further we ventured into the park, the more impressive the rock towers were. They rose up out of the ground like tablets, etched by millions of years of erosion. We crossed a bridge that was suspended over a small stream, and that was the first time I actually saw leafy green trees. We passed a tower that looked like a hand and then came upon something called The Great Wall, that resembled a more crude version of China’s own Great Wall. We passed rocks in all kinds of shapes, including some that looked like sex toys. At my comparison, Lotte blushed and laughed.

“I’ve never … experimented,” she said, and the blush grew deeper. She knew too, because she pressed her palms over her cheeks.

“Never?” I asked her, wanting to know more but also apprehensive because she was so bloody shy about it. “None of your other boyfriends were into it?”

She shrugged. “I haven’t had a lot of them,” she said. “And we were never together long enough for it to come up.”

“You shouldn’t mess with that stuff unless you’re in a trusting relationship,” I said, feeling a strange mix of happiness that she’d never played with toys and also jealous that anyone had touched her at all.

“Right. And since I haven’t been, I haven’t tried.”

I tried to remember if I’d ever seen someone hanging around Lotte at the pub, but I couldn’t. I turned onto the road to the Windows Trailhead, and Lotte did a double take.

“We’re not going on a hike…”

“Just a short one,” I told her.

“Sam…” She sighed. “I agreed to go on this trip because I thought we’d mostly be in the car.”

“And we will be,” I told her. “Mostly. But not entirely.”

“I can’t walk.”

“Yes, you can. But what you can’t walk, I’ll carry you through.”

“You can’t.”

“Actually, I can.”

“You can’t smile at me and get whatever you want,” she said indignantly.

“Maybe I can.”

Her eyelids lowered and that desire to feel her again lit through me. She was wearing plain clothes, but she looked so beautiful still.

“Come on,” I said after parking the car. “We’re going to go up to the window arches.”

I rounded the Jeep and opened her door for her and helped her down. Once she was on the ground, she tested out walking around on the concrete.

“If it gets too hard, let me know. It’s a short walk up to them.” I pointed to the arches in the distance, though only one of them was really visible from the parking lot.

The walkway up was paved, so she wasn’t having to rough it or anything. But there was a couple dozen people around walking the path, and because we were moving slowly to accommodate Lotte, we often had to move to the side, out of the way.

I could tell she was growing frustrated but was still trying to swing her dead leg so that she could maneuver her way up the path.

“How are you doing?”

She grimaced. “It doesn’t hurt, but it’s not comfortable. My hip is doing all the work, really.”

I stopped in front of her and crouched down. “Climb on my back.”

“No.”

“Lots, just get on. It’s not a big deal, and since I’m making you do this, I should help you at least.”

She sighed, but I felt her front come to my back.

“Wrap your arms around my neck,” I told her, and when she complied, I placed my hands on her forearms and squeezed. Her skin was so warm and soft, and I remembered just how good it felt to touch her.

Once her legs were wrapped around my waist, I stood and reached my hands back to hold onto her thighs. The boot rapped against my thigh with a surprising force, and it made me realize just how heavy that was for her to carry around.

We set off down the trail toward the large rock formation that was plopped in the ground, with a hole in one of them, plainly obvious from the beginning of the path.

“There are two arches up here?”

“Yes. One on this side, and then when we walk around that large rock there, there’s another.”

We stopped at the first arch and I set Lotte down atop a pile of rocks.

“Wow.” She tilted her head back, looking up at the arch that she stood inside of. “This is so cool. Like a bridge, and I’m in the tunnel under it.”

“Yeah you are. Okay, Lots. Do a pose.”

“A pose?”

I held up the camera.

“Ugh,” she said. “Fine.” She stretched her arms out, though she was laughably small inside of the arch itself. I snapped a photo and then picked her up and pulled her down.

“Across the parking lot, on the other side, are the double arches. If you want to see those?”

She nodded and I turned, allowing her to climb on my back again, and then we started back down the trail.

“Those look like caves!” Lotte exclaimed, when we were on the other side of the loop.

“They do,” I agreed. There were rough, obelisk-looking pillars and beyond them were several holes carved into the rock.

“Let me try to walk this one,” Lotte said as we approached the trailhead.

“At least lean on me for support.” I wrapped her arm around mine as we made our way down the path.

“My boot is going to be so gross tonight,” she said with a laugh.

“We’ll wash it. It’ll be worth it.”

She peered up at me. “It already is.” Her hand tightened briefly on my arm and she gave me the softest of smiles and not for the first time, I wondered what the hell she saw in me at all.

I was overcome with the urge to brush her hair from her face, so I did. With the sun beating down on us, she was practically glowing. Her blue eyes even seemed brighter, competing against the color of the sky around us.

“I’m glad we’re here,” I told her. It’d slipped out of my lips, an involuntary thing. I couldn’t seem to keep my thoughts closed off around her, when it’d been so easy to do it with everyone else.

“I am too, Sam.” She covered my hand with hers, and something rolled over in my chest, making me want to do nothing more than turn her into me, and lay my lips on her. I wished I’d been kinder to her, had treated her better than I had back in London. If this trip was my way to make amends for that, then I’d do my damndest to show her the best time.

She broke eye contact before I did, and we continued on our way to the arch.

The red landscape, so uninterrupted by buildings and substantial vegetation, made me feel as if we were on another planet entirely. Like Mars.

Once we were at the double arch, Lotte let go of my hold to climb up to it herself.

“Be careful,” I cautioned, feeling a little blip of anxiety roll through me as she managed the climb up to it. The double arches looked like two rings, attached along one side and split apart on the other. It amazed me that these were still standing, after so many people visiting the area and so much erosion. The front of the first one had a delicate-looking top, like with too much pressure it would crumble.

“Come on,” Lotte said, motioning to me with her hand. “Let’s get our picture taken.”

I asked one of the guys beside me to take our photo and joined Lotte under the first arch. I looked up cautiously at the top of the arch, worried however irrationally that it could come crumbling down upon us. Lotte came around me again, hugging me sideways with her hand on my chest, and my heart settled.

When I looked down at her, the wind had picked up and blown her hair all over the place. She was laughing as she tried to push it away, so, using both hands, I gathered it behind her head in one fist. The guy snapped our photo and then I let go of her hair, but my arm came around her as we started the climb down. And as we made our way back to the car, I didn’t let go of her hand.