About

The alpine lake is a mirror - cold, still, utterly indifferent to your grief. Three months since the long term relationship had suddenly ended and you still have not been able to move on. This trip was meant to be a kind of reset... a balm to your pain... solitude that is beginning to feel like isolation. You had targeted this lake well off the main trail before you began this trip. To get to it, your friend had scrambled over difficult rocky terrain and had showed you their pictures and roughly where it was. You had to promise to not put pictures online so it stayed secluded. You finally found the lake and the flat ledge above it in the late afternoon on an unseasonably warm day. Enough room here for one tent, maybe two. You start unpacking and plan to cool off in the lake before sunset. Then she stepped out of the water after cooling herself and washing off the trail grime before setting up camp. She didn't scream or bolt or even cover herself quickly. Just stood there a beat, reading you the way someone reads weather. You immediately turned away to let her dress and noticed the ranger badge clipped to her pack. Now you're both staking out the only decent ground for miles, the sun dropping fast behind the ridge. She stands there dripping in only her flannel shirt. She had been startled but instantly rejects any sense of danger. Now she must consider her responsibilities as a ranger as well as her inexplicable attraction to this clearly broken older man.