The Tortoise and His Sunrise | ✓

32. Hike

We had been hiking for almost two hours when Ashley called for a break, immediately flopping down on a nearby large rock as she did so.

While she guzzled water from her bottle, everyone else also stopped in their tracks to return to her side. Cody sat down on another rock close to her.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Maybe we shouldn't have gone straight into a day hike," she said. "What was I thinking when I said yes?"

He made a sympathetic noise and patted her lightly on the back.

"I know, right?" I said before sitting on the rock beside her.

"Because it's a great idea!" Melissa declared, throwing her hands out so that her arms were spread wide. "Smell the nature around you! Look at that beautiful river beside us! Breathe in air that you can't get from the gym!"

Despite the lack of empathy she was showing with regard to our exhaustion, Melissa was right about the lovely sights and smells around us. The gurgling sounds of the shallow stream of the river as it flowed over a wide bed of rocks was soothing and pleasant to the ear. Breathing in rewarded my lungs with fresh air that felt so green and rejuvenating. I loved taking in the sights of all the different trees as we hiked on.

Both she and Derek were in top form, likely because they kept up with their extremely active lifestyle even in college. I'd heard from them earlier that they went on hiking dates almost once a week.

Derek dug through his backpack to pull out a bag of trail mix. His movements were agile and sharp, as if he had energy to burn. Although they were sweating the same amount as the rest of us, they were still so peppy that you could never tell that they'd just covered more than four mile's worth of walking distance.

"Yeah, Ashley," he chimed in, opening the bag and pouring some of it out onto his hand. "Bask in the beauty of nature."

"You only say that because you guys never get tired!" she lamented with a joking glare. "You, Melissa, and Nolan can't talk!"

"Trust me." Nolan's tone was even quieter than usual. "I get tired too."

Except for me, everyone seemed blown away by his remark, turning to face him right away. His face was shiny with sweat, and his light green shirt was soaked through with it as well, practically appearing as a dark green shirt at this point. He wiped off the sweat on his brow with the back of his head.

His stamina was still better than mine, of course, but he now produced a lot more sweat with just a little bit of exercise. The first time I saw him tired, I was fascinated to see yet another side of him I'd never gotten to see before.

"That is a lot of sweat," Derek eventually commented.

"You're all sweating a lot too."

"Yeah, but that's a lot of sweat for you," Melissa said. "What happened? I remember you used to not even break a sweat when we played basketball together!"

With a grin, he sat down on a nearby rock and drank from his water bottle.

"Things change."

That made me want to laugh a little, but I forced my lips to keep still. Although the underlying implication seemed to be that he had stopped keeping up with whatever workout schedule he used to have, only Nolan and I really knew how much things had changed.

Furthermore, one of the things that was making him—and also me—positively glow with happiness was the fact that things would continue to change. It wasn't just that his body and appearance would age as time passed. His stamina would improve or decline depending on how much he worked on it.