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I waited for her long into the night.

I stood at the Mazama Campground turnoff from the highway (the only highway for miles in either direction) and paced back and forth in the cold night air waiting for a set of familiar headlights to work their way down the hill and around the corner. I left Ben to his reading at eight o’clock with a skip in my step, certain she would arrive momentarily — I would greet her at the gate. From eight to nine I waited, expectantly; from nine to ten I waited, perplexedly; from ten to eleven I waited, worryingly; from eleven to twelve I waited, silently. Every hour on the hour I hiked my way back to the campsite to give Ben updates on her non-arrival and to vent my angst. Where was she? Why wasn’t she here?

At around ten thirty I spoke with a gentleman who was also waiting for his lady fairest and who had arrived from Seattle himself only moments before. We were both standing in the parking lot, in the quickly chilling night air, waiting silently for someone to come and take us back to our tents. We began an awkward conversation, both of us preferring to be left miserably alone and I would have left him immediately had he not claimed to have, himself, left Seattle at two o’clock that afternoon — the same time #6 had planned to leave. She might not have been far behind him. He said there were seventy-three major accidents and two plane crashes on the trip down and that it had taken, to say the least, a bit longer than expected. I was almost fell over with relief. She must just have met some traffic; must have just gotten slowed down; must not have left as soon as she had wanted to; she must still be coming. She must.

After the man’s girlfriend arrived from San Francisco and the two of them merrily departed with a dismissive wave, however, the horror began to creep back into my heart. #6 was no where to be found.

There is a lot that can go through a man’s mind as he stands in the dark night on a deserted highway waiting for a set of headlights he can call his own. A lot of different thoughts can rack a man’s brain and bring his sanity into question — especially a man’s brain like mine, which is particularly susceptible to the bombardment of negative thoughts. Maybe she got lost; maybe she couldn’t come; maybe she decided not to come; maybe she got in an accident, had a flat tire, ran out of gas, was arrested and deported; maybe she had panicked; maybe this was too much too soon too far; maybe she didn’t really like me; maybe someone had kidnapped her; maybe she was a player and I was now a player-hater; maybe something had happened; maybe she wasn’t all right; maybe she wasn’t coming.

A headlight: I would take a deep breath and wait and squint into the black night and each time it wasn’t her. The car passed and I stood in the darkness alone.

Midnight came. Where was she? I finally resigned myself to returning and remaining at the campsite; I was dizzy from exhaustion, my legs hurt from the past two day’s ride and from standing for four hours in the parking log. My nose was numb. To say I was not saddened or worried or hurt is to say that something that is isn’t. When I got back I found that Ben had waited up — he was still reading his obnoxious book about Alaska and pretending to be interested in it. I’m not sure if he was staying awake because he liked the book (which he soon there after left behind in the bear-box) or as a show of solidarity. For two friends who don’t talk much and barely even give each other a hug when we come into contact after decades of being apart, we know each other very well.

I lay down in my sleeping bag alone, in the dark. Ben told me not to worry and then promptly fell asleep. His deep breathing was overshadowed only my pounding heart, and the constant hum of killer mosquitoes. I pushed the cold hard ear plugs into my unreceptive ear canals and closed my eyes. A slight drop of panic crept over me: it was brought upon by a combination of her absence and the realization that I might stay awake indefinitely waiting for her. Swift panic that called to me and suggested I think of what my life would be like if she had decided not to come after all. The fear of the unknown and the fear of not being able to sleep combined with the past two days’ marathon must have been too much for my fragile body for, somehow, I fell asleep without #6. I don’t know how, exactly, but I did. My mind was awash with so many prancing and taunting images that I could barely keep the earth beneath me and the tent above. My stomach was so tight with worry that I couldn’t have imagined what sleep or peace or joy had ever felt like. And through all of this, still, I drifted into sleep and awoke again a little after four in the morning to Ben kicking me through his sleeping bag and saying:

“She’s here.”

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