One of the silver-haired men frowned. “Christmas was ten months ago.”
She wasn’t sure what his point was. It took Harper a full year to recover from all the cheese boards her mother brought out each year, and by then, it was time to stuff her face all over again.
“Well, maybe it’s the altitude. I’ve never been this high before.” She loosened her scarf, fanning her flushed face. If there was any cool air, she could no longer feel it. “What are the symptoms of altitude sickness?”
A few chuckled. Others gawked at her like she’d gone mad, which she probably had.
“Come on. I’ll help you up.” Dot weaved her way back over the cobbled footpath and offered out her hand with a kind smile. Her curly ginger bob whipped around her face in the harsh wind.
Harper hesitated. She felt ridiculous. If Kenzie were here, she’d be muttering something disparaging:Breathe through your nose so nobody hears you struggling.
Come on, slowcoach. Keep up.
Maybe you’d better stay at home next time.
“Maybe I should call it quits. I was never cut out for hiking,” she decided finally, voice crackling with pain she was trying very hard to stamp out.
“Well, you could, but that would be very silly…”
She dipped her head, waiting for the criticism to come.
Until Dot continued,“Seeing as you’re about thirty steps from the peak.”
Surprise struck Harper, and she snapped her head up. “Really?”
Dot squeezed her arm. “You’ve already made it to the top, and you didn’t even know it. You’re a wee trooper.”
A rattling laugh escaped Harper, and she covered her mouth quickly. Dot motioned for the others to go on ahead, as she linked her arm through Harper’s. “It took me years to hush up that voice at the back of my head telling me I couldn’t do it. That I was just embarrassing myself. I walked up this hill dozens of times before it felt any easier. But of course, it wasn’t my voice at all.”
“Whose voice was it?” Harper asked, and barely even noticed when Dot began leading her into a stride again. The soles of her boots slipped against the muddy ground, but she dug her heels in. Persevered.
Dot puckered her mouth like she was sucking on a sour lemon. “That miserable ex-husband of mine. He was always telling me I was incapable of things.”
Harper faltered. Dot kept her upright. “Careful. This part’s the worst.”
But it wasn’t the uneven path that had left her stumbling. Was it her own voice claiming she couldn’t climb this hill, or was it Kenzie’s?
No. That voice had been there before she’d met her.
It had existed for years, growing louder after the bullying at school began. It morphed into a different pitch, a different tone,each time she stumbled across a new person who put her down.
It might have been Kenzie’s now, but it hadn’t always been. Sometimes, it was her boss, Chris, telling her she was slacking off for taking so much as an afternoon off for a doctor’s appointment. Before that, it had been ex-boyfriends, ex-colleagues, teachers, schoolmates.
Maybe that’s why she’d put up with it for so long. She was used to it. That voice thrived on other people’s doubt, collecting insults like seeds and then planting them back into Harper, as though always waiting for proof that she wasn’t enough.
Harper was struggling, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do it. Newfound determination surged through her. She pushed her aching muscles up, up, up, with Dot providing support. And just like that, Loch Teàrlag appeared over the ridge. A moment later, the full view spilled out around her, the water a smooth, silver disc at the foot of the hill.
She’d reached the summit.
“See? Not so bad, after all.” Dot patted her arm.
Harper would disagree. She was sore from her ribs to her calves, and her side still cramped with a stitch.
But it was worth it to feel this elation. She’d proved her own evil inner critic wrong, and everybody else who wouldn’t have believed her capable.
Her reward was a howling gale slapping her hood against her ear and cold, wet mud seeping into her socks, but… she’d done it.
She lifted her hands in the air triumphantly, throwing her head back to feel the rain on her face, and bellowed, “I did it!”
