"And at once I knew I was not magnificent

High above the highway aisle

(Jagged vacance, thick with ice)

I could see for miles, miles, miles"

- Holocene by Bon Iver


I managed nearly a year living at college, and it took some time to adjust to being away from home, but I didn't really ever feel homesick. I spent my entire time there trying to suppress this horrible longing in my chest, this ache of missing something and needing something that you don't have, and I thought maybe it was homesickness, but I came home and the ache was still there. After the relief had worn off in a few days, there it was, this longing, still hiding away underneath all of that other stuff.

I can remember watching Garden State in my bedroom a few weeks after being back. Alice had recommended it to me so I found it on Netflix, and to be honest it wasn't my kind of movie, but there was one line that stuck with me. Zach Braff tells Natalie Portman that he feels like he's homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. That line hit me like a punch in the gut, and I started crying, I actually started crying a little bit. I think it was because I realised that if I'm homesick for a place that doesn't exist, then this horrible feeling would probably never go away. I would just have to walk around living my life with the ache, the longing, and there would be nothing I could do about it.

I think maybe that's why I decided to come here. I knew I was unhappy and I knew I wanted something to change, but I wasn't sure what. I was at a point in my life where I was willing to go to drastic measures to solve the problem, and try things that I would never have previously considered, like dropping out of college or moving to another country. And that's where I'm at right now.

Which is why I'm so surprised at how much I miss my Mom after a week of being here. It's not like being at college. Being on a completely different continent from her and knowing that I can't just drive down and see her any time I like is much harder. This is completely illogical, because I never drove down to visit while I was at college anyway. But I always knew that I could if I wanted to.

It's comforting to know that we are at least connected by telephone lines, though.

"Hi baby! I miss you so much! How are you, are you having fun?"

"Hi Mom. I miss you too." I will not cry I will not cry I will not cry. "I'm good thanks, it's been really fun. How are things your end?"

"Oh, everything's fine over here, the same. Hot sun, crazy Mum. Never mind that, tell me what you've been up to! How are Alice and Cathy? Have you unpacked your things yet?"

"They're fine, they said to say 'hi'," I say airily, breathing in through my nose and starting to feel a bit better already. "I haven't unpacked properly yet, but I'll sort it out later. I'm in the white room on the top floor."

"Oh yes, one of the hospital rooms. Very sterile," she says jokingly. "You'll have to hang some pictures up or something."

"I'm allowed to redecorate it however I like," I tell her.

"Thank goodness for that. So tell me what you've been doing! Have you been out anywhere yet, or are you just settling in still?" I hear Phil in the background shouting to Mom to say hi, and she shushes him.

"Hi Phil," I laugh. "Yeah, we went to the park the other day with Ali's friends, that was fun. We're all going out again later once she finishes work. Other than that we've just been hanging out at home, catching up, you know."

"Of course, that's lovely. You girls used to be so close. And what are her friends like, is it Emmett and...?"

"Jasper," I answer. "They're great. Really nice, they've made me feel really welcome. And there's Rosalie, Emmett's roommate, she's cool too."

"Oh, that's wonderful. Have you met their parents yet?" she asks, her voice slightly too breezy.

"Not yet," I tell her. I know she's got a lot of history with these people, and much of it was left unfinished when she uprooted her life and moved us away. She lost touch with them all years ago, apart from Cathy of course, and sometimes I think she sounds slightly sad when she tells me stories about them. I know that part of her life is over, but there is still hurt there. Maybe time doesn't heal everything.

"Well you send them my love when you see them," she says firmly. "So what are you kids doing today then?"

"Uh, I'm not actually sure! Emmett left Ali a voicemail this morning inviting us out after work, and that was it. I'll let you know what happens." She played the voicemail out loud earlier so I could hear it, and it was less of an invite and more of an order to be more accurate. He sounded excited though which made me get a bit excited too, because it's contagious and I think I'm just susceptible to that kind of thing. Alice warned me that he's always coming up with weird stuff to do, most of which is never usually as much fun as he makes it out to be, and not to get my hopes up.

"Sounds interesting! Well I've got this illustration class and it starts in about 10 minutes, darling, so I must dash, but call me soon, okay? Anytime you want to talk, just call, I don't care about the time difference."

I hang up the phone feeling strange but composed. I'm not about to burst into inexplicable tears anytime soon, anyway. Now what the hell am I supposed to wear when I don't know what it is I'll be doing?


"Geocaching," Emmett announces, his tone implying that we should have the slightest clue what he's talking about. Four blank faces stare back at him.

It took Alice and I about fifteen minutes to walk to Emmett and Rosalie's house (plus the extra five minutes when we stopped for a break midway because we're both unfit), and we found the two of them plus Jasper sitting on the crumbling red brick wall around their tiny front yard, waiting for us to arrive. Rosalie is looking glamorous and bored, her fingers tapping furiously on the buttons of her cell phone, which I think is pretty impressive when you take into consideration the length of her shaped purple nails. Jasper is smoking a hand rolled cigarette and attempting to blow smoke rings through his mouth – and failing, might I add. And Emmett is sitting impatiently on the wall between them, wearing what I can only assume is a child's Halloween pirate hat on his head.

He points emphatically to this hat now, in apparent answer to the questioning looks on our faces. I feel like I am missing something obvious and important here, but I'm relieved that the others at least appear to be just as confused as I am.

"I think we're gonna need a little more explanation there, mate," Jasper encourages, looking like he wants to laugh. Oh god, I'm going to start laughing too in a minute. I mustn't make eye contact with Ali or we'll be pissing ourselves.

"Geocaching! It's a thing! You know, with the GPS and the hiking?" Emmett's smile falters a bit, and he adjusts his little hat.

"Oh, you know what, I think I actually know what he's talking about," Rosalie says, tilting her hips up so that she can slide her phone into her pocket. "People put things in sandwich boxes or something, and they hide it somewhere for other people to find. And then they put the co-ordinates up on the internet so you can track it with your sat nav, right?"

"Right, exactly!" There we go, he's excited again. "It's like a global treasure hunt!" And now I'm excited too. See, contagious?

"Hence the hat?" Alice asks, taking it off his head and putting it on her own.

"Yep," he confirms, snatching in back protectively and placing it carefully back on his own head, with a warning look to her that says 'keep your hands to yourself'. "I couldn't believe it was a real thing when I heard about it. I don't understand why everyone doesn't do it. Global. Fucking. Treasure hunt. Why aren't you all more excited?"

"I'm excited," I offer, raising my hand in the air like a school girl.

"There we go, thank you! We're holding the fort down alone here." He reaches his hand up for a high five, and as he is still sitting on the wall it is just the right height for me to hit, which I do with exaggerated enthusiasm that makes Ali laugh at me.

"So where are we going then?" Rosalie asks.

"It's only like a half hour walk," Emmett answers, reaching around to fish a GPS device out of the backpack I didn't even notice he was wearing, since his back has been facing away from me. Ali and I make a face at each other, because we were already out of breath after the fifteen minutes it took to get here.

"So it's an hour of walking," Alice says, sounding unimpressed. "Half an hour, there and back. Plus the time it takes me and Bells to walk home from here. Ugh, there had better be actual treasure at the end of this."

"This will be good for you. Your fitness is shocking." He turns the GPS on, saying as it loads up, "The amount of caches hidden around here is mental. I didn't think there would be that many, but then I put our postcode into the map on the website, and I felt like I was in an Alien film when their tracking device shows that the aliens are surrounding them. 'Dear God, no... this can't be right... according to my device... they're everywhere!" He ends his dramatic impression by reaching out and tickling Rosalie's sides, because she is closest to him. She squeaks and smacks his hands away.

He taps at the screen of the GPS a few times, declares it ready to go, and so we set off, the five of us walking along the sidewalk together and turning left or right, depending on what Emmett orders us to do. He really wanted to shout to us 'Port!' or 'Starboard!' but none of us could remember which one meant left and which meant right, so he has settled for shouting 'Onwards!' and pointing in the direction we need to go in.

Usually when I am walking with a group of people, I end up finding myself left at the back, awkwardly trying to keep pace so that I don't step on the heel of anyone's shoe and unable to properly hear what they are talking about. I don't know why this always happens, but it just does. With this group though, people rotate positions all over the place, and even when we split up into separate conversations for a while, nobody is left at the back. Ali and I stay walking together with our arms linked most of the time, and at one point Emmett comes over and links my other arm, pretending to gossip to us like an old lady about Rosalie and Jasper who are caught up in a passionate discussion about the last Harry Potter book like it's holy scripture. These are my kind of people.

"Dear lord, have you seen the state of Jasper's hat?" Emmett mock whispers to us in a conspiratorial voice, clutching on to my arm. Jasper is wearing another brown trilby today, this time with a small feather on the rim. "He looks like blooming Yankee Doodle!"

Jasper continues talking to Rosalie while we snicker at Emmett's antics, saying, "No no, you've got it wrong, the death eaters had infiltrated the Ministry by this point," as he holds his middle finger up behind him.

"And that Rosalie," Emmett continues, gasping scandalously. "All those tattoos. It's unsightly on a girl her age!" Rosalie whips her head around and glares at him in outrage, but I can see that she is trying not to laugh.

We continue on for about ten minutes, walking through residential areas and avoiding mothers pushing babies in strollers, dog walkers, and joggers (and one dog walking jogger), until the GPS starts to direct us off road. We walk around the side of a row of houses, past their back yards and a block of garages, and we reach the outside of a huge wooded area.

"Here we go, that looks like a trail," Emmett says sounding energised. "Now the fun part starts." There are a few cars parked outside where the trail into the forest starts, so this must be a fairly popular place to come hiking.

The trail is wide and the earth is dry but covered in twigs and tree roots, and I have to keep my eyes on the ground at all times to avoid stepping in dog shit. After a few minutes of walking, it becomes very apparent that we are slowly going uphill. My legs are going to be very sore tomorrow. Alice's legs are already starting to get achy and wobbly, and she looks visibly worn out, so Emmett lifts her up onto his back and happily carries her onwards while Rosalie talks his ear off about a story one of their room mates told her earlier.

"He's definitely in his element out here," I comment to Jasper, walking along side him behind the others.

"He loves this kind of thing," Jasper tells me, ducking his head to avoid an overhanging tree branch that wouldn't have even brushed the top of mine. Are all English guys super tall or something? "Anything outdoorsy or active, he's all over it. He's studying Sports Science at Uni."

"So you guys have to choose what you want to major in right away?"

"Yep. It doesn't make sense, does it? How many people our age know exactly what they want to do with their lives already?"

"The lucky ones," I answer sombrely, and he nods his head in agreement. "I wish there was something I always knew I wanted to be when I grew up. It would make life so much easier. Did you know what you wanted to be?"

"I changed my mind every day. Cowboy, author, translator, artist... I wanted to be Jack White for a long time. Still kind of do, actually," he admits with a wry smile, making me laugh.

"Oh, I love Jack White!" I exclaim with fervour. "What's your favourite White Stripes song?" He looks thoughtful for a moment, as if he is pondering our very existence on this Earth or something equally as significant.

"At the moment, probably Apple Blossom. Do you know it?" he asks, holding back a long branch for us so that we can get by. And I don't know what compels me to do it, maybe the adrenaline from the walk or the excitement you get when you discuss a shared taste in music with someone for the first time, but I start singing.

"Come and sit with me and talk a while, let me see your pretty little smile," I trill softly, feeling braver as his face lights up, and braver still when he actually joins in with me.

"Put your troubles in a little pile, and I will sort them out for you," we duet together, his voice low and soulful, and mine high and pure. Alice, Emmett and Rosalie pause their conversation to give us a little round of applause, and I laugh stupidly, feeling kind of flustered and amazed at myself for doing that.

"Your voice is great," Jasper says genuinely, and we look and each other and share a smile.

"So is yours," I respond. "So. You're a blues man then?"

"To the bone. What about you? I'd guess you're a folksy acoustic kind of girl." His eyes gleam as he watches my face for my answer.

"That was a very good guess," I say, surprised that I am that transparent and impressed by his deduction skills. "How did you know? Did Ali tell you I play the guitar?"

"Just a guess. You have that kind of voice. Sweet and expressive." I look down at my Converse shoes to hide the ridiculous blush that has started to heat up my face at his words. I hate my stupid traitorous bastard cheeks. "I didn't know you play guitar. We'll have to play something together one time."

"You play too?" I ask, pleasantly surprised as I look up at him again.

"Since I was a kid. My mum scraped her money together for my lessons for years. Money we didn't really have, actually. She was determined to give me that though." Jasper takes the cigarette from its place behind his ear, tucks his longish wavy hair behind his ear and out of his eyes, and digs into his jean pocket for a lighter.

"She sounds like a great Mom," I say, because she really does.

"She's a good lady," he tells me with the roll up cigarette between his teeth. "She's excited to meet you."

"Really?" I ask, scratching my upper arm sheepishly and feeling a bit astonished that somebody out there is excited to meet me.

"Uh huh. She wants to know what Renee's daughter is like. Did your Mum teach you how to play the guitar?" I narrow my eyes at him suspiciously, unable to believe that he is that good at reading people. "I saw a photo of her holding one once," he shrugs.

"Oh, yeah, she did. She's a wonderful player, much better than me. She's got this great husky singing voice, like Janis Joplin style. You'd love it," I assure him, completely certain that he would be very taken with my Mom.

"I'm sure I would." He smiles quietly, inhaling a puff of his cigarette and turning his head away from me to blow the smoke out, one hand in his pocket. "What's your favourite Janis song?"

"Cry Baby, until the end of time," I answer immediately, not even having to think about it. That song makes me feel things.

"I'd like to hear you singing that one," he says mischievously, raising his eyebrows in proposition.

"Ha, I don't think so. That one is just for the shower." Why did that come out sounding so dirty? Yep, he definitely thought so too, by the smirk on his face. He's kind enough not to mention anything about it though, thank God.

"We're turning right down here, guys," Rosalie calls to us, the others a bit further ahead than we are.

"Rose," Emmett whines, and she makes an impatient sound and shouts "Onwards!" pointing to a fork in the trail leading off to the right.

"How is he still carrying Ali?" I ask incredulously, unable to believe that he isn't collapsing on the muddy ground in exhaustion, no matter how much of an Ali Kitten she may be.

"He's a beast," Jasper tells me, not sounding surprised in the slightest at his friend's endurance. "He does this kind of shit every single day, this is nothing."

I stumble over a large root embedded into the ground, and cackle when Jasper does exactly the same thing as me. He laughs too. I like it when guy's can make fun of themselves. Mike, the guy I was seeing while I was at college, would have gotten all sulky if I had laughed at him tripping over.

"I'm really glad you decided to move here. It's gonna be fun getting to know you," Jasper tells me with a half smile.

"Really?" I ask sceptically without even thinking about it. Why did I say it like that? I should have just said thank you; that would have been the polite thing to do. I can't seem to help that stupid voice in my head that tells me 'they're lying' every single time somebody says something nice about me. I feel so boring and average and underwhelming, and these people are so cool and interesting and wonderful, and I'm worried that it won't be long before they realise this about me.

Jasper tugs on the end of my sleeve slightly to stop me from walking ahead of him, getting me to turn around and look back at him.

"Really," he says firmly, looking me dead in the eyes to show me that he's serious. I get the feeling he knows exactly what I was just thinking about myself. I stare back at him for a few seconds, his heavy lidded deep blue eyes making me feel calmer, and nod slowly. He grins, and I grin back, and we start walking side by side again, bumping against each other's arms slightly.

It's official. I have a crush.

Alice has decided she has recovered enough to walk on her own now, and she comes back to walk next to me, pulling a crispy brown leaf out of my windswept waves and dropping it on the floor. She joins in on our music discussion, taking to the topic naturally.

"What CD is in your CD player right at this moment?" Jasper asks us both.

"CD, Grandpa?" Alice mocks, leaning her head forward to see past me to him. "Do people still buy those?"

"Hey," he says defensively. "I still buy them. I like all the crap you get with it, the lyrics and pictures and stuff. Your new fangled digital copies don't give you all of that."

"Do you still use a walkman?" I ask curiously. Surely people don't walk around with those anymore. Alice snorts at the affirmative look on his face.

"Sorry I'm not down with the hip kids," he jokes, grinning through narrowed blue eyes as he cups his hand around another cigarette end to light it.

"The last song I played on my iPod was Holocene by Bon Iver," I tell him, receiving an approving nod.

"The last song on my iPod was Fuck the Pain Away by Peaches," announces Alice. Neither of us has heard it. "Imagine that you are fucking someone's brains out on E and crying at the same time, and that's what it sounds like. It's brilliant and dramatic and I love." She paints the greatest word pictures.

"What do you have in your CD player?" I ask Jasper, holding my arm out in front of Alice before she goes catapulting through a big pile of animal crap.

"Tom Waits," he answers, and is dumbfounded when I say that I've never heard him before. "Never? There's this one song I have to show you then. You'll love it," he says passionately. My tummy flutters a little.

"How comes you never want to show me any songs?" Alice grumbles at him. I stick my tongue out at her. When did I become six years old again? Right, probably the same second I saw my cousin in that airport.

"Because you listen to your weird electronic shit and you wouldn't appreciate the genius of Tom Waits."

We turn onto the topic of books as we climb higher still, the rising sloped floor becoming rockier and steeper. "Almost there!" Emmett calls behind to us, as I discover that Jasper is extremely well read and that Alice can't sit still in one place for long enough to be able to read a book but wishes she could, although I knew that part already.

"So what book are you reading right now?" I ask Jasper, liking this little question and answer game we've got going on and wanting it to continue.

"Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I'm trying to work my way through all the classics." He must have spotted my face lighting up, because he says wryly, "I'm assuming that means you've read it."

"I'm a bit of a sci-fi and dystopia nerd. Do you like it so far?" I ask eagerly. I really hope he does, because it's one of my all time favourite books.

"Yeah, it's really interesting. Eye opening, for sure. I'm told there's a great ending?" I mime zipping my mouth close. I am firmly anti-spoiler; there's no way I'm ruining it for him.

Emmett's little device guides us to cut through the trees and bushes now, and we do so with trepidation, carefully picking our way over spiky branches and patches of nettles, and one of us calling out 'Are you sure this is the right way?' every few seconds. And a minute later, we break through the other side of the bushes and out onto a clearing on the top of a hill, and we are able to truly appreciate just how high we have climbed.

"Fuuuck," Rosalie says in awe, "we are high up."

There is a huge overhanging tree branch that is growing close to the ground, and it's long enough for all of us to sit down on and rest for a few minutes. The clearing isn't huge, and the ground is strewn with crunchy brown fallen leaves and ivy, trodden into the earth by so many people, but the view is wonderful. I can see blocks of houses and squares of fields, and the expanding circle of lights from town, and I feel like I am looking at a giant map come to life. Isn't it funny the way land can be compacted into geometric shapes from so many feet away? It all looks so simple from up here, and I feel like I have gained perspective in more than one way.

"This is a great spot," Jasper says, and we all agree, and I feel grateful to Emmett for dragging us out here on this treasure hunt because we never would have found it otherwise.

Emmett pulls a cheap digital camera from out of his backpack and balances it on a conveniently placed tree stump in front of us. He sits behind it for a few seconds, checking the screen to see if we'll all fit it, adjusts it, and then sets it on timer and runs back to sit down with us again. It takes us a few goes to get it right. Rosalie and Alice both say they blinked on the first try, and on the second go we are all still mid conversation and probably pulling comically unprepared faces, but the third time's a charm. He promises to put it up on Facebook tonight so we can all see it.

"Shall we find this treasure then?" Alice suggests, sounding much happier after our little rest up here, leaning her head against Rosalie's shoulder.

The GPS leads us to the general area of the cache but doesn't give away its exact location, which Emmett tells us is called Ground Zero in Geocaching terms, so we have to hunt around for it.

"And it could be anywhere?" Rosalie asks, using her chunky biker boots to kicks away leaves and reveal the ground beneath them. "On the floor, in the trees, under rocks...?"

"Anywhere," Emmett confirms. "You even get little magnetic ones that stick to lampposts and fences. But we're looking for a bigger container."

We spend about ten minutes searching, getting increasingly more frustrated, going over the same hiding places we've checked before and re-checking every little nook and cranny. Jasper and Rosalie have given up, and he is teaching her how to roll cigarettes over on the tree stump, even though she doesn't to my knowledge actually smoke. Emmett and Alice are both extremely stubborn, and are resolutely determined to find it before we leave.

I almost decide to give up and sit back down again, when something on the ground by the edge of the forest where we came from catches my eye. There is a pile of twigs and logs on the ground that seems a bit too neatly stacked, and one of the logs looks different to the others. It's a lighter brown and it's kind of shiny. I kneel down on the forest floor, getting the knees of my jeans dirty and green, and I pick up the rebel log. It would be so cunning if this was... yep. Hinges.

"Um, guys?" I call to the others. "I think I found something."

They gather around me, commenting on the genius of the container as I rattle it slightly and hear things move about inside, and Ali urges me to open it. Why is this so exciting?

I prise the fake log open at the seam running around the outside of it, and we find it hollow and filled with kitschy little toys and treasures. There's a bouncy rubber ball, foreign coins, a pen, some badges, dice... Emmett explains the idea of taking something and replacing it with something new for other people to find and do the same with, and he instructs us all to take one item each. I take a cool looking marble, Rosalie takes a coin from Australia, Ali takes the rubber ball, Emmett takes a toy car, and Jasper takes the dice. Then Emmett fills the log back up with goodies from his backpack, and I add in a few stray US quarters that I find in my jacket pocket. We close it back up and put it on the ground exactly as we found it, blending it back into the environment again using twigs.

The way back home is all downhill. We run parts of it easily, slowing our pace in between and having lots of breaks. All of us slip over at least once, so we have matching stains on our asses, and we laugh at what people walking behind us on the sidewalk must think.

Ali and I get in the door with flushed faces from our days activity, exhausted but cheerful. Cathy is in already, and she asks us what on earth we've been doing when she sees the state of our hair and clothes. She has Chinese food waiting for us this time, which she apologizes for and promises we will have a proper meal soon, and we both assure her through mouthfuls of chow mein and spring rolls that we don't mind one bit. I am used to making my own meals most of the time anyway.

Later that night I check Facebook on my laptop, and see that Emmett has decided to upload all three of the pictures, including the ones that went a bit wrong. After studying them intently with an involuntary smile tugging at my mouth, I decide that the two imperfect photos are even better than the unspoiled one.


A/N: Thanks for reading! What was the last song you played on your iPod (or walkman, if you're old school like Jasper)?