Their last hike dawned, clear and cold. The tension between them was a physical presence, sharp and brittle. They walked in near-silence for the first hour, each lost in separate worlds of thought.
Finally, at a viewpoint overlooking the valley where they'd first truly connected, Lívia stopped. "We need to talk about what happened last night."
Camila stared at the horizon. "I was jealous. It's unattractive and I apologize."
Lívia turned to face her fully. "Don't you dare dismiss it as unattractive. Don't you dare reduce it to that." Her voice shook slightly. "It hurt because it meant you don't trust what's between us. Not really."
"That's not true." But even as she said it, Camila recognized the lie. Or at least, the partial truth.
"Then what is it?" Lívia demanded. "Because I can't do this if you're always waiting for me to realize I've made a mistake."
The silence stretched, broken only by wind whispering through pines.
"I'm afraid," Camila admitted finally, the words feeling like they were being torn from her. "You're right. I don't trust it. Not because it isn't real, but because it feels too good to be true."
Lívia's expression softened slightly. "Camila..."
"I spent seven years building a life with someone, thinking we were solid, only to realize I was the only one who didn't know we were drowning." Camila's voice cracked. "And now here you are—bright, passionate, everything I'm not—and it feels like... one big cosmic joke that I get to have this now."
Lívia reached out, her fingers brushing Camila's arm. "It's not a joke. It's just... life. Messy and unexpected."
They stood like that for a long time, the vastness of the valley spread below them.
"What happens now?" Camila asked quietly.
"Now we go back to our lives," Lívia said. "And we try to figure out if this can exist outside these mountains."
That evening, they exchanged numbers in the lodge's quiet dining room. The gesture felt both momentous and inadequate.
"I'll call you when I'm back in São Paulo," Camila said.
"I'll be waiting," Lívia replied. Both heard the unspoken fear: would the connection survive the return to reality?