The Hike

Written on 1/18/2026 about the events of the morning of February 13, 2026

For some time, I’d been attempting to get Holly to come on an AMC hike with me. I think I’d actually gotten her to bite on one, which was some sort of vaguely valentine’s themed hike in the fells. I can’t recall why, but we didn’t end up going on this; maybe it was just that our relationship was heating up enough that I didn’t need the plausible deniability of a group hike. One way or another, we ended up on a hike on the morning of February 13 - the next day after our museum outing - just by ourselves.

By this point, I was pretty kinda sure she was interested in me romantically, but I’d certainly been wrong about this sort of thing before, so I wasn’t certain. I viewed the hike as a good opportunity to find out for sure. So I was very stressed.

The hike I picked turned out to start with a very steep climb up to a not-very-scenic overlook, whose view prominently featured I-95 and a fairly unattractive neighborhood. Nonetheless, we sat down next to each other on the rocks to take it in for a few minutes, and at this time I chose to put my (shaky) arm around her. I asked “is this ok?” as I moved to do so; she nodded yes. We cuddled a little, fairly tensely, for a little while. My seat on the rocks, positioned to be close enough to her, was quite precarious; so I was in some real pain by the end of our time there. We didn’t say much then.

We resumed our hike, and walked for another couple of miles; the conversation was lessened, and things felt somewhat tense. We found a much nicer view, by a wintry lake, and sat down again. I offered her some cookies which I’d brought from Pemby’s*. We had another nice, somewhat less tense cuddly moment before she suddenly collapsed and started to cry; she couldn’t get her words together. I walked away, supposedly to go pee but mostly to give her space to breathe.

At this time, I fully expected her to tell me she wasn’t romantically interested and had only ever viewed us as friends. You may read this as far-fetched, but recall that this story started with a very similar hike in which somebody did exactly that to me, so I primed to expect this.

When I returned, it was not as I feared; she herself was feeling insecure, and not good enough for me. She felt not smart enough, not cultured enough, that sort of thing. On the spur of the moment I was able to deliver what I believe to be the most romantic speech I’ve ever given (which Holly sadly does not recall nearly as well as I do). I told her that the last person I’d dated, around the end of the prior year, had been a Harvard Astrophysics PhD student. She was a new arrival from the United Arab Emirates, from Dubai; she was very wealthy, very cultured. I told Holly that, the entire time I’d been dating the astrophysicist, I’d done a bad job, because my thoughts were on Holly the whole time instead.

This seemed to work; she confirmed that she was interested, but wanted to go slow; she didn’t want me to be a rebound.

*these incredibly overpriced heart-shaped linzers have since become a symbol of our relationship.