I smile back at him as he closes the car door. “I can’t wait,” I say, letting him kiss me.

Then he turns to the driver. “Okay, we’re ready,” he says. But I don’t think I’ll ever be. My heart beats in my ears, and I start to feel light-headed as we pass under the sign and begin to climb the mountain.

The road gets thinner and steeper as we approach the peak and it feels, for half a mile or so, like the trees are closing in on us and the mountain could, at any moment, swallow me whole. It is an odd claustrophobia I only feel here, surrounded by sky and nature, but never in Manhattan, where even the most normal thing—a bedroom, a street, a park—was made to squish in as many people as possible. But maybe it’s the opposite of claustrophobia—whatever you feel when there’s too much space, too much silence, too much darkness. When you can sleep with the windows wide open and hear nothing in the night. When there’s nothing connecting you to the outside, to people. When you’re in a place where no one could hear you scream.

At the crest of the hill, the road opens onto a flat and green meadow, overlooking layers and layers of mountain ranges in every direction, the closest textured with swaying leaves, getting lighter and smoother until the farthest is merely a thin blue line that almost blends into the sky. The sun is setting slowly behind the farthest mountain, painting the sky pink and orange, like a watercolor in a hotel lobby. It’s the kind of endless horizon that makes me feel small and grateful for the mansion we were about to park in front of; something stable and close I could grip onto, something cementing me to the ground. Somewhere I could hide.

We round the circular cobblestone driveway and the house emerges before us, like a man-made mountain hidden atop the peak. Tall, angular lines formed by metal and concrete shaped the house, while exposed wooden accents were taken from the trees that used to live on this land, whose roots are now dead and buried under the foundation. It’s a multimillion-dollar modern log cabin built to be an extension to the surrounding forest, with so many massive un-curtained windows you can watch the sunrise while you shit. I never understood the curtainless style in a place like this. I’d live in a windowless black box if I could. Sure, the view is beautiful, but every time I look out on it, I’m afraid of what could be looking back in.

I pull my sweatshirt sleeves all the way down and put on my coat as the car parks and we step out into the brisk October air, so fresh it smells like nothing.