My phone still wasn’t connecting.
I was so stupid.
I hiked and hiked. Down and down, slipping sometimes on the wet gravel and trying my best not to fall.
I did. I busted my ass twice and scraped my palms.
Two hours turned into three, I was going so slow. It was getting too dark.
I was cold.
I cried.
Then I cried more.
Genuine fear settled in. Had my mom been scared? Had she known she was screwed? I hoped not. God, I hoped not. I was scared already; I couldn’t imagine…
Half a mile to go, but it felt like thirty.
I took out my flashlight and put it in my mouth, clutching to my trekking poles for dear life because I would have probably died without them.
Big, fat, sloppy tears of frustration and fear ran down my cheeks, and I took out the flashlight to scream “fuck” a couple of times.
No one saw me. No one heard me. There was no one here.
I wanted to get home.
“Fuck!” I yelled again.
I was finishing this motherfucker, and I was never doing this so-so hike again. This was bullshit. What did I have to prove? Mom had loved this. I liked six-mile hikes. Easy and intermediate ones.
I was just kidding; I could do this. I was doing it. I was finishing it. It was okay to be scared, but I was getting out of here. I was.
A tenth of a mile left that switchbacked and rounded and dipped, and I was cold, wet, and muddy.
This sucked.
I glanced at my watch and groaned when I saw the time. It was six. I should’ve been done hours ago. I was going to be driving in the dark, and I mean, the pitch-black shit. I could barely see anything now.
All right. It was all right. I’d just have to go really slow. Take my time. I could do it. I had a spare. I had a Fix-a-Flat. I knew how to change a tire.
I was going to make it home.
Everything hurt. I was pretty sure my toes were bleeding. The cartilage in my knees was shot.
This sucked.
I could do it.
It was fucking cold.
This sucked.
A couple more tears spilled out of my eyes. I was an idiot for doing this by myself, but I’d done it. Hail, some snow, rain, thunder, eating shit. I’d made it. I’d done this bitch-ass hike.
I was tired and a couple more tears came out of my eyes, and I wondered if I’d taken a wrong turn and was on a game trail instead of on the real trail because nothing looked familiar, but then again it was dark and I could barely see anything that was out of the beam of my flashlight.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Then I saw it, the big, low-hanging tree that I’d had to duck under right at the beginning of the hike.
I’d made it! I’d made it! I shivered so hard my teeth chattered, but I had an emergency blanket in my bag and in my car, and I had a thick, old jacket of Amos’s that had found its way in there somehow.
I made it.
More tears filled my eyes, and I stopped, tipping my head up. Part of me wished there were stars out that I could talk to, but there weren’t. It was too cloudy. But it didn’t stop me.
My voice was hoarse from the screaming and the lack of water, but it didn’t matter. I still said the words. Still felt them. “I love you, Mom. This sucked ass, but I love you and I miss you and I’m going to try my best,” I said out loud, knowing she could hear me. Because she always did.
And in a burst of energy I didn’t think I had in me, I took off running to my car, my toes crying, my knees giving up on my life, and my thighs shot for the rest of my existence—at least it felt like that in the moment. It was there.
The only one.
I didn’t know where the hell those other people had gone, but I had no energy left to wonder how I hadn’t run into them.
Fuckers.
As exhausted as I felt, I chugged down a quarter of my gallon bottle of water, stripped off Rhodes’s rain jacket and my damp one, and pulled Amos’s on. I took my shoes off and almost tossed them in the back seat but didn’t just in case I needed to get out of the car; instead, I propped them on the floor of the passenger seat. I wanted to look at my toes and see what the damage was, but I’d worry about it later.
I checked my service, but it was still nonexistent. I shot off a message to Rhodes and Amos anyway.
Me: Finally done, it’s a long story. I’m okay. Didn’t have service. I think the tower is down. On my way out, but I have to go slow.
Then I backed out and started the trip home. It was going to take about an hour to get there once I got off this sketchy part. Best-case scenario, it would be two hours to get to the highway.
And it was just as shit as I remembered. Worse even. But I didn’t care. I gripped the steering wheel for dear life, trying to remember what path I’d taken on the way up, but the rain had cleared my tracks.