I gave him the name of the trail. “Wish me luck.”
He didn’t, but he did nod at me.
One more wave and I ducked into my car just as Rhodes came out of his house, dressed and ready for work. Someone was running later than usual.
We’d barely seen each other over the last couple of weeks, but every once in a while, his words the day of my date with Johnny came back to me. Kaden used to call me beautiful all the time. But out of Rhodes’s mouth… it just felt different, even if he’d said it casually, like it was just a word with no meaning behind it.
That’s why I honked, just to be a pest, and noticed his eyes narrow before he lifted a hand.
Good enough.
I was out of there.
*
I’d hoped in fucking vain, I realized hours later when my foot slipped on a patch of loose gravel on a downhill part.
Mom had put the star around the name of it to symbolize the stars she’d seen after getting a concussion crossing the main ridge of the trail.
Or maybe a star to mean you had to be an alien to finish it because I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready at all.
Fifteen minutes in, I should have known I wasn’t in good enough shape to do this in a day. It was five miles in, five out. Maybe I should’ve listened to Rhodes’s advice way back when he’d suggested I camp, but I still hadn’t been able to talk myself into doing it by myself yet.
I’d sent Uncle Mario a text to let him know where I was hiking and approximately what time I would get back. I’d promised to text him again when I was done, so that someone knew. Clara wouldn’t worry unless I didn’t show up at the shop the next day, and Amos might not notice I wasn’t around until he hadn’t seen my car for too long, and who knew what he’d consider to be too long.
You didn’t know what it was like to be alone until you didn’t have people who could or would notice if you went missing.
Besides being out of breath, my calves cramping, and having to stop every ten minutes to take a five-minute break, everything had been going okay. I was regretting it, sure, but I hadn’t given up hope that I could actually finish the hike.
At least until I got to that damn ridge.
I really had tried to catch my balance on the way down, but I’d hit the ground hard anyway.
Knees first.
Hands second.
Elbows third when my hands gave up on me and I’d gone face-first.
Into gravel.
Because there was gravel everywhere. My hands hurt, my elbows hurt, I thought there might be a chance my knee might’ve been broken.
Could you break a knee?
Rolling onto my butt, careful not to slide farther off the trail and toward the jagged rocks below, I blew out a breath.
Then I looked down and squeaked.
The gravel had scraped my palms raw. There were little pebbles buried in my skin. Beads of blood were starting to pop up on my poor hands.
Bending my arms, I tried to glance at my elbows… only to see enough to imagine that they looked the same as my palms.
Only then did I finally take in my knees.
The material covering one of them was totally torn. It was scraped raw too. The material over my other knee was intact, but it burned like hell, and I knew that knee was fucked up too.
“Oww,” I moaned to myself, looking at my hands, then my elbows—ignoring the pain that shot through my shoulders as I chicken-winged my arm—and finally back at my knees.
It hurt. Everything fucking hurt.
And I hadn’t brought anything with me as first aid. How could I be so dumb?
Slipping my backpack off, I dropped it on the ground beside me and peeked at my hands once more.
“Owwie.” I sniffled and swallowed hard before looking back the way I’d come.
Everything really did hurt. I’d liked these pants too.
There was a tiny stream of blood going down my shin from my knee, and the urge to cry got worse. I would’ve punched the gravel if I could close my fist, but I couldn’t even do that. I sniffled again, and not for the first time since moving out here, to basically the middle of nowhere, but for the first time in a while, I wondered what the fuck I was doing.
What was I doing with my life?
Why was I here? What was I doing, doing this? I was doing hikes by myself with the exception of the one time. Everyone had their own lives. No one would even know I’d hurt myself. I had nothing to clean my wounds with. I was probably going to die from some weird infection now. Or I’d bleed out.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I felt one little tear pop up, and I wiped it away with the back of my hand, wincing as I did it.