Pure frustration mixed with throbbing pain formed a ball in my chest.
Maybe I should go back to Florida, or go back to Nashville, it wasn’t like there were any chances I’d ever see Mr. Golden Boy there. He rarely left the house. He was too hot shit to hang out with normal people after all. What the hell was I doing?
Whining, that’s what.
And my mom never whined, some small part of my brain reminded the rest of me in that moment.
Opening up my eyes, I reminded myself that I was here. That I didn’t want to live in Nashville, Yuki or no Yuki. I’d liked Florida, but it had never really felt like home because it seemed more of just a reminder of what I had lost, of a life I’d had to live because of the things that had happened. In a way, it was a bigger reminder of a tragedy than even Pagosa Springs.
And I didn’t want to fucking move from Pagosa. Even if all I had were just a couple friends, but hey, some people had no friends.
Just earlier, when I hadn’t been feeling so pathetic, I’d thought that everything was working out. That I was getting somewhere. I was settling in.
And now all it took was one little thing to go wrong and I wanted to quit? Who was I?
Taking in a long, deep breath, I accepted that I was going to have to go back. I had nothing for my hands, my knees ached like fucking hell, and my shoulder was hurting more and more by the second. I was pretty sure I’d be in unbelievable pain if I’d dislocated it, but I’d probably just hurt it a little.
I had to take care of myself, and I had to do it now. I could always come back and do this hike again. I wasn’t quitting. I wasn’t.
Picking the hand that looked the worst, I set it palm up on top of my thigh, gritted my teeth, and started picking out the gravel that had decided to make a home in my skin, hissing and groaning and flinching and saying, “Oh my God, fuck you,” over and over again when a particular piece hurt like extra hell… which was every piece of gravel.
I cried.
And when I finished that hand and even more blood pooled in the tiny wounds and my palm throbbed even worse, I started on the other.
I was taking care of myself.
There was a small first aid kit in my emergency roadside bag, I remembered when I was nearly done with my other hand. I’d bought it when I got my bear spray. It didn’t have a whole lot, but it had something. Band-Aids to help me survive the entire two-and-a-half-hour drive home, on top of the time it would take to hike back out.
Oh my God, I was going to cry again.
But I could do it while I dug out rocks from my elbows, I figured, and that was what I did.
*
Three and a half hours and a lot of curse words and tears later, my hands still ached, my elbows did too, and every step I took hurt the joints in my knees and the painfully stretched skin covering them. If I didn’t have black pants on, I was sure I’d look like I’d gotten into a fight with a bear cub and lost. Bad.
Feeling defeated but trying my best not to, I sucked in one breath after another, forcing my feet to keep fucking going until I made it to the stupid-ass parking lot.
I’d gone through periods of pure rage toward everything on the way down. Over the trail in the first place. Over doing this. Over the sun being out. At my mom for bamboozling me. I’d even been pissed off at my boots and would have taken them off and thrown them into the trees, but that was considered littering and there were too many rocks.
It was the boots’ fault for being slippery, the sons of bitches. I was donating them the first chance I got, I’d decided at least ten times. Maybe I’d burn them.
Okay, I wouldn’t because it was bad for the environment and there was still a fire ban in effect, but whatever.
Pieces of shit.
I growled just as I turned on a switchback and came to a sudden stop.
Because coming toward me, head down, backpack straps clinging to broad shoulders, breathing steadily in through his nose and out through his mouth, was a body I recognized for about ten different reasons.
I knew the silver hair peeking out from under a red ball cap.
That tan skin.
The uniform.
The man looked up then, blinked once, and stopped too. A frown took over a face that solidified I knew the man on his way up. And I definitely recognized the raspy voice that asked, “Are you crying?”
I swallowed and croaked, “A little bit.”
Those gray eyes widened just a little and Rhodes stood up even straighter. “Why?” he asked very, very slowly as his gaze swept over me from my face down to my toes before going back up. Then those eyes flicked down to my knees and stayed there as he asked, “What happened? How bad are you hurt?”