Chapter 13 #3
It didn't sound like a joke meant to smooth over reality. Just shared data between two adults.
At the summit, the tree line fell away all at once.
Rattlesnake Lake stretched out far below, wide and blue-gray, catching a pale ribbon of sunlight on its surface.
The ridge lines on the far side rolled into a bank of low mountain clouds.
The wind hit the damp skin at the back of my neck with a clean, biting chill, carrying the scent of crushed pine needles under hikers’ boots.
There weren't any empty benches, but we found a flat granite ledge beside a young hemlock. Cole dropped his pack between us and pulled out two clementines—not an organized meal prep in labeled Pyrex. He handed one to me without making a production of it.
The peel split easily beneath my thumbnail. The bright citrus oil clung to my fingers.
“This is really nice,” I said.
Cole looked out over the lake, not at my face.
“Yeah.”
“And I’m not saying that just to justify the two-mile hike.”
“Good to know. The mountain takes performance reviews very personally.”
I smiled. A full, unguarded smile that caught me so off guard I sat entirely still for a second.
The breeze tugged a stray lock of hair loose from my ponytail.
I tucked it behind my ear and watched the other hikers scattered along the rocky ledge: a cluster of college kids taking turns posing for photos, a golden retriever hovering hopefully near a sandwich wrapper, a woman in a bright yellow raincoat leaning back to take in the air.
Nobody was expecting anything from me. Nobody needed me to explain what kind of morning I was having.
“I didn't know if I could do something like this,” I said quietly.
Cole turned to look at me.
“Walk up a hill?”
“Don't be difficult.”
“I can try, but it’s really not my best event.”
“I mean having a good day without feeling like I’m betraying something.”
A sticky drop of clementine juice clung to my thumb. I wiped it against the paper napkin from his pack, once, twice. Cole didn't reach for my hand. He didn't rush to fill the silence with the first comforting platitude he could grab.
“I don't think you’re betraying a thing,” he said eventually. “I think you’re sitting on a rock eating a clementine with me. That’s plenty for today.”
The simplicity of the answer tightened in my throat. I looked down at our boots. Mine had dried mud clinging to the laces. Cole’s were scuffed at the toe box, looking like he’d tried to play rugby in them until someone physically hauled him off the field.
“I don't want everything we do to revolve around the pregnancy or the loss,” I said. “I also don't want to pretend none of it happened. I just...”
“You just want to know what we do when we’re not fixing a crisis.”
I looked up. I hadn't handed him that exact sentence. He’d pulled it from watching my mouth and then the lake, as if he knew it was the hardest truth I was going to let him see today.
“Yes.”
Cole rested his palm flat against the stone between us, open. He waited.
I laid my hand over his. There was no strategy to it. That made it easier.
“Today we hiked,” he said. “Next time we can do something else. We don't have to map out the entire season from the top of this rock.”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn't use rugby terminology in a human conversation.”
“You’re asking too much too fast.”
A laugh escaped me into the mountain breeze. Cole’s fingers curled around mine. He didn't check his phone when it buzzed in his pocket. I didn't have to ask who it was.
We made the descent slowly. Halfway down the mountain, a fine mist began drifting through the fir canopy.
It wasn't enough to soak us, but it flecked the shoulders of my jacket with dark droplets.
When we reached an open clearing, Cole took off his faded ballcap and handed it to me.
I took it. It was far too big, smelling faintly of laundry detergent, damp grass, and something that was just him.
At the trailhead, I leaned against the passenger door of his truck to tug off my boots and knock the loose mud from my socks before climbing inside. Cole stowed the daypack in the truck bed. When he slid behind the wheel, he didn't start the engine right away.
“Would you want to get dinner with me on Wednesday?” he asked.
I looked over at him. A single raindrop clung to the pale scar slicing through his left eyebrow. Instead of wiping it away, he rested both hands on the steering wheel and simply waited for my answer.
Wednesday wasn't a clinic check-up. It wasn't a corporate working session, or a night where one of us needed the other to carry something unbearable. It was a clean date on a calendar and a simple question.
“Yes,” I said. “As long as we call it what it is. A date.”
A slow, easy smile spread across Cole’s face.
“A date. Wednesday. No soup.”
“Don't make promises you can't keep.”
I pulled his ballcap lower over my eyes before I could talk myself out of smiling back. Cole turned the key. The wipers swept the light mist from the windshield, and the mountain road opened up before us, wet and completely ordinary.