Chapter 8
The text arrived on Thursday afternoon, a single line that made my heart stutter.
Cole
Sarah wants to show you her secret creek. Easy trail, I promise. This evening?
Easy trail. I'd heard that before. From Lily. It's an easy one, Em, you'll love the view! Her definition of "easy" had always been dangerously flexible.
I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering uselessly. Every instinct screamed to decline. Make an excuse. Fake an illness. The mountain had taken my sister. The mountain was not my friend.
But Sarah wanted to show me her world. Cole was offering a bridge, with the patience of someone who understood the terrain was emotional as much as physical. And I was so tired. Exhausted from letting fear be the loudest voice in every room.
My thumbs moved before my brain could intervene.
Emma
I’d like that.
I found my old hiking boots in the back of my closet, buried under boxes I'd deliberately never unpacked.
Lacing them up felt less like betrayal than I'd expected.
It felt like a quiet, determined pact with myself.
I will try. I will look at it. I will not let Lily's death be the only story I tell about mountains.
When Cole's truck rumbled up my drive, Sarah was already bouncing in the backseat.
"Ms. Reed! The creek is so high from all the rain! Uncle C said we might see newts!"
"Newts?" I climbed in, forcing brightness into my voice. "I've never seen a newt."
"They're like tiny dragons," Sarah explained seriously. "But wet."
Cole glanced at me as I buckled my seatbelt. His eyes dropped to my hiking boots, then back to my face. He didn't offer empty reassurance or cheerful platitudes. He just gave a slow, solid nod, acknowledging the courage and the act of showing up prepared.
"We'll take it slow," he said, his voice a low rumble. "You set the pace. We turn back whenever you want. No questions asked."
"Thank you," I managed. My hands were trembling slightly. I tucked them under my thighs.
The trailhead was different from what I'd imagined; it was a gentle slope leading into a mossy, damp canyon where the sound of rushing water grew louder with every step. The air was cool and sweet, scented with wet earth.
"This way!" Sarah bounded ahead, then stopped to wait for us. "Come on, Ms. Reed! The good part is up here!"
For the first fifteen minutes, it was okay. More than okay. Ferns curled up from the forest floor. Sunlight came through the trees in patches, warm on my face. A banana slug crossed our path, and Sarah stopped to introduce me.
"This is Gerald," she announced. "I named him."
"You've met this specific slug before?"
"No, but he looks like a Gerald."
Cole walked beside me, his presence a steadying force. He pointed to a cluster of delicate white flowers growing near a fallen log.
"Trillium," he said. "They take seven years to bloom from seed."
"Seven years?" I crouched to look closer. "That's incredibly patient."
"Most good things are."
I focused on his voice, on the facts, on the solid realness of the path beneath my boots. This was just a walk in the woods. A normal thing people did. I could do this. I was doing it.
The trail began to climb more steadily, rising away from the creek. The trees thinned slightly. The path, still wide, became rockier underfoot.
My breathing hitched. Not from exertion, but from something else. A creeping, familiar dread. The air felt thinner, even though it wasn't. The openness beyond the trees pressed against me like a physical weight.
"Emma?" Cole's voice was careful. "You okay?"
"Fine," I lied. "Just catching my breath."
I kept my eyes on Sarah's pink jacket ahead, on Cole's broad shoulders beside me. But my senses were betraying me. The smell of damp granite. The clean, cold bite of altitude. The sound of my boot scuffing on loose rock.
It was all a key turning in a lock I'd tried to seal forever.
The memory didn't creep. It ambushed me.
The park ranger's voice, so calm it was cruel. "We found her on the trail, ma'am. The Cathedral Lake Trail. There was an accident."
A fall. My traitorous mind supplied the image: Lily laughing one moment, reality shifting on the next. The silence after. The terrible, endless silence.
My lungs refused to work. Cold sweat broke across my skin. The beautiful dappled forest warped and tunneled, edges dissolving into buzzing gray static. The panic was a living thing, rising from my gut to strangle me.
"I can't—" The gasp was barely audible. "I can't breathe—"
I stumbled backward. My foot came down hard on a loose, rolling stone. A white-hot lance of pain shot through my right ankle as it twisted violently. I cried out, falling sideways, my palms scraping across sharp granite.
"Emma!" Cole's voice cut through the roaring in my ears.
I curled in on myself, the world reduced to the pounding of my heart and the searing throb in my ankle. The panic and pain blurred together into one overwhelming wave.
"Look at me." He was suddenly there, kneeling in front of me, his hands firm and steady on my shoulders. "Emma. Look at me."
I shook my head, tears streaming.
"You're safe. You're on solid ground. Nothing is going to hurt you." His voice was a calm directive, a command my spiraling mind could grab onto. "Breathe with me. In."
He took a slow, deliberate breath. I tried to mimic him, my attempts coming out as ragged sobs.
"Hold it. Good. Now out."
His hands held steady on my shoulders. His blue eyes stared at mine with an intensity that anchored me to the present moment. Slowly, the vise around my throat began to loosen. The world swam back into focus. I could see Sarah's wide, frightened eyes, the trees, and Cole's unwavering gaze.
"There you go," he murmured. "You're okay. You're doing great."
The panic ebbed, leaving me trembling and hollow. The pain in my ankle throbbed with renewed fury.
"My ankle," I choked out. "I twisted it."
He nodded, moving carefully. "Let me see."
His touch was gentle as he probed the swelling joint. I hissed in pain.
"Can you move it?"
I tried. It hurt, but it moved. "Yes."
"Good. That's good. Probably not broken. Bad sprain, though." He looked up the trail, then back down, calculating. "Can you put weight on it?"
I let him help me stand. When I tried to step, pain lanced through me, but I didn't collapse.
"I can walk," I managed through gritted teeth. "It just really hurts."
"My cabin is closer than going back down," Cole said. "Maybe half a mile up this ridge. I can carry you—"
"I can walk," I repeated, stubbornly.
"Emma—"
"I need to do this." I wasn't sure why it mattered so much, but it did. "Just... let me lean on you?"
Something formed in his expression, respect, maybe. He positioned himself at my side, his arm solid around my waist, taking most of my weight.
"Sarah," he called ahead. "Lead us to the cabin. Slow and careful."
"Okay, Uncle C." Sarah's voice was small but determined. "Sorry, Ms. Reed." She added, and I offered her a reassuring smile.
We began to climb.
Every step sent pain shooting through my ankle, but Cole absorbed most of the impact. His grip was sure, his pace adjusted perfectly to mine. He didn't rush. He didn't express frustration. He just moved with me, steady as bedrock.
The late evening sun, deep gold now, slanted through the trees and set the world on fire. From this slower pace, leaning against him as he guided me over the terrain, I found myself looking up at the top of the trees and the sky, suddenly, the mountain transformed.
I saw a spiderweb catching the light. Orange lichen growing on the north side of the rocks. The far peaks fading from dark to pale blue, one behind the other.
"Oh," I breathed, stopping despite the pain.
"What is it?" Cole's voice was concerned.
"It's beautiful." The words came out wondering, surprised. "It's so beautiful."
He followed my gaze to the view opening up through the trees. "Yeah," he said quietly. "It is."
Tears slipped down my cheeks, different from the panicked tears from earlier. These were grief and wonder mixed together, finally allowed to exist in the same moment.
"She loved this," I whispered. "Lily. She tried so hard to make me understand."
Cole's arm tightened around me. "Tell me about her."
So I did. As we climbed slowly, painfully, I talked. About Lily's impossible energy. Her habit of bringing home wounded animals. Her terrible singing voice that she deployed with complete confidence. The way she'd drag me out of bed to watch sunrises I never wanted to see.
"I always said no at first," I confessed. "I was too busy being responsible. Too scared something would go wrong." The old guilt rose, familiar and sharp. "The last time—the last time I said no, it was to the hike that took her away. I begged her not to go alone. And she went anyway."
Cole was quiet for several steps, the only sounds were our careful footfalls and Sarah's occasional calls of encouragement from ahead.
"Rebecca," he began, his voice lower now, meant only for me. "She was the opposite. All adventure, all recklessness, until she got pregnant. Then she was just... terrified. Convinced she wouldn't be enough. Convinced she'd fail."
"What happened?"
"She died bringing Sarah into the world. Complications no one predicted." His countenance changed as he spoke. "Sometimes the thing that scares you most is the very thing that gives you everything. And takes it. All at once."
Two sisters. One who ran toward the wild, one who was terrified to create new life. Both gone. Leaving behind a man who understood survival but not tenderness, and a woman who understood nurturing but not risk.
"We're quite a pair," I said softly.
"Yeah." His voice was rough. "We are."
By the time we emerged into the clearing where his cabin stood, I was exhausted beyond words. The view from his ridge was staggering, endless shadowy peaks beneath a lavender and rose sky, the kind of beauty that made your chest ache.
"Oh, Cole," I breathed.
"Worth the climb?"
"Worth everything."
He helped me inside and lowered me carefully onto his worn sofa. The cabin was spare and functional; there were shelves of field guides, a massive stone fireplace, and everything in its practical place. But the window framed that impossible view, and suddenly I understood why he lived up here.
Without a word, he fetched a basin of cold water and a clean cloth. He knelt before me, bathing my swollen ankle with a gentleness that was bordering on a caress.
"You're good at this," I managed.
"Lots of practice. Wilderness first-aid comes with the territory."
He wrapped my ankle firmly with an elastic bandage, his movements efficient and sure. The cold and compression helped immediately.
"We should get it properly checked," he said. "Rule out anything I might have missed."
“How are we going to get down from the mountain with my bad ankle?” I spoke, worried it’d take us hours to reach the bottom.
Cole almost chuckled, but composed himself in a snap as he got up. “I think you are forgetting that I usually drive to and from my cabin…”
“Ha ha! Very funny, you left your truck—”
“I’m walking. Sarah, please watch Emma and keep the door locked in case bears come.” He interrupted me before I could finish my retort.
“Yes, Uncle C!” Sarah stood up and grabbed the keys as he was leaving.
The thought ran through my mind, then suddenly it came, “Wait, bears?!”
“I’m kidding.” Cole closed the door behind him.
Sarah locked the door and turned to me, “Actually, he’s only half kidding.”
At the clinic in town, the verdict was a moderate sprain. No fracture, no serious damage. I was fitted with an air cast and given crutches that I immediately hated.
"You're really brave, Ms. Reed," Sarah announced solemnly from the waiting room chair. "Uncle C. says brave people still get scared. They just do the thing anyway."
"Your uncle is right," I said, my voice thick.
The drive back to my cabin was quiet. Sarah fell asleep within minutes, exhausted by the evening's drama. The darkness outside felt protective, soft.
At my door, Cole helped me navigate the porch steps. The crutches were awkward, but his hand under my elbow kept me steady.
He turned to face me, his expression serious in the porch light. "I'll pick you up and drop you off for school every day until your ankle heals. No arguments."
"Cole, you don't have to—"
"No arguments," he repeated. "You faced that mountain today. You let me help you. Let me keep helping."
I was too exhausted, too emotionally distraught to protest further. "Okay… thank you."
He searched my face for a long moment, something unreadable in his blue eyes. Then he nodded slowly. "Get some rest, Emma."
I watched his taillights disappear down my dirt road. The cabin was dark and silent, but the silence felt different now. It wasn't haunted. It was full, so full of everything that had happened. The panic, the fall, the steady strength of his arm around me, the stories shared on the trail.
I sat on my couch, ankle elevated, and stared at the dark window. But I wasn't seeing my reflection. I was seeing the sunset from that ridge. The view Lily had loved and I'd been too afraid to witness.
The realization settled over me like a warm blanket, terrifying and wonderful all at once.
I wanted to go back.
Not to the fear. To the beauty. I wanted to see that creek with Sarah, to stand on that ridge with Cole, to look at the world without grief as my only filter.
The fear was still there—a cold stone in my stomach. But it wasn't alone anymore.
Now there was also a pull, impossible to ignore.
A pull toward the man who had carried my weight up the mountain.
And toward the wild, beautiful world he called home.