Chapter 19 Emma
Three months ago, I would have vomited at the sight of this trailhead. Now I was tightening my backpack straps and actually looking forward to the climb. Personal growth is weird.
The autumn air was crisp as a bitten apple, carrying the scent of decaying leaves and distant woodsmoke.
The aspens had turned, painting the slopes in brilliant, shimmering gold.
My backpack felt different now. It used to represent a preparation for disaster, a collection of "just in case" items for a world I expected to turn treacherous.
Now it was just practical: water, snacks, a first-aid kit, an extra layer.
"Ready?" Cole asked, holding out his hand.
I slipped mine into his, the calluses on his palm familiar and comforting. "Ready."
"You said that without hyperventilating," he observed. "Progress."
"I contain multitudes."
Sarah bounced and hopped along the trail, her small pack bouncing with her. "Come on, Emma! I want to show you where we saw a deer last time! Its ears were this big!" She spread her hands comically wide.
"That sounds like a very large deer."
"It was huge. Like a horse with antlers."
"That's called an elk, sweetheart," Cole said.
"It was big. Let's go!"
She took off up the trail, then stopped after ten feet and turned back, hands on her hips. "You guys are so slow."
"We're being cautious," I said.
"You're being slowpokes."
"Methodically cautious slowpokes," Cole amended.
The past three months hadn't been easy. I'd had moments, more than I wanted to admit, where the old terror came roaring back without warning.
Two weeks after Sarah's rescue, Cole had taken me on what he promised was a "gentle" hike. Twenty minutes in, the trail narrowed unexpectedly, hugging a hillside with a steep drop to the left. My vision tunneled. My breath turned to sludge in my lungs.
"I can't," I'd gasped, frozen in place. "I can't move."
Cole had stopped immediately, turning to face me. No frustration in his expression. No impatience. Just steady, calm attention.
"Look at me," he'd said. "Not down. At me."
"I'm trying."
"You're doing great. Now look at that tree root. See how it curls? Like a question mark."
"What?"
"The root. Look at it."
I'd forced my eyes to the ground, found the root he was pointing at. It did look like a question mark. A weird, gnarled question mark.
"Breathe with me," he'd continued. "In through your nose. Out through your mouth. We're not in a hurry."
"Everyone else on the trail—"
"Can go around us. They'll live."
We'd stood there for ten minutes while hikers passed, some curious, some politely pretending not to notice. Cole had kept up a steady stream of observations until my breathing slowed and my legs unlocked.
"Okay," I'd finally said. "Okay. I can move."
"You sure?"
"No. But let's go anyway."
He'd smiled at that. "That's the spirit."
I'd never turned back. Not once. Some days were harder than others, but I'd learned to pause, to recenter, and to keep moving forward. Cole never made me feel weak. Never pressured me to go further than I could. He just stayed beside me, patient as the mountain itself.
We'd fallen into a rhythm that felt both miraculous and ordinary.
Weekends were for hiking, short trails at first, gradually longer.
Weekdays were for town. Cole, once a ghost who lurked in parking lots during school events, now attended them.
He'd even come to my class to give a talk on wilderness safety.
"Mr. Brennan," Tommy had asked, hand waving urgently. "Have you ever been attacked by a bear?"
"Not attacked, no."
"Have you ever seen a bear?"
"Many times."
"Did you fight it?"
"I backed away slowly and made noise. That's what you do."
"But what if you had to fight it?"
"Then I'd probably lose. Bears are very strong."
Tommy had looked deeply disappointed by this answer. I'd had to turn away to hide my laughter.
I'd started seeing a grief counselor in the next town over.
Talking about Lily in ways I never had, mentioning the good memories, not just the loss.
How she used to steal my sweaters. How she sang off-key in the shower.
How she'd once convinced me to sneak out at midnight to watch a meteor shower, and we'd both gotten poison ivy.
And I called my father. Regularly. He'd visited last month, meeting Cole and Sarah properly. He'd watched Sarah show him her bee drawings, listened to Cole explain the intricacies of hive management, and smiled more than I'd seen him smile in years.
"My girl is living again," he'd told me quietly, pulling me aside. "Your mother and Lily would be so proud."
The words had healed something I hadn't known was still broken.
Now, hiking up this gentle trail, I noticed things differently. Not scanning for threats, but absorbing details. The way sunlight pierced the canopy in dusty golden shafts. The complex song of a bird hidden in the underbrush. The clean, resiny scent of pine sap warming in the sun.
"Tell me about Rebecca," I said as we walked, the creek murmuring beside us.
Cole's expression softened. "She would have loved this. A day like today, hiking with Sarah. She wanted her to be brave and curious. To ask questions about everything."
"She's definitely curious. Yesterday she asked me why the sky is blue, and I had to Google it."
"What did you tell her?"
"Something about light scattering. She seemed satisfied."
"She's both," he said. "Brave and curious. You've helped with that."
"We've done it together," I corrected.
"No, I mean it." He glanced at me, something serious in his expression. "A lot of that joy, that willingness to explore, comes from you. From showing her it's okay to be afraid of some things, as long as it doesn't stop you."
"I'm an excellent role model for being afraid of things."
"You are. Seriously." He squeezed my hand. "She watches you face your fears. That teaches her more than anything I could say."
We rounded a bend, and the sound of the creek changed from a murmur to a roar. The trail opened into a small clearing, mist hanging in the air, and there it was.
A waterfall.
Not enormous, it was maybe thirty feet tall, but it was perfect. A silver ribbon of water tumbling over mossy black rocks into a deep, clear pool fringed with ferns. The mist was cool on my face, carrying the mineral smell of wet stone. The roar filled the space, drowning out everything else.
"Whoa," Sarah breathed, her earlier bouncing energy tempered into reverence.
"Stay on the dry rocks, bee," Cole reminded her. "The moss is slippery."
She nodded and ventured forward with careful steps, the caution he'd taught her now instinctive. Cole and I found a large, sun-warmed boulder and sat down, shoulders touching. He had to lean close for me to hear him over the water.
"This okay?" he asked.
"Better than okay." I looked at the waterfall, the pool, the light fracturing through the mist into tiny rainbows. "It's beautiful."
"The first time we came here, you would have had a panic attack."
"The first time we came here, I did have a panic attack. A small one."
"You hid it well."
"I've had practice."
We sat in comfortable silence, watching Sarah crouch at the water's edge, utterly absorbed in something she'd found. After a moment, I took a deep breath.
"I've been thinking," I said, my voice barely audible over the falls. "About the future."
Cole turned to look at me, his blue eyes attentive.
"I don't want to just visit your cabin on weekends anymore," I continued. The words felt huge, momentous, terrifying in the best way. "I want to build a life together. A real one. I love you, Cole. I love Sarah. I want to be part of your family. Officially."
He was quiet for a long moment. Long enough that my heart started to race with doubt.
"I kept waiting for you to change your mind," he finally said, his voice rough. "Every morning I woke up wondering if this was the day you'd decide it was too hard."
"I never did."
"I know." He shook his head slowly, almost to himself. "I'm still getting used to that."
"Is that a yes?"
"Emma." He turned to face me fully, his rough palm coming up to cup my cheek. "I've been ready since the night you climbed that mountain for Sarah. I was just waiting for you to be ready too."
"I'm ready," I whispered. "Still scared sometimes. But ready."
"Scared is fine. Scared is human."
"I talked to my principal about going part-time next year," I rushed on, the plans tumbling out.
"And I've been looking at houses. Not in town, not all the way up on your ridge.
Something in between. A place with a yard for Sarah, closer to school, but where we can still see the stars. Both our worlds."
A smile broke across his face—the real one, the one that made his eyes crinkle and years fall away from his features. "You've been house hunting?"
"Is that weird?"
"It's perfect." He leaned in and kissed me, soft and sweet and full of promise. "You're figuring out how to meet me in the middle, that's exactly what I've been hoping for."
"Emma! Uncle C!" Sarah's voice cut through the roar of the waterfall. "I found a frog! A real one! Come see, you have to be quiet!"
I let her small, urgent hand pull me from the rock. We crouched together at the water's edge, the damp seeping through my jeans, and there it was, a little green frog perched on a stone, its throat pulsing rhythmically.
"Isn't he cool?" Sarah whispered.
"Very cool."
"I'm gonna name him Frederick."
"That's a very dignified name for a frog."
"He looks dignified."
The frog, apparently unimpressed by his new name, hopped into the pool and disappeared. Sarah sighed dramatically.
"He'll be back," I said. "Frogs like their spots."
"How do you know?"
"Tommy told me. He's our class frog expert."
"Tommy knows everything about frogs."
"He really does."