‘It’s an easy hike, I swear. We’re going to walk along the floor of the canyon, hop over the river a couple times, climb up the side of the canyon then back down to the surprise at the end.’ He handed me a pair of shiny silver walking sticks that matched the ones resting by his feet. ‘Then we turn around and come back.’
‘How long will that take?’ I asked, flicking the catch on one of the sticks exactly the way Ren had and promptly breaking it in two.
‘Maybe three hours?’ He picked up the two poles of my walking stick, slotted them together and fastened the catch before handing it back. ‘It’s about four and a half miles in all but we’ll want to hang out for a while in the middle.’
Three hours. Almost as long asAvatar. I.e. too long.
‘Um, how high does it go?’ Bel asked.
I looked back and saw her usually sunny face was oddly pale.
‘It’s not so high,’ Ren said, kneeling down to double-knot his well-worn boots and looking up at her through a mess of shiny dark hair. I could have sworn there were little cartoon love hearts flapping around his head. ‘Maybe feels a little steep coming back but that’s only for a few minutes.’
‘It looks high.’
‘You’re a trainer, you’re in amazing shape, it’ll be a breeze for you.’ He gave a dazzling smile and clapped his hands together. ‘We all ready?’
I eyed the uneven dirt path that ran alongside the river. ‘I would like to remind everyone once again that I have no health insurance so if I fall, please leave me for the wolves.’
‘More likely bears,’ Ren said amiably, resting his hands on my shoulders and gently pushing me onto the path. ‘Maybe mountain lions. Definitely coyotes.’
‘This gets better and better,’ I said, choosing to believe he was joking but still tightening my hair into a bear-proof topknot. No need to give Yogi and Boo Boo something easy to grab on to.
‘Oh no!’
Ren and I turned at the same time to see the third member of our troop sprawled out on the ground, clutching her leg.
‘Bel!’ Ren was by her side in less than a second and with shaking hands I pulled out my phone, ready to dial for an ambulance. ‘What happened?’
She shrieked the moment he touched her ankle. ‘I don’t know, maybe I rolled it? One second I was fine and the next, I was on the floor.’
‘Can you stand?’ he asked as he helped her up to herone good foot. With a heroic sniff, Bel tested her weight on the bad ankle before collapsing into Ren’s arms.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said through barely restrained tears. ‘Why did this have to happen to me? Today of all days? Why, God, why?’
Now, I knew Bel was a good actress. I’d seen her in action on Saturday night, but this was not that. She was hammier than Porky the Pig. I’d seen drag queens lip-sync for their lives with more subtlety.
‘There’s no way I’m going to be able to climb up the side of the canyon,’ she said, her bottom lip trembling. ‘You’ll have to go on without me.’
But Ren shook his head. ‘We have to get you to the ER. What if that ankle is broken?’
‘But it isn’t,’ she replied altogether too quickly. ‘I mean, I really don’t think it is because I can still kind of move it a little even though it hurts a lot. I just need to rest.’
‘Why don’t we unlace your boot and have a look?’ I suggested. ‘See if it’s swollen?’
‘You’re not supposed to!’ Bel yelled, slapping my hand away from her shoelace. ‘I took a first aid course that said to leave the boot tied until you can get help; don’t you dare touch it!’
She was faking it. She’d dragged me out of bed to climb up a mountain with her boyfriend and now she didn’t want to do it.
‘If it’s that bad, I’d really like to get you to a doctor,’ Ren said, frowning. ‘Even if it’s not broken, you could have a torn ligament.’
Bel hobbled over to a picnic table and threw herself onto the uneven planks of wood like a Victorian spinstertaking to her fainting couch. All she needed was some smelling salts and a case of consumption and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
‘It’s not that serious, I can tell, but I don’t want to slow you down. Please, go on without me.’ She held both his hands in hers, a single, selfless tear running down her cheek. Anyone would have thought she was asking us to leave her behind enemy lines. ‘You said you’d been planning this hike for weeks, I don’t want to ruin it for you and I don’t want to ruin Phoebe’s day. We can go hiking any time, she only has a few more days of vacation.’
He looked back at me and I traded my suspicious face for an easy smile before he noticed.
‘I really hate the thought of leaving you.’ He cupped her face with his hand, his thumb stroking the tear from her cheekbone, and a surge of something sour shot through me. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind waiting for us?’
