“Narrow path,” he calls out, sliding his hand fully behind his back.
I trail my hand down to his wrist and position myself behind him. “Can you see the zoo from here?”
He slows to a stop. “Strangely no. If I didn’t know we were at the zoo, I’d think we were in the middle of nowhere.”
“Maybe it’s a portal like the Bermuda Triangle… The Palm Springs Triangle.” I laugh. “Describe the view. Like what do you see?”
“Lots of rocks.”
“You should be a poet,” I deadpan.
“I read books, not write them. I’ll leave that to Catherine. There’s a reason I went into medicine,” he says with a playful lilt. “The rocks have this sandy gray color like the beach on a cloudy day. There are no trees. A small mountain range or hills—not sure which—are in the distance. The sky is a pale blue that makes me think of that dress you wore when I picked you up from brunch with the girls last week.”
“Thank you.” I lean in, pressing my lips against his shoulder—his body relaxes with my kiss.
The long, narrow stretch starts to decline. We stay tucked close until it flattens at the bottom, allowing us to go back to a person and a half formation. My skin hums with the sunshine’s hot breath against it. It may only be in the seventies, but the cloudless sky and treeless terrain offer no shade. Our only reprieve is the soft breeze whispering through the mini hill or mountain range—like Garrett, I’m not entirely sure what this is. What I do know is there is a mixture of steady and sharp inclines and declines along this path.
“Shouldn’t we be done?” I ask, my brow creased.
It’s been at least fifteen minutes since my fitness tracker pinged with the five-mile mark. I imagined the end would be soon, but it doesn’t appear to be coming, or at least Garrett hasn’t said anything.
“Yeah…” He stops, his body twisting left and right as if looking for any sign of the trail’s end. “Let me check the map.”
While Garrett reviews the map, I drink some of our water. It’s strange how an almost six-mile hike can feel more rigorous than our ten-mile jog/power walks.
“Shit,” Garrett mutters.
“What?”
“I misread the map. We’re on the wrong trail.”
My lips purse. “Which trail are we on?”
“The ten mile one.”
“Ten miles!”
Somehow, I’m ten again and finding out there’s no Easter Bunny, which was weirdly more tragic than theNo Santarevelation. It shouldn’t be a big deal to find out there’s about four miles left in this hike, but every muscle aches with the fever of a whiny child.
Shaking his head, he looks back at the map in his hands. “Shit… I’m sorry. I don’t know how I fucked this up.”
“Hey—” I step into him, wrapping my arms around his waist. “You didn’t fuck anything up.”
“This isn’t what we planned,” he murmurs, folding his arms around me, the map still clutched in his hand.
Head pressed against his chest, I can’t miss the heavy thud of his heart. “It’s okay, we can adjust our plans.”
“This trail is harder.”
I tip my head up. “Yeah… And we’re over halfway through. We’ve got this.”
“Yeah, but there’s a steep uphill climb and a path along a cliffside before it declines back and meets up with the start.” Releasing me, he steps back and studies the map again. Maybe we should turn back?—”
“Absolutely not! I repeat—we’re over halfway through.” My laugh-filled protest is resolute. “I didn’t come all this way to turn around. Even if the path forward may be harder, there’s not a piece of me that wants to turn around.”
“The intensity level is higher than the trail we thought we were on.” He gestures to the trail.
“We can do this.”
