CHAPTER 1
LOLA
Here’s the thing nobody tells you about hiking backpacks: they’re incredibly, unreasonably heavy. Especially when you’ve stuffed them to the brim with too many brand-new, tags-still-on gadgets and accessories.
Even the stabilizing straps and rigid body don’t help with this one, which is a combination of light and dark pinks, just like my branding. The company said they color-matched my stuff online, which was surprisingly thoughtful of them.
Maybe when I was growing up, my dad didn’t make me carry that much stuff, or maybe I just managed to forget the pack-to-person ratio. Either way, when I swing the pack around to put it on, it hits me squarely in the back, and I topple, landing on the floor with a loudoomph, the air knocked out of me.
For a second, I’m on my stomach, lying amongst the dust on our hardwood floor, holding my breath.
It’s one of those things that makes you cringe and wait to see if the downstairs neighbor is going to pound on the ceiling. It is,after all, just after six in the morning, and our neighbors aren’t used to hearing sound from me untilat leastten.
There’s no pounding from below, but the sound does manage to wake my roommate. I can hear her moving around in her room, reacting to the thump.
Desperately, I try to roll over, but all I manage to do is maroon myself on top of the bag, trapping myself like an overturned turtle. I go limp, waiting for Maisie to come to my rescue.
“Lola!” Maisie’s door opens with a squeak, her rough voice floating down the hallway toward me. I hear the gentlethud, thudof her bare feet against the hardwood floor as she makes her way to me. Knowing her, she’s probably salivating over the possibility of putting some of that med school knowledge to use.
I’m clumsy, which is good for her, since she gets to clean my wounds and wrap me up, then guess whether my ankle is sprained or broken before the X-rays come back. (Always a sprain. I’ve had a weak ankle since the first time I sprained it in a middle school volleyball game.)
Maisie appears, her hair brushed, her face scrubbed clear of makeup, two shining golden gels pads stuck under her eyes. So, Maisie was already awake and getting ready while I was tiptoeing around in the living room, desperately trying to be quiet for her.
“What the hell happened?” she asks, leaning over me, clearly taking in the situation. I squint at her, worried that one of her under-eye patches might slide off her face and land on me instead.
“I’m fine. I just tried to, like,throwthe bag on, and it hit my back, so I fell on the floor…” I wheeze, though I definitelyknocked the air out of myself. My eyes unfocus and settle on a point just over Maisie’s shoulder, where the sleek black metal of my tripod reaches up and out of view. “Will you stop the camera?”
Maisie blinks, then whirls around and stands, laughing. “Yourecordedthat?”
“I thought it would be cool!”
“How much does that bag weigh?” Maisie tuts as she kneels beside me, her eyes roaming over me like she might have X-ray vision. “You could have thrown out your back!”
“Is that the medical term?”
“You’re not taking this seriously, Lols.”
“Hello. I’m still trapped here.” I flail my arms and legs at her helplessly. “Can we have this conversationafteryou free me from this thing?”
Maisie rolls her eyes, then reaches up and snaps off the little clasp over my sternum, which mercifully releases me and — after slipping my arms free of the straps — allows me to roll, face-first, onto the floor.
I blink at her pink toenails for a second before finding the energy to get my arms under me, push up from the floor and sit. She’s right. The backpack definitely could have thrown out my back, which is now sore from the impact.
“Can you breathe?” Maisie asks, raising an eyebrow at me. “Are your ribs cracked?”
“You’re the doctor. You tell me.”
Once again, she rolls her eyes, but kneels over me, poking and prodding at my ribs. I stare over her head, out at the city beyond our windows, just starting to wake up, light refracting off buildings, fog drifting out over the windows and spires. It’s gorgeous and distracts me from the pain in my back for a moment.
We’re not rich enough to have one of those stunning views of the water, but from this angle, I can make out a sliver of the great wheel through a crack in the buildings. And if you stand on your tiptoes in our bathroom, you can see the very side of the Space Needle.
All in all, it’s not a bad place to live. We might not be in a penthouse, but she’s a med-student, and I’m what the industry likes to call a mid-tier influencer. We’re lucky we can afford to live in downtown Seattle at all. If we were somewhere else — Los Angeles or New York — we definitely would not be this close to the city center.
When I start to laugh at her poking, she rolls her eyes and mutters something like,you’re fine, before disappearing back down the hallway. I can’t see her, but I know the sounds of her walking into the kitchen, the familiarclickof the coffee pot coming off the warmer.
I close my eyes in appreciation. At least in ten minutes, there will be a warm mug in my hand.
“What are you doing up this early, anyway?” Maisie asks, her voice floating in over the breakfast bar. I grimace, force myself to turn over and stand up, eyes locking on my phone, where the video is playing again and again.
