Then I realize it’s falling directly toward me.
My heart jumps into my throat, and my body acts before my brain can catch up to the moment. I leap to the side, landing hard on my stomach and throwing my hands over my head — as though that’s going to do anything to keep me from getting completely crushed.
There’s a roaringwhooshof air as the tree falls, and a deafeningthudas it hits the ground, branches and leaves cascading over me. My mouth is acrid with fear, my heart beating in my throat, and it takes a second for me to realize that I’m not dead.
Around me, the forest echoes with the sounds of the fall, leaves rustling and other trees adjusting to the new balance. I can hear the faint sound of wood and leaves still falling from the fir, hitting the forest’s carpet softly.
“Okay,” I say, but there are pine needles in my face, so I reach up to try and brush the stuff away, only to find my arm trapped by the heavy bark of the tree.
After forcing myself to breathe deeply, I take stock of the situation.
I only just managed to leap to the side, my body landing beside a sizable rock that kept the weight of the tree from landing right on me. But it’s slanted over my body, leaving a triangle the size of my torso between the rock, tree trunk, and ground. When I try to move, to wriggle out, I find that I can’t. My left arm is free, but my right is pinned to my side. I use the free hand to push thebranches out of my face, though I can already practically taste the sap.
The axe is about a foot away, and I can reach it with my left hand. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t fall right on it.
“Okay,” I grunt, then laugh quietly to myself. “Okay, everything is fine. There’s a way out of this. I just have to stay calm.”
I wish I’d brought Cheese with me. It’s not like she’d be able to push the tree off, but maybe she could go for help? Is she smart enough to do something like that?
And of course, I don’t have a phone.
I’ll just have to find a way to save myself.
Around midday,I still haven’t found a way out of my predicament that doesn’t include getting crushed by the tree, and my mind starts to wander.
Since the moment I walked her to her car and made her leave, I’ve been doing my best to avoid thinking about Lola. But now, trapped, unable to use a task or physical labor to distract myself, I can’t stop the thoughts of her from flooding to the surface.
The look on her face when she saw me standing there with her stuff. How I’d been too much of a coward to confront her — to do anything but force her out.
After what happened with Hannah and Elliot maybe I’ve lost the patience for trying.
I close my eyes against the glare of the sun as the memories come flooding back.
“Come on, Henry,” Hannah’s voice, her brown eyes soft and pitying. “Elliot has always been the brains of the operation.”
It wasn’t true. Elliot was the businessman, butIwas the brain. The one coming up with the innovative programs.
When Elliot first met me, I’d already made a few apps and posted them to the app store for free. And I was almost finished with a software I planned to release for free, as well. He’s the one who talked me into charging for it. Into selling to a much larger tech company that was threatened by me.
I’d put my head down and focused on what mattered, and Elliot spent his time with lawyers and competitors, drinking whiskey and negotiating.
“This is going toruinus,” I’d said back, my voice quiet, my finger making a dullthwapagainst the paper in my hand. A copy of the financial reports from our company, which up until a week before, I’d never paid any attention to. “Hannah, Elliot — or someone, I mean, I hope it’s not him — is embezzling. Has been for years.”
I wasn’t an accountant or a business person, like Elliot. But I had been getting a weird feeling, and it didn’t take me long to realize the numbers weren’t adding up.
Of course, Hannah is the first person I told when I figured it out. But what I didn’t know was that she was involved in the embezzlement, and it’s not the only way she wasn’t being honest.
Now, I let out a low grunt and push against the trunk, muscles straining and burning against the weight. I’m thirsty, hungry, but worse than that or even the idea of a wild animal finding me is having to lie here, replaying the worst moments of my life again and again.
Leading Lola back to her car.
Not even taking the chance that she might be able to explain herself. If Belle had been here, she’d have told me that I’m projecting. That I have to learn how to trust again, and I can’t just push people away when they get too close.
But the thing is that Ican. I moved all the way out here to the middle of nowhere. I got away from it all. When Pete comes, I never let him stay for longer than an hour at a time.
And then Lola came along, and I’m frustrated beyond belief at how difficult it’s been to adjust to her being gone. I’ve been living in this cabin for years, and somehow, she managed to tip the scales. To make her absence feel like a lost tooth, like a gaping hole left by something that had been there forever.
I don’t think you should hide forever, Rowan.
