I am not fixed.
But I am here.
And that is enough.
GOLDEN HOUR
Discovery Park is a place people go to get lost, or at least to practice pretending they’re not a ten-minute Uber from the nearest brunch.
This time of year the air is thick with whatever pollen makes my face leak, the sunset turns the grasses nuclear gold, and there are at least three couples making out within a hundred-yard radius at all times.
I have no idea why we keep ending up here.
Maybe it’s that Darius looks like he belongs in wild spaces, or maybe I just like the way he pretends not to get winded on the hills.
We take the bluff trail, because it’s longer, and because you can see the whole Sound once you clear the treeline.
Neither of us is talking, not really, not until we hit the first overlook and Darius says, “You ever think about leaving?”
He means Seattle. Maybe he means the team, the city, the everything.
“Only every day ending in Y,” I say, but I keep my eyes on the water, where the ferries crawl toward Bainbridge in slow, painful procession.
He looks at me like he’s trying to read whether I mean it. The man has a built-in bullshit detector, but he’s so used to being the one who never blinks that when he does, it’s like a physical event.
I watch him wait for my answer. I give him nothing, just keep walking.
The path narrows, and we have to go single file for a bit, which means my view is all calves and the back of his neck, sweat-sheened and perfect. He slows up, lets me draw even.
Now it’s just the wind in the grass, the crunch of gravel under our shoes, and the dull roar of my heartbeat every time our sleeves brush.
We hit the part of the trail where the benches are all rusted out from sea air and disuse.
There’s a couple there, an older pair, the guy feeding bits of apple to his wife like she’s a bird.
Darius glances at them, then at me, and for a second I think he’s going to say something about getting old, about how the world doesn’t stop for anyone. But he just grunts and picks up the pace.
It goes like that for another mile. Us and the wind and the endless possibilities of what we’re not saying.
I can feel his mood shifting, like he’s working up to something or fighting down the urge to bolt. I know that feeling. I live in that feeling.
Finally, after the third overlook, he says, “My mom used to bring me here.”
I almost trip. “You’re kidding. She doesn’t strike me as a hiking type.”
He shrugs. “She likes the air. Says it tastes different from Oakland. She’d pack a picnic, make me sit still and look at the water. She said it was important to remember how big the world was.”
I picture him as a kid, sitting on a bench like a prisoner, forced to watch gulls and container ships when all he wanted was to go home and play Halo. “Did it work?”
He doesn’t answer right away. “I remember it,” he says. “So maybe.”
We take a left at the fork, toward the bluff where the view is pure postcard, all firs and madrona and the sound below like a sheet of hammered tin.
The wind cuts cold, and I rub at my arms, pretending I’m not freezing. Darius notices, pulls a face, and wordlessly peels off his outer layer, a faded UW track jacket and throws it at me like it’s a dare.
I put it on. It’s warm as hell and smells like cedar and the last hint of his body wash. I try to make a joke, but all that comes out is, “You always take care of people?”
He snorts. “I think you’re the only one who notices.”
