“Didn’t make Eagle. Which I guess would make my map-reading abilities unexplainable, huh?” Amused with himself,Kael heads left, keeping the valley on our left and the slope on our right.
Somewhere in that exchange he took a different kind of left turn, but I refuse to let my future hang on an insult.
“Alistair’s recommendation,” I say, yanking us back to my problem.
Kael drops his arms to his sides, resigned.
“At the time, it sounded like pigs flying. But then I tripped into your lap and… it’s hard not to wonder if the universe is lining things up.”
Kael stops walking so he can give my optimism a proper death stare, mouth open in mock horror.
“That’swhat you think the universe is lining up?” He rakes his gaze down and back up my body, lip curling. “That’s sad.”
“What’s sad is people toiling for decades in jobs they hate, buying crap they can’t afford, to impress people they don’t like. What’s sad is peoplesayingthey’re working at ninety-two because they ‘like their job,’ then when he dies, finding out he left nothing but debt and a pile of things he never did.”
I look up. Kael is walking backward now, watching me with open curiosity as I unravel. I force my shoulders down, uncurl my fists, and flatten my toes in my boots.
“You okay?” he asks, rubbing his hands together.
“I’m fine.” Shame rushes in to fill the space old memories just cracked open.
“Hit a nerve there.”
“Drop it.”
“When ‘they’ became ‘he,’ it kind of stopped sounding hypothetical. Your parents?”
“Kael.”
“Come on. You can talk to me.”
“Drop. It.”
He finally does, smirk fading as he turns away.
Silence is a better companion than this. The road levels out, and we fall into a fast walk, no cars, no engines, nothing human. Once the pounding in my head quiets, I can hear the old trees creaking in the wind, birds carrying on like nothing’s wrong, and underneath it all the steady drumbeat of my freedom date sliding further and further away.
Pawpaw’s debt collection letter is in my bag and in my head.
I remember my parents on the car rides home from his house, wondering why he kept working and never took vacations.
I’d loved that he was always around. He’d spread his latest itineraries across the dining table, tracing routes with his finger, telling vivid stories about the trips he planned for other people. To me, having a grandpa who worked as a travel agent and never traveled himself just meant one more constant, loving presence.
After he died, those itineraries changed from plans to unanswered prayers. Those car rides home changed too. What used to sound like harmless wondering turned out to be my parents circling a lie.
Beside me, Kael pulls his blanket over his head and shoulders, wearing it like aStar WarsJawa, and we walk toward night.
Exhausted by Kael, and leaving my phone plugged into my laptop so we’ll have flashlight battery later, I watch my feet fall one in front of the other on the dirt road. The soft crunching becomes trancelike.
Something rustles in the trees, drawing my eyes left. A squirrel hangs by its front paws from a branch, swaying, then hauls itself back to safety. I glance at Kael, and he’s already watching. The little guy scurries down the trunk and vanishes, and my attention drifts past it to the view beyond.
Deep green forest, ragged mountains, and glassy lakes spread out below us. The air comes cold and clean off the distant snow-capped peaks.
The higher we climb, the more we can see behind us, the sinking sun lighting a growing wall of smoke in a reddish-orange halo.
“Looks like it’s getting worse,” I say. “But it seems like it’s keeping its distance, at least.”
I cross my fingers. Without cell service, it’s impossible to know if we’re moving too slowly or if it’s already over. From up here, it clearly isn’t.
