Chapter 7: Rule One

On Sunday Cal drove us to the trailhead for Rattlesnake Ledge and informed me, in the parking lot, that Sadie was coming.

"You said she's not allowed to touch you," he said. "So it's safe. A trail is the safest place there is."

"You invited her."

"I invited a person who looked tired at the front desk. It's a public hill."

Sadie was already out of her borrowed car in a pair of hiking boots two sizes too big, with a water bottle in each hand.

"I won't talk," she said. "I'll walk behind you. I'll be a tree."

"A tree can't carry two bottles."

"A very busy tree."

The corner of my mouth went before I could stop it.

She saw it and looked at the ground, and I watched her try not to be glad.

The trail was two miles of switchbacks through wet cedar, and it went up one long steady grade after another.

The air was cold and thin and smelled of rain.

By the second mile my left leg had begun dragging.

By the third switchback after that, my lungs were making a sound.

It was small, a whistle on the in-breath, and I knew it.

"Take your time," Cal said, from above me.

"I'm fine."

I kept going another ten steps.

Then my chest closed.

It happened the way it always did, all at once, a fist in the middle of me squeezing down.

I got one hand on a boulder and the other on my knee.

I couldn't get air.

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