“You’re not going to rot out here,” I mutter before whistling for Ruby to follow. She’s caught the scent of something and started going off in the opposite direction. I find the trailhead and turn off the road into the trees with Wren close at my heels.
“Well, this isn’t the trail to the swimming hole, so God only knows where you’re taking me.”
“There’s something I want to show you,” I admit. The truth is, I come here often with Ruby. She loves the hike, and for some reason, coming out here over the years has made me feel close to Wren, even though she and I had never visited this place together. The moment I found this spot, I knew she would love it, and ever since, I’ve been waiting to show it to her. Hoping she would come back, and I could.
Now that I’m here with her, it feels vulnerable, like I’m showing her exactly how much I’ve thought about her over the last ten years. It’s embarrassing, and I wonder if I should have saved this date for another time. When she isn’t here out of obligation.
The trail winds through the evergreens, climbing and climbing, veering away from the swimming hole we used to frequent. The smell of dried pine needles in the sun is earthy and warm, and they crunch beneath our feet as we walk. Wren’s been panting softly behind me most of the way, but I turn when I can’t hear her anymore. She’s stopped about twenty paces back, squirming in her boots, adjusting them.
“Something wrong, Miller?” I ask, even though I know exactly what’s wrong.
“Nothing’s wrong!” she says, her voice reaching an octave that tells me she’s lying.
“It looks like your boots are bothering you,” I offer, my voice teasing and light.
“No, no, I’m fine. Catching my breath for a second,” she insists.
“It looks to me like you don’t want to take another step. Maybe … because your boots aren’t broken in.” Wren glances between me and her feet a few times. A wave of determination crosses her features as she attempts to take a step towards me. She visibly winces when she tries to take another.
“If your shoes aren’t the problem, why don’t you walk over to me, and I can help you figure out what’s hurting?”
“Okay. Okay. Fine. These boots are fucking killing me. I’m sorry, Hudson, I can’t go any further,” Wren whines, and Ruby is instantly by her side, pushing her head up against Wren’s leg. I walk back along the trail and set my backpack down once I get close.
“Here, sit.” Wren, surprisingly, complies and sits down on a large rock to the side of the trail. “Let me look.” I crouch down in front of her and slowly take her boots off, one at a time. The action is strangely intimate, and I let my fingers graze her ankle as I slide off her socks.
She takes a sharp inhale as my fingertips trace the length of her foot, examining it for injuries. All I find is that silver toe ring. It loops around her second toe, the silver metal meeting in the middle on the top and curling away in an artsy spiral.
“It’s the back, my heels,” she says, shifting so she canlook. There are two large raw patches, blisters that have been rubbed down and now look angry and sore.
“This looks awful. Why didn’t you say something sooner?” I say, but not in a scolding way, just a compassionate one. Because that’s all I’m feeling right now. Hurt that Wren was plodding along, trying to keep up when she had to be in so much pain.
“I didn’t want to …” Her voice trails off, but I catch the break at the end of her sentence. “I didn’t want you to think I can’t keep up. Because I can. I’d be ten paces ahead of you if it weren’t for these damn boots.” This is Wren’s default setting. Always be the strongest, the best in the room. Never show your weaknesses.
I glance up at her from where I’m crouched. I search her face for some sort of explanation, but I’ve seen this expression before, any time she’s lost one of our little games. The subtle downturn of her mouth and the line between her dark brows tell me she is more bothered by admitting defeat than she lets on.
“I’m happy to help, Miller. I have just the thing for this.” I grab my backpack and slide it over on the forest floor, digging around in it until I find my first aid kit. I always have it on me, and in my line of work as a firefighter, I stock it with far more than the average person would. I finally find what I want and hold it up to show Wren.
“What is it?” she says, peering curiously at the role of pink foam I have in my hands.
“Moleskin,” I answer, taking out some scissors to cut a piece to size. “It’ll protect the blister and stop it from gettingworse. Plus, it’ll pad the area so you can keep walking in your boots.”
“Oh good, I was worried I might have to take another one of your piggyback rides,” she teases. “You should make people sign waivers before you offer them one.”
I flash her a withering glare, and then my eyes snap back to the toe ring on her foot.
“You still have that,” I say, nodding my head towards it. Her leg tenses and flexes as if she might pull it away.
“Yeah, I uh, I like it,” she stammers. I don’t often see Wren nervous like this, and I have to admit I’m enjoying it.
“I remember when you got it,” I tell her, cutting a second piece of moleskin for her other heel.
“The summer I decided I wasn’t going to wear shoes.” She chuckles, a soft chuckle, like sweet nostalgia and disbelief that we were ever so young and carefree.
“That was a good summer.” It was the summer we first kissed. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was teasing her, as I always did, lying on the roof outside her bedroom window, watching the stars. What I was teasing her about has since been forgotten, because the memory of her lips on mine eclipsed it. Whatever it was resulted in me tickling her ribs until she was laughing and out of breath, and I put my lips on hers to give her mine.
Her gaze is locked on me now, searching my face for what, I don’t know. I don’t care. The way she’s looking at me makes me wonder if she thinks about that summer too.
“It was good,” she says, and I swear the corner of her mouth quirks up, though it’s almost imperceptible. But there’s no denying that her eyes sparkle.
