Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
“No,” I answered Amos. “I don’t have any interest in going there. She had a journal with her favorites. I’m hiking because she loved to, so I want to do them too. I’m not as athletic or as much of an explorer as she is, but I want to do what I can. That’s all. I know we had a lot of fun, but I just want to… remember her. And those were some of the best memories of my life.”
Neither one of them said anything for so long, I genuinely started to feel a little awkward. Some people were uncomfortable with the idea of grief. Some people didn’t understand love either.
And that was okay.
But I was never going to shy away from how much I’d loved my mom and how much I was willing to do to feel closer to her. I’d been on autopilot for so many years, that it had been easy to… not bury my mourning… but to just keep it on my shoulder and keep going.
For so long, right after her disappearance, it had been hard enough to just force myself out of bed and continue trying to live my new life.
Then after that, there had been school, and Kaden, and just go, go, go.
All this while carrying my mom’s memory and legacy with me, covering it up with distractions and life until now. Until I’d dusted all that other stuff off to focus on what I’d buried for so long.
And I was thinking about all this when Mr. Rhodes said in his rough voice, “What’s on her list?”
Of hikes? “Probably too many. I want to do them all, but it depends how long I stick around.” Which was longer now than I had expected a couple weeks ago since he’d invited me to stay. If I kept being a good guest, then who knew how long he’d rent the garage apartment out to me.
Wishful thinking. Then I’d have to decide whether to rent or buy a place, but all that depended on how things were going here. If I had enough of a reason to stay… or if this would turn out to be another place with no roots to hold me down any longer. “She did all of them when we lived here, but I know for sure she had Crater Lake Trail on there.”
“That one’s difficult. You can do it in a day though if you pace yourself and start early.”
Ooh. He was offering suggestions and information? Maybe he had gotten over the incident with the bat.
I threw out another trail in Mom’s book.
“Difficult too. You have to be in good shape to do that one in a day, but I’d say spend the night or be prepared to be sore.”
I winced.
He must have noticed it because he asked, “You don’t want to camp?”
“Honestly, I’m a little scared to camp by myself, but maybe I’ll just do it.”
He grunted, probably thinking I was an idiot for being scared.
But whatever. I’d watched a movie about an immortal Sasquatch that kidnapped people in the wilderness. And hadn’t he said there were millions of acres of national forest? Nobody could really know what was out there. When I’d go camping with my mom a million years ago, it had just been fun. I’d never worried about some ax murderer possibly coming up to our tent and getting us. I’d never even worried about bears or Sasquatches or skunks or any of that.
Had she?
I named another one.
“Difficult.”
Exactly what I’d read online.
“Devil Mountain?”
“Difficult. I don’t know if that one’s worth it.”
I glanced at him. “She had a couple of funky notes for that one. Maybe I’ll put that one at the bottom of the list if I get bored.”
“Didn’t we take a UTV up that one when you first moved back here?” Amos asked.
When you first moved back here. Who the hell had Amos lived with? His mom and stepdad?
“Yes. We got the flat tire,” Mr. Rhodes confirmed.
“Oh,” the boy said.
I rattled off more names of trails off the top of my head, and fortunately, he said those were intermediate hikes so those seemed more doable. “Have you done any of those?” I asked Amos just to include him.
“No. We don’t do anything since Dad works all the time.”
At my side, the man seemed to tense.
I was blowing it.
“My aunt and uncle, who raised me, worked all the time. I pretty much only slept at their house. We were always at the restaurant they owned,” I tried to soothe, thinking back on all the things that had driven me crazy when I’d been his age. Then again, it didn’t help that I’d been so heartbroken over my mom at the same time.
But looking back on it now, I think they had kept me occupied on purpose. Otherwise, I probably would have just stayed in the room I’d shared with my cousin and moped the whole time. And by moped, I really meant cried like a baby.