Page 100 of Four Weekends and a Funeral

“No way, Mullally,” Russell shouts over the rain. “Not safe.”

“Can we pick up the pace then?”

Chelsea blinks off the water collecting on her lashes. “Al, we’re moving as fast as we can.”

“I have to…” I shift unsteadily. “Use the restroom.”

We stop, rain beating down on our shoulders. Russell tips his head in the direction of a naked, emaciated tree.

My jaw falls open. “You can’t be serious.”

“I did it,” he argues.

“And it was weird!”

“There won’t be toilets on our trip, and it’s going to rain. Like all the time.”

I point my head toward the ground, my soaked knit hat weighing heavy on my head. I wipe my brow, but the rain keeps falling to replace it. Dampness seeps through my water-resistant layers, rattling my frigid bones. “Why do people think this is fun? Am I crazy or are they?”

Chelsea leans in to pat my shoulder, but her foot slips out from under her. I lunge for her jacket, and she grabs at my arms, hood, belt bag, anything she can to steady herself, but we topple into the icy mud. My hip crashes against stone and my cheek scrapes against a frozen branch that might as well be an ice pick.

In the flurry of arms, my bag rips open, spilling its contents over the rain-soaked terrain. Emotion catches in my throat when I spot a small white disc. It’s my casino chip—the mate of the Mystic Lake chip from Sam’s bookcase.

An unexpected snort spits rainwater out of my nose, because that great memory couldn’t be more different from where I am right now. For one thing, we were dry. Stale cigarette smoke filling our noses, we overindulged at the buffet, shared drinks at the bar with a bickering octogenarian couple, and snuck into the amphitheater for Boy George and Culture Club’s sound check.

That day was nothing new and special to Sam. It was so…simple. I didn’t have to hide the nausea creeping up my throat at the top of a mountain bike trail or feign confidence rappelling down a rock wall. I was me the whole day—boring me—with someone I cared about. That’s what made it perfect.

Grief and joy grip my insides, because Sam didn’t keep that chip because it was an Instagrammable thrill that fit his “nomad aesthetic.” He kept it because it was real. He kept it to remember a great day with a good friend. He was a collector of great days, and I could be too, if I could admit that my happiest days haven’t been any of the adrenaline-fueled ones.

A happy day was that perfect first warm day in May when Mara, Chelsea, and I wandered the tiny beaches around Lake Harriet. Mara and I flipped a pedal boat, and we all ended up at Chelsea’s, watching romantic comedies late into the night.

It was starting the day doing something awful like packing up a bookcase or going to a dreaded doctor’s appointment and ending it in Adam’s arms. A perfect day was spending it with Adam as myself and absolutely no threat of nausea-inducing thrill.

Why am I forcing these grand adventures like I googled “how to Eat, Pray, Love your way through Minnesota” when my best days are filled with contentment?

Well, shit, Denise.

The familiar rock in my chest doesn’t pulse at the prospect of bailing on Patagonia. It’s not even a rock anymore—when did that happen? It’s more like a tangled ball of Christmas lights. You groan when you find it buried at the bottom of a box, because you know it can be untangled. You can’t justify paying $19.99 for a new strand when you know it’s possible to sort this strand out if you only try.

I have to start looking at what really makes me feel lighter, and if I’m honest, I’ve known for a while that forcing myself to be someone else isn’t it.

Icy ground squishes under my gloved hand, and I wipe my hair from my eyes, dragging the mess across my face. “I’d rather die than poop outside,” I burst out, because I can’t stand pretending a second longer.

“What?” Russell asks, his voice louder than before. The rain is slowing down to a merciful sprinkle. His eyes monitor me like I’m a rabid animal.

“And I hate parking lots. I won’t spend every day being paid to consider where people park so I can poop in the mountains on vacation.” My pulse is skyrocketing with adrenaline. I keep wanting to make myself fit this mold of a person I think looks right from the outside: the survivor. But I can only be me. “I can’t keep forcing it. It won’t make me better or worthy. It’ll just make me full of shit.”

“And you don’t want to shit outside,” Chelsea repeats. A smile dances across her mud-splattered face, her blond braid now a wet, dingy rope.

I grin up to the sky, leaning back against the frozen wall of sandstone. “Exactly.”

We make it down the rest of the hill, and even though mud squelches in my boot, my bruised hip throbs, and I’m pretty sure my lip is bleeding, I manage to enjoy the downward climb. Without my self-imposed pressure to make this hike the key to my enlightenment, the surrounding bluffs become what they always were: a beautiful, cold place to spend a day with one of my best friends. And Russell.

We find our cars in front of the mostly empty strip mall where we left them, and my heart smiles at the fact that I won’t be planning traffic flow in retail parking lots any time soon. With the drop in temperature, the rain’s caked onto our cars in a thin sheet of ice. Russell scrapes at our windshields while Chelsea and I relieve ourselves at the only open business: a zombie-themed escape room.

“The guy at reception didn’t even bat an eye,” Chelsea chuckles.

I pull a stick from my hair. “He must think we’re part of the cast.” We look a bit undead.

---