Page 26 of His Curvy Distraction

The shovel sank into the dirt with very little resistance. It didn’t go far, two inches or so, but it was enough for me to feel like it was something.

I started at one of the campsites. Digging down two feet to where the conduit ran through the ground, wires protected and safe. I tugged on one end, happy when the whole thing moved.

It was slow work to dig up the wires. Two feet didn’t seem like much until it was over the entire site. I backfilled the holes as I dug out the next section of the conduit.

One came free, the entire path cleared from the old campsite to the junction where they all came together. I looked back and smiled. It wasn’t easy, but it was possible.

Knowing I did that one made me feel like I could do anything. I could dig up wires and save the town some money so we could make the campground an amazing place for the kids. I could make this work. I could talk to people and raise money and watch my dreams come to life right there on that old campground.

I went to work on the second one, digging up the conduit for that one as easily as the first. I took my coat off halfway through digging, the exertion soaking my clothes with sweat and the need for cooling taking over.

I was halfway through the third one when I hit a rock when I was digging. I dug around it, knowing it needed to come out. It wasn’t huge, but it was bigger than I could easily move. I used the shovel as a lever and pried it up and out of the hole I created.

The conduit was exposed and I could yank it up, leaving the space free to backfill with the dirt I’d removed from the hole. I set the shovel down and laid the conduit to the side, then grabbed my shovel to get the dirt back in the hole.

I tripped on the rock. My ankle screamed with pain. I slid, my other foot falling into the hole I’d made. The shovel nearly whacked me in the head.

A ripping sound had me clutching my backside, praying it was my pants and not a muscle that tore. The cold breeze on my upper thighs confirmed it was my pants.

It was good news. I was okay. I just had to figure out how in the hell I was getting out of the hole I dug for myself.

Oh, the irony.

7

My ass was soaked. My pants were shredded. My ankle was twisted. And I was stuck.

It didn’t matter how hard I tugged, I couldn’t get my uninjured foot out of the hole. It was wedged, and without the leverage of a good foot on solid ground, I was not going anywhere.

Of course, I left my phone in my car. So I wouldn’t drop it anywhere. And of course, no one was going to just drive by. Which meant I either had to figure out how to get myself out of the mess I was in or hope Daisy came looking for me when I didn’t come home.

In six hours or so.

“Argh!” I shouted at the sky.

My normal anxiety was a pain in the ass when I was around adults, especially strangers. It left me tripping over my words and fumbling with what I wanted to say and how I wanted to act, or just shutting down completely. What I was feeling, trapped in the hole I dug, literally, was an entirely different kind of anxiety.

This was a new fear. A true fear for my life. Was I going to survive? I was already shivering since I discarded my jacket, again in my damn car. What the hell was I thinking?

I closed my eyes and drew a breath, remembering the years and years and years of therapy that helped me to function. First, box breathing to bring my racing heart down to a level where I could think.

Second, evaluate the situation.

“Really bad,” I told myself. “But I can do this.”

Hearing my own voice was better than feeling so alone.

“The mud is wet and cold. My ankle hurts a lot. I have one foot high and the other low. If I push my hands down to push myself up, it doesn’t work. I have two choices, tuck and roll or risk getting more stuck by putting my injured foot in the same hole.”

My pulse raced with the options, knowing neither was great. But I couldn’t think of an option that didn’t require me getting even dirtier than I was.

“I can do this. I will reward myself with a bubble bath and scrub every inch of my skin. Twice. No more mud baths ever in my life. Why would I want a repeat of this?”

Another deep breath.

“Okay, we’re going to roll.”

I stretched out in the mud, my too thin shirt instantly saturated by the squishy mud. It made the world’s most disgusting sucking, wet, sloppy noise ever and soaked through my shirt and filled my bra.

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