Page 70 of Always Be an Us

She listens with rapt attention, her eyes glittering and laughing when I tell her how my rabbit got loose at one of my dad's business meetings.

"Never seen so many old men screaming like little girls," I say, chuckling at the memory. "They thought it was a rat at first." I pause. "Looking back, it might have been a rat. It was pretty small for a rabbit."

Emma laughs again.

She follows my story with one of her own, where she and her friend Tate accidentally ate all the communion crackers at church and rushed to replace them with snacks they brought with them.

"Everyone was confused at Sunday school when they rolled out the Chips Ahoy and Oreos with communion wine," she says. "Although Grandpa thought it was really funny, I got banned from Sunday school for a week." She shrugs. "I didn't care about that. The real punishment was that I had to write a three-page letter of atonement and that was a real drag."

Now it's my turn to laugh. We continue like that, trading stories back and forth, with no end in sight.

It's strange how easy it is to talk to her. I'm not usually so chatty, but with Emma the words flow out of me effortlessly. Even when we're not bantering, I love watching her smile, the way her eyes crinkle at the corners when she laughs with absolutely no guile whatsoever.

So pure. Beautiful but unassuming. Like the pearl.

In the afternoon, after the rain stops and we venture down the hill slowly, it's almost a shame when my phone dings at the first hour.

"I got it!" she announces.

"What?" I turn to find her leaning against a tree, my phone in her hand.

"Service," she says. "It’s spotty but I should be able to make a call with this."

"Great. Call 911."

"I’ll do one better," she says and dials a number pressing the phone to her ear.

"Rick!" she says after a few seconds. "It's me."

"Emma!" I can hear the panic in the older man’s voice even though the phone isn’t on speaker. "Where on earth are you?"

"At Ashton Woods. I went in to help Declan."

"And why the fuck would you do that?"

"Because he's my friend." She glances around and takes the phone down from her ear, putting it on speaker. "I’m not entirely sure where we are but I think we're close to the top and there's a log cabin here."

There’s a pause on the other side of the phone. "You're at the cabin?"

"Yes," Emma says. "Is that a problem?"

"No, no." He recovers quickly. "I know where it is. I’ll come to get you. Just give me a second."

"Okay," she says right before the line dies.

"I guess rescue is on the way," she tells me.

"I guess it is." I wonder if she feels as disappointed as I do. Somehow, in the last few hours, I forgot we were trapped here. It started to feel like it was just the two of us, on a vacation from the real world.

And I enjoyed it.

But now the real world is about to come barreling back.

There's silence as we head back up to the cabin. Emma lets me carry her. It's part of the deal I made with her to let her come down with me in the first place.

She seems to be thinking deeply about something, and I glance at her, in between watching the ground so that we don't get tripped up.

About a quarter mile away from the cabin, I spot something sitting in between tree roots.

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