Page 32 of Shifting Gears

“Nora?”

Eleanor jumps up from her rock, whirling around to see Naomi coming up the trail. She’s dressed to hike, with long pants tucked into her boots and her curls pulled back from her face as she moves easily through the trees.

Eleanor quickly shoves the notebook into her bag.

“God, you scared me,” Eleanor says, pressing a hand against her chest where her heart is working in overdrive. “I thought you might be a bear.”

“Mostly coyotes and deer in this area,” Naomi says, stopping when she reaches Eleanor to lean on her long walking stick. “Doing a little hiking?”

Eleanor’s mouth goes dry. Her anxious heart isn’t calming down—it’s speeding up, pumping away the seconds before her lack of answer becomes awkward. Telling Naomi what she’sreally doing out here is not the best idea, but at the same time, the idea of outright lying now when she’s spent so much time with Dani and her friends makes her a little nauseous. Straddling the line between the two is becoming a delicate game.

“You probably won’t be shocked to hear that I’m lost,” Eleanor says instead.

Naomi’s smile is far gentler than Eleanor deserves. “If you follow the trail back the way I came, it’ll bring you to the road. Near the creek?”

Eleanor can vaguely remember driving past a creek—if she can get back to a road, she’s sure she can follow it long enough to find her car. It takes a weight off her shoulders, and Eleanor sits back down on the rock with a sigh. “Thank you. Cell service out here is so patchy.”

Naomi doesn’t seem angry like she would be if Eleanor had blabbed anything important at the party, which is an immediate relief. With that confirmed, she’s probably the perfect person to talk to to get to the bottom of how Eleanor acted around Dani that night.

“I come out here all the time to get away from it all,” Naomi says, looking up at the canopy above them shifting in a breeze blocked by the woods down below. Sunshine is peeking through, casting dancing spots of light onto the plants Eleanor has been wading through. “We used to spend a lot of time out here as kids. Even had my first kiss in these woods.”

There’s a wistfulness to the way she says it that piques Eleanor’s interest. She raises an eyebrow. “Sounds like an adventure.”

“Sarah and I were practicing for boys. Tale as old as time.”

Naomi’s presence puts Eleanor surprisingly at ease—not quite like Dani does, but significant enough that she doesn’t feel like the conversation is forced.

Naomi chuckles when Eleanor flinches and smacks at a mosquito that lands on her arm, missing and then swatting at it as it buzzes around her face, but it feels good-natured. “I take it you’re not a great enjoyer of the outdoors?”

“I enjoy watching it from my windows,” Eleanor drawls, satisfied that the insect is finally gone. “How do you find the time to hike? With only one other doctor in town, I assumed your schedule would be packed.”

“I make time for the things I love.”

Eleanor hums. “What’s that like?”

“Difficult, but worth it,” Naomi says. She sits next to Eleanor on her rock and unzips her backpack, pulling out a water bottle and taking a long drink. “You aren’t doing so bad—Dani says you’re on vacation, right?”

“Workcation, really,” Eleanor admits. “I don’t think I know how to distance myself from it completely.”

Naomi nods. “Sounds familiar. Between you and me, this being my hometown means a few too many patients have my cell number. The lack of service out here means it’s just about the only place I’m totally unavailable.”

The otherwise pleasant conversation is spiked with a lance of fresh guilt.

Eleanor has never understood why anyone would cling to remote, unmanaged backwoods like this when something more useful could be there instead, but seeing Naomi so at home here is a new perspective she didn’t expect. Whatever budding friendship they seem to be building could very well end when Naomi finds out whose company is responsible for developing her favourite hiking trails, even if it’s a net positive for the region.

In the recesses of Eleanor’s mind, the seeds of doubt that have been germinating since Dani took her to the tree house continue to grow.

“Speaking of Dani,” Eleanor says, seizing on the moment of quiet to change the subject and bite the bullet, “at Pride, you and I spent some time talking, right? Did I…say anything?”

Naomi snorts. “You said lots of things.”

“Oh God. That’s what I was worried about.” Eleanor groans and buries her face in her hands, mentally shuffling through all the inside thoughts she might have said out loud—the fact that Naomi is speaking to her with kindness means she didn’t spill the CromTech beans, but anything else is free game. And her thoughts have been particularly R-rated lately.

“Nothing too bad,” Naomi says, patting Eleanor’s knee. “At least, nothing Dani wouldn’t like to hear.” She stands up, throwing her backpack over her shoulder. “I should be getting back to it. Enjoy the trails, Nora. Try to relax; it’s good for your blood pressure.”

Eleanor is left alone as Naomi’s footsteps fade. She glances down the trail in the direction Naomi said the road would be, but she doesn’t get up yet—instead of rushing out of the woods, she closes her eyes.

The absence of her previous anxiety around being lost makes an immediate difference. The things she’d been ignoring now clamour for her attention. She can hear the chorus of birdsong and the wind in the trees. She can smell the fresh air, light and summery, a mix of warm soil and leaves and a hint of wildflowers. When she opens her eyes, it’s to a forest that seems changed. Less chaotic. An ecosystem managing itself entirely without her input.

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