Page 51 of Happiness for Beginners

I stuck out my feet for him to examine a total of four red, bloody, pissed-off-looking welts—two on each foot.

Jake let out a whistle.

When he looked up, he was dead serious. “Why didn’t you tell me about these?”

“I didn’t want to stop the group again.”

“During a rest break?”

I just shrugged.

“I know we’re strangers,” he said. “But you have to let me help you.”

I gave a little salute of capitulation, and waited while he worked on the blisters in the same tender way as the cut. Except this time, he lifted both my feet up and laid them across his thighs for a work surface.

That’s when I noticed he was in a short-sleeve T-shirt. “Aren’t you cold?” I asked then. The temp was in the fifties. Why wasn’t he wearing a jacket?

“Yep,” he said, pouring hydrogen peroxide over the spots.

“Why don’t you have your jacket on?”

“You showed up before I had a chance to get dressed.”

“So it’s my fault?”

“No, I—” He paused to unwrap a pack of moleskin. “I just didn’t want to make you wait.”

“Go get your jacket!”

“I’m almost done.”

“You literally have goose bumps.” As I looked him over for confirmation, I saw a dark red scrape and a bruise under his arm.

“What happened to your arm?” I asked, but as I said the words, I knew. “That’s from yesterday!”

“I’m fine,” he said, still working on my blisters, not looking up.

“I knew it!” I said. “I knew it hurt when you fell out of that tree.”

“I didn’t fall. I scrambled down fast.”

“So fast that you fell.”

He sucked in his bottom lip for a second. “Fine. I fell.”

“Can I take a look at your arm?”

“No.”

“But it might need some—”

“Some what? It’s just a bruise.” He was done with the bandages. I took my feet back and slipped them into my flip-flops.

“You can give me hell for a couple of blisters, but I can’t say anything when you fall out of a tree?”

“Pretty much.”

“Was it too dark for you?” I asked then.

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