Page 63 of Happiness for Beginners

But Hugh was coming back to consciousness. “Hush,” I told them. I turned to Hugh. “Can you hear me?”

“Fucking fuck,” Hugh said.

“I guess you’re conscious.”

“Something’s broken,” he said. “I heard a crack.”

“Can you move your leg at all?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“You’re not even going to try?”

“I am trying,” he said, and we both watched the leg. Completely still.

“Okay,” I said. “So maybe a broken leg. Or hip. Or pelvis.” I went in to push on his rib cage. He screamed again. “Or possibly ribs.”

Hugh closed his eyes, panting.

“What were you doing stepping on those dead trees, anyway?” I said, rooting through my pack for the Tylenol, which was the strongest painkiller we had. “Didn’t you see Beckett humiliate me about that on the first day?”

“He’s such a worrywart,” Hugh said.

“Well, now we know why.”

I made him take the Tylenol, even though he almost choked on it.

Hugh did not look good. The color was gone from his face. And even though his skin felt cold, tiny beads of sweat covered his face. “He’s going into shock,” I said.

“Wouldn’t you be?” Uno said.

“Who’s going for help?” I asked.

“You are,” they said together.

I didn’t argue. Even though I was the most competent person there, that wasn’t saying much. I grabbed the map and debated whether I should take my entire big backpack, or just my daypack. I decided that even though I could move faster with less, if I got lost or injured or attacked by a bear—which didn’t seem impossible—I’d do better with more. I hoisted on the big pack and was snapping it onto my hips when the girls stopped me.

“What do we do?” they asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.” But they were almost as pale as Hugh himself, and I knew I had to saysomething. “Keep him hydrated. Keep him warm. Hold his hand.” I handed them the little medical pack with our remaining Tylenol. “Keep a log of everything you notice. Talk to him. Cheer him up. Plan the wedding.”

I started back on the trail, but Dosie followed me and grabbed my hand. “What if he dies?” she whispered.

I shook my head with a confidence that I did not feel. “He’s not going to die.”

She still had my hand.

I squeezed it. “Be brave,” I said. “I’ll come back with help.”

She stood on the trail and watched me go, but I hadn’t gotten far when I started noticing that the trail I was walking on didn’t look anything like what I’d pictured in my head the last time I’d studied the map. Of course, that was way back before we started analyzing how in love with Windy Jake was. I guess I’d found that discussion more distracting than I’d realized, because it suddenly hit me that we’d been angling down a ravine when we should have been walking a flat, straight stretch. I stopped and opened the map to check the route. And, just like in class with Beckett, I could see in 3-D what the trail I was supposed to be following should look like. And I could see just as clearly that the place where I stood bore no resemblance.

We were going the wrong way, I suddenly knew—and we had been for a while, which happened a lot on this hike. Trail markers were much more infrequent this far back in the wilderness, and far less noticeable, than they probably should have been. After all, where else would markers be nearly as vital but way back in the deepest wilderness?

I would register a complaint with the Park Service when we got home. If we lived.

I turned around and booked it back the other way, passing the Sisters and Hugh as I went.

“We were headed the wrong way,” I called out cheerily, using my Mary Poppins voice.

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