Page 64 of Happiness for Beginners

The girls looked stricken.

“Back ASAP!” I called, without slowing as I went by. “Possibly tomorrow!” I added, when I was too far past them for anyone to have the energy to come after me.

Twenty minutes later, I was rounding the fork and starting down the right path.

Next, all I had to do was catch up to the other two groups. Which took hours.

Because the hike was such a straight shot on relatively level ground, Beckett had gone ahead and added a little more mileage. He had intended for the first group to get to camp around one in the afternoon, and for the slower group—mine—to straggle in around three. But we’d lost at least a half hour just getting Hugh stabilized. Not to mention the time it had taken me to settle the Sisters—who were freaking out, to say the least—or the half-hour-long detour while I followed the wrong path, or the forty minutes it took me to get back to the right path. I won’t lie: I was tired. But slowing down wasn’t really an option, so I literally pretended that I was a steam engine, imagining my arms as those metal bars that spin the wheels. Crazy as it sounds, it helped. All I had to do was stay steady and continue down the track. I’d catch up at some point.

“Some point” turned out to be six o’clock at night. The other groups were eating dinner when I finally chugged into camp, and when Beckett saw me, he stood up and rushed over. Jake stood, too, and, despite all the important life-and-death business I had going on at that moment, the sight of him, even all the way across the camp, had a physical effect on me. I once flipped a light switch that must have been leaking a little bit of current, and when I touched it, an electrical flutter penetrated my fingers. Not enough to hurt—just enough to get 100 percent of my attention. That’s exactly what this feeling reminded me of—an electrical current: a cross between a zap and a flutter. But this was much more powerful than that—powerful enough that I had to look down to break the connection. I couldn’t look at him. It was too much.

Whatwasthat? It happened a lot on this trip with Jake. I remembered the feeling well from crushes I’d had when I was younger, but it had been years since I’d felt it. Why was it so physical? How could a pair of eyes twenty feet away have a visceral effect on another person’s body? Was it just nervousness? Or, today, emotional exhaustion from dealing with Hugh? Or maybe some intensified variation on that phenomenon that happens when someone’s looking at you, and you justfeelit, and you turn right toward them? I’ve always wondered if that was some leftover herd animal instinct from the mists of time. Of course, humans weren’t ever herd animals. We were predators. But even predators have to know on some level what it feels like to be prey.

“Where the hell have you been?” Beckett asked.

“We missed a fork on the map,” I said, “and it took us a little time to figure it out.”

“Where’s the rest of your group?”

“Hugh fell, and he’s injured.”

Beckett looked up to locate Jake, who was still standing at attention, watching us. “J-Dog,” he shouted, and signaled him over. Then he turned back to me. “Fell?”

“He stepped up on a fallen tree trunk. His foot broke through and he lost his balance, and then he landed on another fallen tree just a couple of feet ahead.”

“I told you guys not to do that! Didn’t I?”

I nodded. “You did.”

Jake joined us at that point, and now that I’d had a minute to talk myself into it, I could force myself to meet his eyes.

“It happened fast,” I said, “but I think he might have landed with all his weight on his left hip.”

“It’s just the left side?” Jake asked.

“As far as I can tell,” I answered.

Jake and Beckett looked at each other like this was not good.

So I agreed. “It’s not good,” I said. “I think he’s in shock.”

Then Jake shifted into serious EMT fact-gathering mode. “Was he conscious?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Mostly. Though he passed out when we moved him.”

“Why did you move him?”

“He was bent over that second log with his head upside down. It didn’t seem like a good idea to leave him that way.”

Jake nodded. “Good call.” Then he asked if Hugh could move the leg at all, and I said no. He asked if Hugh had been panting or spitting up blood, and I said no. Then he asked a whole bunch of questions I didn’t know the answers to. What was his pulse? (I hadn’t thought to take it). Could he wiggle his toes? (I hadn’t checked or even thought to take off his boots). What was his capillary refill? (I didn’t even know what that was).

“I’m sorry I don’t have better information for you,” I said.

“How did he look when you left?”

“Pale. Clammy. Bad.”

Jake looked at Beckett. “We need to get him out.”

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