Day 35

With each step I roll lightly onto the edge of my foot trying to see how far I can push it before my joints sting. Part of me wonders if maybe I twist my ankle on a rock I could leave this god-forsaken forest. Air evac maybe. 

I left Jason in Seattle. I don’t think I miss him.

When I wake up at night I shiver against the frosty floor until noon when my red north face soaks through with sweat for the 23^rd time. I don’t think I can smell myself anymore, perhaps my nose can’t fathom the sculpted disaster my body has become. At night I have learned to venture beyond the tent. I have learned that crunching leaves are mice and not bears. I have learned that shadows in the distance are imaginary. I have learned that book pages must be burned. I have learned that company can be more horrifying than my solitude.

It was early evening when I saw her because I could still feel the 4 o’clock, warm, powdered milk curdling lightly in my stomach. We walked past each other and she widened her lips faintly and her face lit up half-heartedly. Usually when people come across each other on a trail like this they laugh or hug. Apparently she didn’t want to. Her eyes glistened lightly just as mine had two nights before as I thought about Jason. She was the first woman I had seen so far and I tried to pause but she continued on, panting deeply. I turned to look at her in the distance, and she was already gone. Had she really just sprinted away from me?

“Okay then.” I muttered to myself as one does when alone in the woods for over 34 days.

            It must have been a mile later when I saw them. The air was purple when I saw a white man clomping down the dusty path in his gigantic boots and worn in jeans, beer in one hand, bow in the other.

            “Hey” he gestured towards me aggressively. “Have you seen a pretty little piece coming this way? She’s my girlfriend and I lost her off trail a mile or two back.”

            “Oh yeah I saw her.” I spoke with as much calm as I could muster, but I could hear the quivering peppered on my words. My spine was a rod, and I could feel the veins in my wrist pulse. “She turned off trail maybe two minutes ago by that clearing over there.”

            “Thanks” he muttered bluntly as he stumbled to make a b-line towards some random clearing.