by Wood, Vivian
And it is the easiest thing to do in this job. As a park ranger, I find enough tiny jobs, filling my days with them. Move rocks. Dig trenches. Drive poles.
Do menial, slave-driving tasks from sunrise to sunset.
It numbs the pain at the moment, which is all I can ask for. Hell, I might even be so tired that I sleep a handful of hours tonight with no dreams.
Maybe.
A muscle in my left shoulder twinges, slowing the motion of my arms. I stop for a moment, straightening my spine. The muscle starts to spasm, growing more painful with every second.
I close my eyes and take off the work glove I’m wearing, swiping at my sweaty forehead. Then I rub my shoulder in tiny, concentric circles, just like my physical therapist at the VA used to do. The VA hospital where I was treated after leaving Iraq may be all the way back home in New York, but at least some of what they taught me rubbed off.
I grimace at the pain throbbing low. It spreads through my arm and reaches out so that I feel it in my side and my upper back.
Fuck. I must’ve really aggravated my shoulder.
Whipping the other glove off, I drop them on the ground and lean my axe blade up against the post. Grabbing my canteen, I wander a little up the wooded path until I have a view of the river winding its way down to a little waterfall.
From here, I have a pretty decent overlook down onto the mountains below, spreading out wide. Everywhere I look there is a pine tree, rising here as nowhere else in the world. Everything is so damn green here, probably because it’s actually a rainforest climate.
It’s actually pretty majestic. And here, closer to the waterfall, the sound of rushing water is louder. There is less room for my thoughts when there is a lot of ambient noise like that.
It’s one reason why I came here after I was booted from the Navy SEALs on a medical discharge. The solitude of being out on my own, under these great big open skies… it is comforting to me in a way that nothing else can be. Add the fact that I get intensely restless when I’m indoors, feeling like a tiger pacing its cage…
There is nowhere else I could be that would be better for me.
Not even New York. At least, that’s what I tell myself over and over, every single godamned day. I left behind my girl, my family, and my whole entire life.
And for what?
But then inevitably there will be something that sets me off, an engine that sounds like one I heard back in Iraq or even just a desert scene on the television. And then I am right back there, in the middle of all the chaos, trying desperately to get out of that Humvee for the millionth time.
The sound of gunfire and explosions in my ears.
The feel of hot blood mixed with tears as they pour down my face.
The tang of fear, cold and metal, in the back of my mouth.
The feel of the hot sand as I slither through it on my belly.
The look of my best friend in the unit, his eyes wide open for the last few seconds he is alive. He tries to say something to me but I can’t hear it…
I squeeze my eyes shut. My heart clangs against my ribs. My muscles are rigid. My breathing turns harsh. The memories threaten to overwhelm me. Automatically I go into my mindfulness meditation, leaning my head down and repeating my mantra.
“It is the year 2018. It is the fifth month, the month of May. It is the second day of the month, a Tuesday. I’m currently in the Olympic National Park. My name is Grayson James Sellwood and I am okay.” I suck in a shaky breath then start again. “It is the year 2018. It is the fifth month, the month of May. It is the second day of the month, a Tuesday. My name is Grayson James Sellwood and I am okay.”
On the third repetition my muscles start to unlock. On the fourth, my breath comes easier. I repeat it six times in total before my heartbeat slows.
Then I open my eyes, guzzling the water in my canteen.
I’m better, I swear I am. Not good but better.
It’s only been the last three years that I have been even remotely able to control my panic attacks, to shut off the valve by repeating my mantra. Even two years ago I would’ve spent the rest of the day trembling and worrying about my mental stability.
Afraid of falling down that dark hole again, being committed to a facility like I was when I first returned. Well, okay, I spent three months total in Bellevue Psychiatric Facility, in four different stays.
But that’s all behind me now as long as I stay calm and keep my mind occupied.
Looking behind me at the four poles whose tips I’ve buried in the ground so far, I wipe away another sheen of sweat. I have about another hour of work to do here and then I have to get myself cleaned up for the tour group that is coming in.
Leading the tour groups through the main base camp and telling them about what we are working on is definitely my least favorite of my tasks. I don’t even try to pretend like I like it anymore, not since I had a panic attack last month.
The National Park Service and my boss Nate don’t love my attitude, but they like having a 6’3 former Navy SEAL in full panic mode even less. Or that’s what I figure, anyway.
All I know is that I’m great at every other aspect of this job. I hope that’s good enough for the NPS because I cannot lose this job. It’s basically all I have left.
As I finish my break and walk back to my axe, an off-roading Jeep pulls up, filthy as the original sin. My best friend since we were kids sticks his head out, his short dark hair falling in his eyes. Aiden grins.
“Just the man I was looking for!” he declares, sliding from the Jeep.
Aiden’s as tall as I am and built like an absolute machine. With those dark green eyes, that particular kind of charm, and that hot temper, he is the polar opposite of me. While we might have some physical similarities like our height and our muscular builds, our personalities suit because we are so far apart in temperament.
I glance at him. Aiden might be fine now, but his anger is always right below the surface, touching everything in his life. That quick temper of his makes me look positively blissed out sometimes.
Aiden is also the reason I got this job.
“I thought you were in some town in east Washington. Wasn’t there a barmaid there that you were wild about?”
Aiden shrugs. “The novelty wore off.”
My lips tug down into a frown. “What are you doing all the way down here? I thought you were assigned in the Okanogan, almost in Canada.”
He pulls a face. “I was coming down from the border anyway, so Nate asked me to stop and check on you. Apparently you aren’t doing so well taking the tour groups around.”
Annoyance floods my veins. Aiden has come over to the Olympic National Forest to babysit me. Again. He’s a full-time ranger too, but wrangling me has become his side project over the last three years.
Fuck, I really did think I was doing better…
I just want to feel like I’m getting better and still somehow be left the fuck alone. Is that too much to ask?
Only I know it is, because my boss Nate is having Aiden drop by. If I could just be left the hell alone with my thoughts for a few years, at least…
“Grayson?” Aiden prompts.
“I see,” I reply, my expression as stony as I feel. Emotions swirl just below the surface, but I keep a tight lid on them.
Aiden just continues on as if he never heard me. “Look, who else gets an excuse to hang out? No one, that’s who. Knock off whatever you are doing here for the day and come with me. It’s been a while since we chilled. I grabbed some beers…”
It doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice. So I shrug and agree. Climbing in his Jeep, I stare out the window as we snake down the mountain path, heading for the National Park Service base camp that is nestled in what we call the Big Valley.
Heading into the camp from here, we almost come upon it by complete surprise. One second, we’re looking at more hilly terrain. And then the camp appears as if by magic, the big wooden mess hall standing prominently, a whole host of sma
ller buildings behind it. In the distance, there are little cabins sprinkled here and there for the staff and a huge ropes course leading up into the trees.
Aiden parks his Jeep by the mess hall but doesn’t try to force me to go in. Which is good, because I don’t like to be inside anyplace for more than a couple of minutes. Instead he grabs a cooler out of the backseat and heads to the outdoor lounge area where a few hammocks are strung up.
“This cool?” he asks.
“Yep.”
He opens the cooler and grabs a beer. Tossing it to me, he cracks open one for himself and makes a satisfied noise as he tastes it. Then he jumps into one of the hammocks, making a pleasured noise. I roll my eyes just a little at the amount of contentment he’s getting from this whole exercise.
Climbing into a hammock and kicking back, I eye him as I open my beer. He sips his contentedly but I am not particularly interested in mine right at this moment.
For a couple of minutes, there is silence between us. Aiden pulls out his phone and fiddles with it. No doubt texting someone blonde and buxom, if I know him at all. Then he puts the phone away and looks at me.
“Sooooo…” Aiden begins. He looks antsy, tapping his fingers against the can. “You talk to Olivia lately?”
I nod. “She is coming out here full time soon. I mean, assuming that she finds a job.”
He shifts, seeming to try to broach something. I wish that my stays in the mental hospital hadn’t made him so cagey. Then again, if wishes helped anything we would live in a different world.
“What?” I ask, trying not to sound too testy.
He sends me a look. “You are going to be mad about this.”
I grimace. “Go on, then.”
“Since you don’t want to lead tours, Nate found another job for you.” He gets a pinched look on his face. “We are getting a geologist sent out here to test all of the water sources for pollution. And since you don’t want to lead tour groups—”
“I never said that,” I cut in.
He gives me a look. “You didn’t have to. Anyway, you are going to be leading this geologist around. Apparently she—”
“She?” I ask, disgruntled.
“Will you let me get a sentence out? She’s recently graduated as an environmental engineer and we are getting her practically for free for a couple months.”
I suck in a breath. “Let me guess. She hasn’t ever been out in the woods at all and doesn’t know anything about camping.”
Aiden shrugs. “I don’t know, man.”
“You were right. I am mad.” I blow out a breath. “Fuck, man.”
Clambering out of the hammock I just settled in, I stalk off in the direction of the ropes course. Aiden may be my best friend, but that doesn’t make this bad news any less damaging.
I head for the relative safety of the tree line, my thoughts as dark as the rainclouds that are gathering in the sky.
Chapter Three
Rachel
On the drive out to Olympic Park from the Seattle-Tacoma airport, I stare at the trees as they grow more and more dense. The driver takes me west, up through the northeastern part of the park. It soon grows more mountainous, every inch of the landscape bristling with huge pines. It’s obscenely green, as different from Manhattan as could be.
My mind isn’t on the lovely vegetation though. It’s on the phone I’m holding.
“Rachel, you shouldn’t have just left…” Sarah says, sounding piqued.
“I’m really sorry. I know you probably got an earful from my father—”
“It’s not your dad I would worry about,” she interrupts. “It’s your mom and Clay.”
“Clay?” I ask, surprised.
“”Yeah. He was at your parents’ house when I arrived, all red-faced and angry.”
When I told my father via text that I had accepted this summer job with the National Park Service, I swear I thought he was going to blow a gasket or something. Obviously Clay was one of the first people that my father called when I didn’t answer my phone.
It’s unclear how much of the disagreement between Clay and myself that my father knows about. But that doesn’t really matter to either of them. They are both texting and calling me, angry about the fact that I accepted the summer job across the country.
“Yes, heaven forbid I make my own choices somewhere that is just slightly out of their reach. If they didn’t already make me feel so… small, I would tell my father and mother just where to shove it.”
Sarah clicks her tongue.
“Girl… I think you may have gone too far. Like… I don’t know what will happen if you don’t come back within the week.”
I think of the texts and voicemails I’ve gotten over the last three days.
I’m sorry. Come back and we’ll talk it out like adults, Clay texts.
My father, on the other hand, is the master of guilt.
Young lady, you are harming an otherwise bright trajectory over a petty personal squabble. Just because we haven’t determined your career path just yet doesn’t mean you should just take off like this! We didn’t put you through a master’s degree for nothing. An obedient daughter wouldn’t do this…
“They are so full of shit,” I mutter.
“I know, I know. But your father was raving about cutting you off if you don’t come back…” Sarah says, sounding worried. “What would you do without support from them?”
Be free.
It sounds bitter even to myself.
“So my father said. Who even knows how much of that is made up? He lies as easily as he breathes. Everyone in my family is like that in one way or the other.”
“Rachel…”
“I’m just so tired of being a Black!” I grit out. “I just want to know what my life would be like if I was living it on my own terms. I want to stretch my wings and get a taste of freedom before I essentially agree to become my father, okay?”
Sarah sucks in a breath. “I know that you want that, but—"
Shaking my head, I cut her off.
“I’m always wondering how my family will try to control my actions now. My grandparents and my father have made sure that as a Black, I should never want for anything. But at the same time, they haven’t exactly given me a lot of choices either. Since I was a junior in college, the future has been made astoundingly clear for me. I just want to make a few choices of my own. Just to prove I can!”
Sarah is silent for a few seconds. “I know that you feel that way…”
I start listing off things that are expected of me. “I’ve done everything they asked. Finish at the top of my class. Start dating someone handpicked from amongst the corporate ranks. Go to graduate school for something that Civicore would approve of. Leave that program with honors.”
“Why don’t you catch a flight back and we can talk it through? You know I’m always on your side.”
But I’m not finished. “Now that I’m done with all of that, I am to get married and sire a few heirs. And do it all with a saccharine smile.”
She pauses again. “I had no idea that you felt this way.”
“Well, where the Black family stops and Civicore begins I have no idea, but I do have a gut feeling about it all. A cloying sense of doom. It makes me want to run away, as far and as fast as I can. The penthouse apartments, the Mercedes Benzes, the ski trips to our chateau in Switzerland…” I start getting choked up for the thousandth time in three days. “They are a life that was forced on me, not one I chose. When do I get to choose for myself?”
“Oh, honey…” I hear Sarah draw in a breath. “It sounds like maybe you’re right. You do need a vacation. Is there any way I can help from all the way over here?”
I smile, brushing away my tears. “No. I do think I will let you go, though. My driver has certainly heard enough of my drama.”
She chuckles. “Okay. Okay, if you need anything—”
“You’ll be the first person I call,” I assure her.
“Okay. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding in. Clutching my phone, I look out the window at the passing pine trees moving by in a blur. I’m thinking of how the path has been laid out for me, smoothed by so many that have gone before me.
Yes, that is a part of why I’ve run. But only part.
What is the other piece of the puzzle?
The trees have closed in overhead, the road narrowing to a path. The driver slows and turns, passing a sign. I look back and gulp.
Whiskey Bend Base Camp, the brown and white sign says. Olympic Park’s Largest Year Round Camp.
My heart speeds up.
This is it. This is where my adventure is supposed to begin. My summer of freedom.
I will hike. I will go cave diving. I might even have a summer fling if one of the guys at this camp is cute enough. After all, I’ve spent the last five years driving on autopilot. If I’m going to take the wheel back, at least I can have some fun.
We drive down a steep embankment, the driver nudging the gas a little too hard as we near the bottom. I can’t help but stare out the front windshield at the greenery around me, my heart going as quickly as a frightened rabbit. All the hairs on my body stand up, tensing for something unknown.
In the next moment, a man jumps out in front of the hired SUV, causing my driver to slam on the brakes. I lurch forward, my hands hitting the seat in front of me. For a heart-stopping moment, I am honestly worried that we won’t stop in time, that we will plow into the man. But we do, brakes screaming. Every muscle in my entire body tenses as the man manages to pull himself back.
The man pulls himself to his full height, a not inconsiderable stature. His dark head swivels, his dark eyes seeming to zero in on me. God, he looks like my ex, the one that left me with no word. Same muscular build, same piercing blue eyes.
It gives me butterflies, if the butterflies could be made of lead.
I’ve found my summer fling, without question. That is, assuming that he works here.
He yells something at the driver, motioning to the sign posted just a few feet behind him. It says that the speed limit is only fifteen miles per hour here; we were definitely going at least three times as fast down the hill.