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Nash
I still couldn’t believe Makenna made it up the side of the mountain. I remembered the sick feeling washing over me when I thought she was dead, and we were searched for her body. I hadn’t thought much about the first rock hitting near me, but when the second rock almost hit me, I looked up. There she was, waving her arms. When I began to laugh, the others looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
“Look up,” I’d told them. “She made it.”
I felt as if my life had been given back to me.
As soon as Makenna waved that she was going to start the long hike back to town, we waited until she was out of sight, and then a few minutes longer. I think everyone was still trying to grasp the fact she’d actually climbed the fucking mountain.
As soon as we got back to camp, Don started a fire and got a pan of water boiling so we could have coffee. The day wore on, but I was pretty sure everyone was thinking the same thing. How long would it take Makenna to get to town? How long for her to bring back help?
It was a lot easier to go on a hike in a group than it was with a single person. What if an animal attacked her? What if...
“She’s going to be okay,” Don said. “Anyone who can scale an almost vertical mountain can do just about anything. Remember, she was born into the life of an adventurer.”
He was right. I’d been reliving the events from this morning again. I had to keep reminding myself that she hadn’t fallen. She was okay. If a wild animal did come upon her, she would probably kill it, cook it, and have it for dinner.
Yeah, I’d totally misjudged her. I think we all had. She looked soft, but there was a hard edge to her that said she would never give up or give in to weakness.
When I went to bed that night, I knew I would have to rethink everything I had thought about Makenna. Fuck, and I’d thought I had her all figured out.