“Needed what?” I ask, following her along the path.
Mark leads the group while Molly chatters his ear off, asking about the land’s history and geological processes that may have caused the formation of sister peaks, three rock structures jutting from the mountains.
“To turn my brain off,” she replies, kicking a loose rock on the path.
We hike in silence, and I listen in on the conversation ahead of us, absorbing the details about the region and how the Blue Mountains is home to a species of tree they once believed extinct. He explains that the Wollemi pine is an ancient conifer, with fossil records dating back 91 million years, and there are fewer than fifty left in the wild.
“Some trunks are hundreds, if not thousands of years old,” he explains. “It’s one of the many species only found in Australia.” He halts, his hand flying up. “Just like the common wombat, which, if you look to your right, about a hundred meters away, you’ll see a small furry gray blob.”
Sofía exhales a sharp breath, and I lift my camera in the direction Mark indicated, scanning the landscape until I land on the pudgy creature waddling through the brush and across the path ahead.
“And their poop is cube shaped,” Mark exclaims.
“Nature’s wild, man,” I say, zooming in on the wombat as it grazes, disregarding our presence.
Once I’ve captured the footage, I admire the creature without the lens in the way, recognizing how special it is to witness an animal in its natural habitat. The gratitude sticks with me as we head back to Sydney. It’s the highlight of the day until Sofía silently offers me an earbud, starts the podcast again, and hands me a mini bag of gummy bears.
The story the hosts are weaving pauses for an ad, and Sofía steals a piece of candy. “Today was prettyradical,” she says.
Warmth blooms in the center of my chest when she offers me a glowing smile.
“Pretty radical, indeed.”
Chapter 10
sofía
How long can someone survive without oxygen? Five minutes? Three?
The question rattles through my brain as waves batter the side of the boat, moored off Manly. The recent memory of Jett and Doug in the water, all smiles with their cameras and fins, does little to banish the worry.
“Relax, Sofía. Pacing the length of the boat won’t make them surface any faster,” Molly says, never straying from her thriller book. She thumbs a page. “They’ll be back in about an hour. Enjoy the quiet.”
An hour?
Humans aren’t meant to be underwater for that long. It’s unnatural. There’s a reason our skin prunes after fifteen minutes in the water. It’s nature’s way of saying “get out before I kill you.” My pacing worsens, and I peer into the murky abyss. The diver’s flag bobs beside us, but other than that, there’s no evidence Jett and Doug are beneath the surface.
I glance at my phone. It’s only been seven minutes since they left.
I’ve run out of things to do to occupy my mind, and scrolling Jett’s social media has become overwhelming.
As I expected, his fans are devouring the vague, teasing posts I’ve fed them, demanding to know more. It’s possible I may have pissed [email protected] my anonymous post on his fan page confirming another sighting of Jett with a mysterious woman.
Apparently, only she can confirm or deny his movements.
“What kind of animals are common in this area?” I ask the captain, who fiddles with dive gear at the stern.
The dive guide, Simon, leaped into the water with the guys since heknew all the nooks and crannies. He was all shakas and smiles when he splashed in, but he better take dive safety seriously, or I am going to leave a Yelp review so scathing they willneverrecover.
“Ah, well, you’ve got nudibranchs, seahorses, cuttlefish, grouper, and on occasion, a white pointer.”
“What’s a white pointer?”
“A great white shark.” He catches my arm when my knees buckle. “It’s highly unlikely they’ll encounter one here. It’s mostly raggies in this area.”
“Raggies?”
“Grey nurse sharks.”
