Page 37 of Fate Fiction

“So, no new age underground stuff, huh?”

“Not even a little bit.”

seven

. . .

The drive back to camp was much quicker than the drive that morning. I provided directions in between songs and Evan kept asking me about my ankle. It was fine…ish. There was a not-so-gentle throbbing that I was trying to ignore. Every time I insisted it was okay Evan furrowed his brows in concern.

We pulled into the camp parking area at ten of five. When I hopped out of the truck pain shot through my leg up from my ankle. Without thinking, I yelped slightly from the shock. It turns out sitting on an injury for a half hour then jumping out the passenger seat of a lifted truck wasn’t the best course of action for a possibly, slightly twisted ankle.

“So it does hurt,” Evan materialized behind me holding both of our backpacks.

“No, no. I mean, yes, now it does, but it was fine on the hike. I just need a second to stretch it out, you can dump my bag and I'll bring it back to my cabin.” Evan didn’t move. “I’m going to go into the house and have Sue look at it,” I continued, “it’s really fine, maybe bruised.”

“It would make me feel a lot better if I came with you, considering it’s my fault partially.”

Sometimes the way Evan looked like a cartoon prince come to life, this was a perfect instance of that being the case.

“Fine, that’s…fine,” I put my head in my hands. His reaction was making the situation worse, but I couldn’t tell him. “Don’t blame yourself, it would’ve happened regardless.”

“But I asked you to take me there,” he said innocently.

“I’m pretty sure Sue did, to be fair.”

I began to hobble off towards the house, he stopped arguing but he quietly followed me inside, staying a few steps behind.

I limped into the kitchen, Sue was sitting at the table, dinner was in the oven.

“Heya kiddo! How was it?” she beamed. She noticed Evan standing behind me, his face contorted in concern, mine contorted in pain. She looked at both of us quizzically.

“Good, weather was perfect, water was cold—” I started.

“Why are you standing like you're a pirate who’s had his peg leg stolen?”

I caught myself leaning on the countertop and straightened myself up.

“I did something to my ankle on the way back.”

Instinctively, Sue pulled out two chairs, one for me to sit in and one to prop my foot up on. She gestured to them frantically, I sat down and tentatively lifted my leg up on the wooden seat. Another pulse of pain.

Sue crouched down beside me and inspected the ankle in question, slowly rotating and flexing my foot. This woman had nothing even slightly resembling a medical degree, if it was an emergency she wouldn’t be able to do a thing. It definitely wasn’t broken or strained, that much we both knew. Sue stood back up and gave a sigh of relief and patted my back. “Gonna be a nasty bruise tomorrow, but you’re all in one piece.”

Evan also looked relieved.

Sue turned to the freezer and pulled out a bag of peas, tossing it to me. I reverted back to being eight years old having smashed my elbow on the dock after ambitiously trying to do a flip off of it. I was sitting at this same table, with a bag of frozen peas lovingly draped across my arm. Of course at eight there were more tears involved, and a bowl of cookie dough ice cream. I thought about asking if there was any in the freezer.

Sue turned to Evan who was leaning pensively in the doorway. “Were the falls all you hoped they would be?”

“Probably even better, somehow you guys managed to undersell them.” He felt around for his phone in his pocket before pulling it out and showing Sue the picture of him at the top.

She looked on like a mother viewing a child’s stick figure drawings, nodding and smiling at his excitement. “Dani here served as a solid tour guide, she even tripped on that root so I’d know where to not step,” he said with a hearty laugh.

“Dan, you take any pics?” Sue called over to me. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and slid it across the table “a few, probably identical to the ones I take every year.” Sue scrolled through them, doing the classic boomer move of zooming in and out and swiping the wrong way, accidentally looking at the pictures I took from the beach the day prior.

“Is that somewhere up here?” Evan asked, glancing over Sue’s shoulder at the phone. Sue if you keep swiping the wrong way I will kill you.

“That’s Dani’s hidden cove,” Sue laughed, Evan looked at me expectantly.