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fourteen

MOLLIE

Nora and Sophie are unusually quiet when we get back to our hotel room. They’re both remorseful over what happened, over encouraging me to “try” walking on that pipe, carried away in the moment and blind to the dangers.

My own mind is a whirl. I’m ashamed of myself for going along with whatever my friends told me to do. And right after I’d told myself I was entering a new phase in my life, too. I’d thought—now that I’m 30—I could live up to being “sweet and daring,” like Hunter called me. But I’d done it again by letting someone else define what that meant for me, instead of listening to my own voice inside my own damn head.

I’d thought I was someone I’m not in that moment. Someone careless. Someone who can sleep with a lovely man and forget about him in a few days when she goes back to her “real” life. Someone who has a real life she cares to go back to. If one idea could change everything, I’d thought a casual near-death experience could really kickstart my thinking. How stupid.

Hunter had been so disappointed in me. Like he saw me as that different person in that moment, too.

When my mind is chaos, I always turn to my mother. She has the most orderly mind of anyone I know. She runs a newsroom that never shuts down and lots of people constantly ask her questions that depend on timing and accuracy. She knows how to triage a problem.

Stepping out on the balcony of our hotel room for privacy, I call her. After I explain the issue—trying to be succinct, as Mom always taught me—she says, “You sound like you’re having a quarter-life crisis.”

“What? I’m just being stupid by trying to impress a boy and my friends even though I’m old enough to know better.” My mom’s answers are usually not existential.

“Well, that’s the immediate problem, yes,” she says, as usual showing no mercy for my embarrassment. “The root of the problem, what’s motivating you, is unhappiness with your life. That’s obvious.”

“You sound like Nora and Sophie,” I grumble.

“I most certainly do not,” she snaps. “They’re trying to slap a bandaid on your symptoms. I’m telling you to deal with them. Sit down, make a list of everything you want from your life, and then come up with logical solutions to move forward with. This is not something you fix in a week or by sleeping with some boy you met a few days ago.”

“Hey, I did meet him a few days ago, but he’s not some boy ,” I protest.“He’s really…he’s…he’s kind and he rescued me from my own stupidity. More than once. And he called me daring and he reads books to try to understand the world better. Also, he’s a man.”

Mom is silent for a beat longer than she ever is. She’s constantly multitasking, so maybe she got distracted by something else. “Well, perhaps you put him on your list,” she says finally. “Your list of things you want from your life. If not him, someone like him. That’s what it sounds like you want, to me.”

My mouth is dry, and not only from the lack of humidity in the Colorado air. I forgot this is what happens when I talk to my mom: she calls me out. She sees things I haven’t acknowledged about myself. She senses that when I talk about Hunter, I get more excited than I’ve been about anything else in a long time.

“And don’t seek out near-death experiences unless you’re willing to deal with the consequences,” she adds, ruthlessly.

I grimace. That’s fair. My kind of daring should never involve anything that requires balance. “You’re right,” I say. I go back into the room and grab the notepad that’s on the nightstand, and a pen. Mom doesn’t object when I tell her I have to hang up because she understands the momentum of the moment.

I sit down on the balcony chair and start a list of what I want—what I actually want, not what Sophie and Nora, or my friends back in Denver, tell me I should want. It’s not merely a list of what I can have. It starts with “never parallel parking again” and ends with “someone like Hunter” and in between, a life starts to take shape that I didn’t expect.

Hunter might not want to hang out that evening for our planned axe-throwing date, but I’m pretty sure he won’t ghost me. He’s not that kind of guy.

So I’m not surprised when he arrives, shoulders hunched and hands tucked in his jeans pockets, and says, “I’m not sure I’m in the mood for this today.”

“I’m so sorry about earlier,” I blurt. “I wasn’t thinking. I was trying to impress my friends by being…what you called me. Daring.”

He stares at me for a moment, and I get smaller under his gaze. “That’s not daring, that’s…” he trails off, and I know what he was thinking: stupid. I’ve been thinking it myself, all day. I’ve been a woman who can’t see herself clearly. If nothing else, this has opened my eyes. Like cleaning a mirror.

“I know.” I nod. “I know. Daring is trying something when you’re scared, not throwing yourself at a situation to see what happens. You can be daring and plan. You can be daring and careful. I get that. I swear I do.”

“I’m really just so mad at Scott for taking you guys out there,” Hunter goes on, taking his hands out of his pockets. “He’s actually a really good guide. And then he doesn’t think sometimes.”

“He was probably trying to impress Nora. It’s a vicious cycle.”

Hunter sighs deeply. “It’s not…that’s not what I want.” He swallows, looking down as he fiddles with his hands. “Nora and Scott, revving each other up with their dares and the flirty teasing and counting down until the end.”

“That’s not what I want either!” Everything feels wrong, like the peace between us has shattered.

He looks up and our eyes connect. The question hangs there between us, unsaid: Well, what do you want?

And even though I spent all afternoon trying to figure it out, I’m scared to share my answers. It’s too much, too big to spill here, standing in front of a cage in this noisy room full of tipsy people holding sharp objects.

“Maybe we should back off a little,” Hunter says, and my heart clenches. “I don’t want you to…get hurt.”

I wonder if I’m the only one in danger here; I can’t tell from the way he looks at me so kindly.

“I’m not going to get hurt,” I reply, a hopeful lie.

“It’s still a vacation fling,” he says. “Even if it doesn’t last all vacation.”

I’m silent because my throat stops working. I pull in a deep breath through my nose, trying to calm my pounding heart. Vacation fling . I know that’s what it was, but I want so much more. I want things I don’t quite have words to express yet.

I want to overthrow my whole life for this man and what he represents to me.

It’s silly. I would be so silly to say something like that, now, in the face of Hunter naming and dismissing what’s between us. He’s talking me off a ledge, perhaps. If I can’t be daring, I should be grateful.

“Right,” I say. “It still could. I’m fine. We’re fine.” If I keep repeating it, maybe it’ll be true.

“So you think…we should keep going? Until the end of the week?”

“Well, why not?” I make my voice flippant. “Do you not want to be with me because of…what happened?”

He shakes his head. “No, that’s not it. I’m worried you’re doing things only because I want you to.”

Shaking my head, I tell him, “ I want this.” My voice is more fierce than I intended.

He nods, like that’s settled. “Do you still want an axe-throwing lesson?”

Even as desperately as I want Hunter’s nearness, I’m worried the night will end in tears, so I shake my head. “Maybe tomorrow?”

He nods and pats my arm, and we part like that—mostly mutely. I suspect both of us have more to say, yet whatever connection was forming between us was so new, it couldn’t withstand a day like this. We broke it. Well, I broke it. By trying so hard at something I shouldn’t have said “yes” to.

I wanted to bring a fully-formed plan to this conversation and throw caution to the wind when I presented it. I wasn’t ready. And maybe I’ll never be ready. Maybe I’m fooling myself.

Walking back to the hotel room—which will be empty, with Sophie and Nora out with Scott and the others again—I pass by a storefront with a little sign that says “attorney at law.” I pause and look at it, in the dark window, and I wonder what it’s like to work in a town like this. Where the streets are busy but full of people you know. Where the mountains loom not two hours away but minutes. Where you can’t find everything you want, but you’re more thankful for what’s available.

Come back to this if you’re brave enough . I make a mental note to myself and I keep walking. Before I get back to the hotel, I get a text from Sophie inviting me to join them at the bar. Well, demanding. I happen to be walking by the bar they’re at, so I go in.

They’re with Scott at a table in the back, and I can tell as I approach that I’m not going to like what they’re talking about, heads bowed over the table and looking serious.

“Hunter’s an intense guy,” Scott is saying. “He brings his work into everything.” He looks up and sees me, standing frozen by the table. “Hey! Let me get you a drink! Beer?” He gets up and while he’s gone, Sophie raises her eyebrows meaningfully at Nora.

“I know,” Nora says, shaking her head.

“What?” I demand.

“Wrong kind of guy to have a vacation fling with,” Sophie says. “Intense? Wants to keep you safe from things?”

“Maybe you should cool it with him,” Nora suggests.

“Wanting to keep me safe is not a red flag.”

“No, but it’s something a boyfriend does, not a one-week-stand.” Nora makes a face. “We shouldn’t have encouraged you to get involved with him. He’s kind of serious. That’s not the plan.”

“Yeah,” Sophie agrees. “He’s too much for you. We leave in a few days. You need someone to get you out of your head and leave you refreshed, not a complication that’s going to confuse you.”

“We don’t want this to drag out,” Nora adds. “You’re bored, not…you know, one of those Hallmark heroines looking for a small town guy to run away with.”

And for once, instead of thinking to myself that my friends might be right, deep in my gut I reject what they’re saying. Because I know myself better. I know what I’m looking for and maybe it’s not Hallmark, but it’s not a refreshing fling , either.

Scott comes back with drinks and they turn from the subject. I take a beer and nurse it slowly while I think about what they said.

I can’t help it: I hope they’re right about Hunter. Because they might be wrong about what I’m looking for in my life.

The next morning, instead of going on a horseback ride with the group, I go back to the lawyer’s office. Because I am daring, damnit, and more importantly, now I know the difference between wisely daring and stupidly daring.

The attorney’s name is Roger Smith and he’s ancient. I watch him get up and slowly walk to the door through the glass. It takes several minutes. I listen to the sound of birds and tourists passing as I wait. It’s nice. It’s peaceful.

“Hello there,” he says once he finally makes it to the door. “How can I help you?”

This is not going to be easy. I don’t know what I expected—him to take one look at me and ask if I wanted a job? I force myself to dive in. “Hello, my name is Mollie. I’m a paralegal in Denver. I wondered if I could ask you a few questions about working in law in a small town?”

“Hm,” he says, and studies me.

It seems one thing attorneys in big cities and small towns have in common is they don’t like someone wasting billable time. Amid the risk I’m taking, that gives me some comfort.

“The practice is about the same. Different scenery. Slower, perhaps.”

I nod quickly, bobbing my head like a doll. “That makes sense.” My feet want to run away from this awkward conversation. “I’m just…looking to make a change. I’m tired of, well, of the scenery.”

He opens the door a little further for me. I guess he’s decided I’m worth his time. “Work is work, no matter where it is. You don’t like what you do in the city, you’re not going to like it anywhere else.”

Considering this, I bite my lip. “I like my work. It’s my life I don’t like in the city.” I say it like a confession, like he’s a priest who’s going to provide me some way to cleanse myself of the sin of being unhappy. I gather myself and straighten my spine so that I can ask for what I really want. “I wondered if you knew of any small town attorneys who might need a paralegal?”

He surveys me through rheumy eyes for another long moment, the sound of the street and my nervous heart all I can hear. At the last minute, I couldn’t voice exactly what I wanted, but it turns out this man is kind enough to hear what I can’t say.

“Why not here?” he asks, and lets me in.