Flight Risk

Capitulo Siete

Picture of Tyler-------------->

“Leave it! Jackets are for squares!” I shouted to my rainy day companion.

“So where are we going?”

I stopped to look back at him only to face a smile that made my heart speed up. A smile that made me happy. A smile that scared the crap out of me, because of the impact I didn’t let it have, but it somehow managed to have anyway.

“For a run,” I replied, covering my unease with a smirk.

“Smartass.”

I laughed and broke into a run, heading for the tree front not far off. Because the rain was really coming down and it had been raining for a while, it was extremely muddy and I had to be careful not to slip and fall. As we approached my special clearing a thought occurred to me.

“So how are you with climbing trees?”

“Trinity, just because I’ve spent the last few years away from trees, doesn’t mean I forgot how to climb them.”

“In the rain?”

“Never tried, but it can’t be too bad right?”

“Hey I’m just checking. I know when you get older, some people get out of shape…” I trailed off, chuckling.

“Out of shape, huh? I’ll show you out of shape!”

Not wasting the element of surprise, he threw me over his shoulder and continued walking in the same direction we had originally been heading toward.

“Sam!” I exclaimed as the air forcefully left my lungs, “Put me down! You don’t even know where I’m taking you.”

“Now, now,” he said, lightly patting me on the butt.

“Samuel-if I knew your middle name right now I’d use it-Evans! You did not just pat my butt!”

“Eh,” I felt him shrug his shoulder beneath me, “I would have pat you on the back, but I can’t reach that far. Your butt was much more convenient. So where to?”

“Put me down and I’ll show you,” I smiled even though he couldn’t see it.

“And I repeat, where to?”

“Fine,” I huff out resignedly, “Just keep going straight until you reach a clearing with a huge tree in the center of it.”

“We’re in a forest filled with huge trees. How will I know that we’re at the right clearing?”

“Oh, you’ll know. Believe me,” I assured him.

He stopped at several clearings on the way to my special one and each time I advised him to keep going. When we finally got to mine about fifteen minutes later, he didn’t even bother to ask if it was the right one. Just as I’d told him he would, he knew this was it. Though the clearing was smaller than the ones he had stopped at previously, there was no mistaking the word huge in conjunction with the tree that stood tall in its center.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason the clearing existed to begin with was because nothing else but grass could share nutrients with it and still survive. It wasn’t so large that you could drive a car through it like you could the Redwoods further north, but it was large enough that two people could stand side by side and still not be seen if approached from the opposite direction.

He set me down with a roguish grin, extended his hand before him and said, “Lead the way.”

My hair was a tangled mess and without the aid of a hairbrush there wasn’t much that I could do aside from pulling it into a messy bun. Because the rain made tree climbing less than practical, it was a slow going process. When I finally reached about midway to the top, the hollowed out part of the tree I liked to relax in was finally within reach and I pulled myself up and in. Sam joined me seconds later completely out of breath.