Excerpt: Adventures

She tied her laces once more and grabbed the extra pair of gloves she stashed in the basket by the door. Turning the lock on her quiet little home she felt a closure begin.

Just a few miles she thought to herself as she rounded the neighborhood streets toward the trailhead. She would be back before dark she promised herself.

They never let her down, the trails. They were always welcoming. They kept her strong and focused and moving forward. She did her best thinking with the trails at her feet. She solved the world’s problems on those long Sunday runs. Hours were spent out there amongst the pine trees and huckleberry bushes. Summers were sweeter as the sun rose higher and you could smell the berries baking like mama’s pies for Sunday supper. But on these cold fall and winter’s evenings she heard the extra crunch from the fallen leaves, or the snow which was slowly building all the way. Soon she wouldn’t be able to run these trails for they would be too covered in snow to even see the way, she thought she might still, Jules knew them so well, but her luck she would wind up falling down the hill breaking her ankle having no one know where she was. That was all she needed. 

Tonight, as she climbed the hill she had climbed so many times before, the one she had raced up the night Scott had told her he loved her, the same hill she would later come to call her mini mountain, she breathed out a breath with such force it almost let out a howl. Like that of the wolf howling at the moon, she continued on howling, with tears running down her face only attempting to match the cadence of her feet. Each breath inward brought a cold, sharp dagger to her lungs whereas each breath out was a word of warning to the world, I will not be broken.

This was her happy place, flying along in the nighttime, and climbing the hill to the top. Running to a close, she stopped in front of her house. She looked out into the street, trying not to just grab her knees and heave; that was a hard run. She hadn’t made it back in time. The air was dark, but she could see her breath against it, big, billowy puffs of air showing that she was ok. Jules was alive.

Turning back around her mind flew back to a few hours earlier, to her first run of the day. And as she climbed the steps, she scanned her porch for anything different. No bags of candy, but there was a single yellow rose on her welcome mat.