The Wilde Expedition

26. yosemite

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〮CHAPTER TWENTY SIX 〮

About a half hour before our designated leaving time, we approached a massive wooden staircase climbing up the side of a hill. It was arguably the tallest point in all of San Francisco, and we took every step of the way up to the very top. By the end most everyone was struggling a little to catch their breath, which was already lost the second I caught a glimpse of the view.

Everywhere, all at once, the city stretched before us in brightly colored buildings, checkered across the board. From up here, there wasn't much to hear but there was everything to see in all directions. We could even see the Golden Gate Bridge crossing the bay, and the Oakland bridge on the other side not far from view.

Gavin snapped a few pictures of Harley and Scarlett jumping in the air, but like Gavin once said, there's no way to capture a landscape like this in just one picture. Not even a panorama could encase the splendor of a city over rolling hills.

There was a lone picnic table on the peek of the hill, so I took a seat there and observed as Gavin and Scarlett goofed around, posing for pictures while Harley stood on the sidelines rolling her eyes. I realized that Gavin and Scarlett were like two halves of a whole, but I had to remind myself that there was no such thing as a perfect match. Soulmates weren't a thing anyway.

It must've been from all the activities of the day that I was starting to feel a bit dreary-eyed. Because of that, my departure from Scarlett and Harley wasn't all that emotional and grand, and perhaps it had something to do with the fact that we were all basically still strangers.

In the Wilde Child, Gavin put in an acoustic CD that put me to sleep in twenty minutes flat. I didn't wake up until we stopped for gas two hours into the drive. He suggested we get me a pair of gloves, for the hiking we'd do, and asked me how big my feet were. I was a size nine and a half, and his were a bit of a stretch, but given how successfully I got around in my current boots, I decided to stick with them.

I got a new pair of pants, and some actual shirts, not just the same old Dallas sweatshirt I'd been wearing for a while. It was honestly disgusting by now, so I burned nearly a hundred bucks on a new sweatshirt and cheap shirts from a town called Oakdale. I got a backpack to keep it all in, too, but it was the flimsiest piece of shit I'd ever laid my eyes on. Still, it managed to keep everything together.

In the heart of Oakdale, there lies a busy intersection where most of the traffic is filtered through, including a busing system, and a payphone. While Gavin sat in a coffee shop uploading pictures from the day's events, and messing around with a little moleskin journal of his, I took my spare coffee change and took my cup out to the bus stop where I dialed up the second number that popped into my head (the first being Gavin's number, since it was still printed in bold Sharpie on my hand).

On the third ring, he was prompt to answer. "Hello?"

"Dad, hi!" I greeted, smiling at the sound of his relieved laughter. "Sorry I haven't got around to talking to you yet."

"Oh no, you're fine Emma. Don't worry about me, worry about yourself and getting back home. Your Mom's been keeping me in the loop," he explained. "It's nice to hear from you though. We've been worried."

I giggled and said, "I don't doubt it. But hey listen, I've called for a reason and I intend to get to that point."

"Go for it."

I twisted the cord around my finger and wondered how to phrase it. Had Mom told him about it? I wasn't sure, so I started with that. "Have you heard that I can't shift?"