Out of The Woods Read Online Free

over quickly anyway, she reflected, zipping up her combat trousers. She hadn’t even had to take off both boots.

They walked for another hour. She was thinking about the strong outward curve of Fernando’s tanned shoulders when the first sharp pain hit her. It took her by surprise, striking her right where her inner eye would be, if she had believed in such a thing as an inner eye. The pain was so sharp and so sudden that she stumbled, inadvertently bumping into Fernando’s solid back.
    “What the…?” he said, turning around to face her, and at the same time taking a step back from her.
    “I’m sorry. My head…” She sunk onto her knees, both hands pressed against her forehead.
    “What’s the matter with you?” His tone didn’t suggest patience. “Do you need some water or something?”
    Halley looked up and tried to meet his eyes, but he just slicked his away, like a car skidding on an icy highway. It made her feel like she’d simply disappeared.
    Abruptly, she looked up. She could hear a baby crying, in deep distress. The pain in her head grew. The wail and the pain were insistent and pulling, but when she looked at Fernando, he seemed oddly unfazed.
    “The baby…” she said.
    The sound crowded her head, dragged at her. The crying was pulling at a deep place inside of her. Suddenly, she could hear another voice, that of a young girl. It was saying something over and over again, what was it? Save the baby, save the baby, save the…
    The pain in her forehead throbbed urgently.
    “What baby?” He looked around with aggravation, cocking his head slightly. “I hear a bird calling, I hear some insects. I hear you…” He took a prickly breath. “Come on,” he said, gentling his voice with apparent effort. “Try. Please. For us. I need to get back. We’re at the end of the trail anyway.” He looked at her, as if unsure whether to continue. “You keep…God, Halley…why do you keep acting so crazy? What’s the matter with you?”
    Her eyes were closed and she didn’t answer. He waited.
    “Come on. Get up off the ground. You’re acting like a lunatic.” He bit the words out. His large hand reached down to help her up.
    Her eyes opened and she stared at his hand, overcome by a strong sense of déjà vu.
    This scene had played out before, somewhere in her past. The world was suddenly unstable and shifting. Time was no longer a straight line. She had the sensation of falling, of tumbling off the very earth on which she knelt. She closed her eyes and the vividness of the seeming memory swept her away:
She had taken his hand; he had pulled her to her feet. With effort she had forced herself to numb her feelings, to dismiss the cry of the baby. A moment later, she had let him lead her out of the woods.
    Her eyes opened, and the feeling of déjà vu vanished.
    A new feeling replaced it: utter despair. For she could see her life stretched out before her. Empty; aching. In that other lifetime, she had followed Fernando down a path which was not her own. That path was littered with what-never-would-be’s: the centering love of another; a sense of self-assurance; the feel in her hand of the tiny hand of a child; a long life filled with purpose and meaning. All this, she had lost. She had followed Fernando one last time, and that one last time was the point around which the rest of her life pivoted.
    She could see it all with great clarity. Their relationship wouldn’t work; in the end, he would leave her, and the Halley he would leave would be too damaged to ever love again. In some strange, parallel universe, her whole life had already played out. She had made the wrong choice, and from this choice, disaster had followed.
    But it didn’t have to be this way.
    “A new place to begin,” she whispered, looking up.
    “ What? ” Fernando said, his forehead wrinkling.
    “This is my new place to begin.”
    Rising without his help, she experienced a sudden clarity. The leaves on the trees were more defined