The trails are crowded. I venture off them, climbing trees, chasing squirrels. The forest floor is blanketed with twigs and leaves, the leaves above a ceiling of green with the occasional stain of blue coming through. I get lost, find my way again, end up on trails I haven’t yet explored, but quickly return to the wilderness for areas left untouched. The park seems to stretch for miles. There are pines, oaks, elms. Bushes with berries, bushes with thorns. I find a branch as tall as I am and tear away its limbs and use it as a hiking stick. The only sounds are the ones I make, everything fresh and organic, like the smell a thunderstorm leaves behind. I hike beneath a perched hawk that looks down on me with fierce orange eyes. How long have I been gone? Two hours, maybe three. I end back on a trail and navigate up it until a spot of pale light shows ahead, which can only mean a clearing.

I exit the trail onto the road my mother and I had entered the campground on. I have no idea how to get back to our site from here. I look to the right. The road disappears into the trees a hundred feet away. To the left, five hundred feet from where I stand, I can see the arched sign heralding the park’s main entryway. Cars speed by. And then, just as I’m looking at it, a red truck coasts by, hits its brakes, then squeals in reverse until it’s able to make the turn. My heart sinks and blood rushes to my face. The back of my neck turns cold. I know immediately that it’s my father.

I recede into the trail and peer from behind a tree and wait for him to pass. Then I see him, his right hand on the top of the steering wheel, his left arm hanging out the door. The truck rolls by and I stare at it in awe until it disappears. Panic sweeps through me. I drop the stick and make a mad dash down the trail. Has my mother told him where we are, or has he guessed by noticing the missing sleeping bags, the tent, the cooler? It wouldn’t take much to figure it out.

I sprint as fast as my legs will carry me. Nothing looks familiar. I turn down one trail and second-guess myself and go flying down another. Out of breath, heart racing. But I keep sprinting and my pace doesn’t waver. What will I do if he beats me there, if he’s drunk and angry?