She must be having a bad reaction to her antibiotic. She’d taken her last dose a few hours earlier. The huge truck on the right roared past her. Then a car, the driver staring at her. Everyone was going around her. She felt sick. She was going to pass out.

So many people zooming past. She couldn’t get over to the right. She braked even more. She was going only about thirty-five. What was she doing? That was dangerous on a big highway. She wanted to cry, but she was too frightened to risk giving in to emotion.

When a gap finally opened, she pulled into the right lane, pressed the brake, and steered onto the highway shoulder.

Shaking, sweating. She’d been certain she was going to die. But she couldn’t understand why. She finally started to sob.

Her SUV rocked as vehicles sped past. They were coming too close. Her breaths weren’t enough again. What was wrong with her? It had to be anaphylaxis from the medicine. She picked up her phone and typed in Dani’s number.

“Hello?” Dani said.

“Dani . . . there’s something wrong with me. I can’t breathe. It’s the medicine. I’m going to pass out!”

“Ellis! Should I call 911?”

“No. I don’t know for sure what’s wrong. Can you come? Can you come here?”

“Where are you?”

“On 75. Not far from the entrance ramp from your house. On the shoulder.”

“I’m coming. I’m coming as fast as I can! I need to hang up but try to stay calm.”

Ellis turned off the car. She slid the seat back from the steering wheel and lowered the backrest. She curled on her side, facing away from the traffic. She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing.

She didn’t lose consciousness and she didn’t get worse. Now she understood what was wrong. She was having a panic attack. She’d had mild ones in the past but never like this, never so bad she’d thought she would die.

The revelation was devastating. It meant something she knew deep down but didn’t want to believe. She was too scared to go camping alone. The one tool she had, the thing that could save her, was ruined forever.

She was crying when Dani arrived at the passenger side of the car, knocking frantically on the window. “Open up! Ellis, unlock the car!”

Ellis sat up and released the lock. Dani jumped into the passenger seat and closed the door against the sound of traffic. “How are you? Are you sure I shouldn’t call 911?”

“I’m having a panic attack. A really bad one.”

“Ellis!” She held Ellis in her arms over the console. “Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes. Well, no. Because I think I know why.”

“Why?”

“When it started, I was thinking about arriving at the campground at night.”

Dani looked into her eyes. “Is that where you were attacked by that man? In a campground at night?”

“It was two men. During the day. But the campground was completely empty because it was a weekday and it’s cold up there.”

Dani took Ellis’s hand. “Why did they beat you?”

“You know why.”

“Oh no. No . . .” Tears pooled in her eyes.

“They didn’t do it,” Ellis said.

Her eyes went wide. “You fought them off?”

“I stabbed one of them. Bad. The other had to take him to get help.”

“Oh my god!”

“I think he may have died.”

“You don’t know? The police didn’t tell you?”

“I never told the police.”

“What? Why not?”

Ellis put her hands over her face. “Dani . . . there’s so much you don’t know.” She moved her hands away and looked into Dani’s eyes. “Even since we were close at school.”

“I know,” she said.

“I’m sorry. It’s not you. It’s hard for me to get close to people.”

“I know that, too.” She squeezed Ellis’s hand. “I’ve always admired you. You’re so strong about everything. But now I see I shouldn’t have admired that.” She made her familiar wry half smile. “I should have tried to help you not be strong, to let your guard down sometimes.”

“You did try. I saw that. But I couldn’t.” Tears burned her eyes. “I’m messed up, Dani. I have been for a really long time.”

Dani wrapped her arms around her again. “I love you, Ellis. Please trust me. Come back to the house and we’ll talk, okay?”

Ellis looked out the windshield at the three lanes of cars traveling at high speed. “I’m afraid.”

“To go on the highway?”

“Yes.”

“We can leave one of the cars here.”

“No,” she said, remembering the two men breaking into her car.

“How about we both turn on our flashers and go slow in the right lane? The next exit isn’t that far. Just follow me. Can you do that? Just look at me and nothing else?”

“I’ll try.”

“You can do it. Think of all those mountains you climbed. Pretend the highway is a mountain and you just need to get to the top.”

5

Ellis heard her phone ping on her way to work. If it wasn’t spam, it had to be Keith. He was the only person she texted. Even Dani knew not to.