When Hannah awakened, she spotted a ray of sunlight sneaking through the tiny window at the top of their tent. She looked over; Cain’s sleeping bag was empty and she could hear the sound of a propane stove and him quietly rifling through their kitchen items. She stayed where she was, snuggled inside her warm down bag, not quite ready to face the chilly morning.

Heavy footsteps drew near the tent, and Cain kneeled down and popped his head in, his dark hair rumpled but his eyes bright. He stuck out his arm, at the end of which was her insulated cup, with steam rising from it. Hannah smiled and took the coffee, thanking him. A minute later, Cain crawled back into the tent with his own coffee, plus a few other treats: hardboiled eggs, and two somewhat flattened but fresh-looking croissants.

“And you make fun of me for bringing marshmallows!” Hannah cried, giving Cain a playful smack.

Cain shrugged. “You mentioned croissants were your favorite.”

He picked one up and fed it to her. Hannah took a bite, a few of the buttery flakes getting on her fleece, which she ignored as she closed her eyes and savored the delicious pastry. Cain crawled back into his sleeping back and they propped up against their packs and enjoyed their breakfast.

“Man, that was good,” Cain said, after finishing his croissant. “Why does everything taste better up here?”

“You probably appreciate it more.”

Cain nodded, sipping his coffee. “So, Grace. Tell me. Who hurt you?”

Hannah glanced over at Cain. “Who hurt me?”

“Yeah. People like us, who don’t let anyone get too close… there’s usually a reason.”

“Why did anyone have to hurt me?”

“It doesn’t have to be any one person… it can be a whole shitload of small hurts that add up over the years.”

Hannah thought about the question for a minute. “I’ve never really thought of it that way. It’s more like a whole shitload of disappointments that have added up over the years. Although disappointments are like hurts, I suppose.”

“Like what kind of disappointments?”

Hannah shrugged. “Guys who want more time and attention than I can give them. Guys who want to run with me, and I prefer to run alone, which offends them. Most of them can’t even keep up, and when they can, they just want to talk the whole time.” Hannah looked at Cain. “I may be overly focused on my goal when I train for a race, but at least I know how to shut the fuck up for five minutes and be out there, you know?”

Cain smiled. “I do. Better than anyone. I kept waiting for you to elbow me and make me talk yesterday, and you never did.”

“I knew you’d talk when you wanted to. It’s just one day. And you talked to me plenty, just not with words.”

Cain’s eyes softened. “Well said.” He sipped his coffee again. “So, what do these chumps do when you state your limits?”

Hannah looked down. “They get whiny, and they get mad. One guy, a runner I’d been seeing right before I met you, got upset and called me a bitch when I said no to hanging out with him that night. I didn’t have plans, I just didn’t want to hang out. You know me, I was honest about that. The bitch thing didn’t bother me all that much. Sticks and stones, and all that. But then he said I would never make anyone happy, and that I was going to die alone.”

Cain made a face, a flash of anger in his eyes. “Really?”

Hannah nodded. It had hurt, but she wasn’t going to admit it out loud. She wouldn’t give it that power. “Has anyone ever said that to you?”

“No.”

“You’re a guy. People almost expect guys to be commitment-phobic.”

“I don’t know about that. In my case… I just haven’t been with anyone in a long time, until you.”

“Why not?”

Cain looked down at his coffee cup, swirling his coffee just a little. “I couldn’t begin to deal with that. That Grizzly Adams guy you met that night? With the long hair and the full beard? I was pretty much that guy since June of last year. I was… working through some stuff.”

“Because of something that happened in the Army?”

He nodded. “I left. After some ugly shit went down.” Cain took a deep breath and let it out, sinking back against his pack. “There was an incident, overseas. The kind of incident where people wind up dead or badly injured. Some of our people died and…” He looked away, staring at the opening in the tent door, as if hoping to escape through it. “They all died under my care. It was a sneak attack, and we were shorthanded, and I couldn’t work fast enough.”

Hannah’s heart pounded in her chest at Cain’s grave tone, and the way he stared off into the distance, as if seeing it all over again. “Jesus, Cain. That’s awful.”

Cain said nothing.

“How did you get through that?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I just did. You have to. Everybody has to. But… I went downhill after that, emotionally speaking. I couldn’t let it go. It wasn’t long before I left and moved here, and bought the cabin. The place was a dump when I bought it, and I did a lot of work on it. It’s the only thing that kept me sane—that and these mountains. And maybe James… a shrink over at the V.A. they made me talk to. I worked on the cabin and backpacked for days at a time. It took me a fucking year before I could even deal with other people.”

“So that’s why you looked like you wanted to kill me when you opened the door that night I got lost,” she said. “I’d stumbled upon Grieving Grizzly, who didn’t want anyone stumbling into his Den of Pain.”

Cain chuckled at that. “Pretty much. I hate it when people drop by unannounced, and you were the first person who had in the year I’d lived there.” He turned to look at her. “But when I saw you, all scraped up and dehydrated and worn down, and you had that bad attitude… I think it was the first time in a year that my dick got hard.”

“What?” Hannah cried, laughing. “You did not get hard.”

“I did.” He gazed at her. “Little did I know you’d turn out to be the one person I’d actually want to talk to.”

Hannah smiled at that.

“And it was time,” he went on, stroking his jaw. “Time for Grizzly to shave and get a haircut and go back to work.”

“And work the High Peaks 100.”

He nodded. “I knew that would be good for me, and it was.”

Hannah put her hand on his leg. “I’m sorry. For everything you went through. We civilians will never fully get it, will we?”

He put his hand on hers. “I don’t want you to get something like that.” He looked at her. “By the way, that limp-dick asshole you mentioned… he was wrong about you. You make me happy, and there’s no way a woman like you will die alone. He just said that to hurt you, because he’s a man-child who hasn’t learned that he can’t always get what he wants.”

Hannah leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I don’t need him or any of those guys, when I have a real man in my life.”

Cain’s eyes twinkled just momentarily. Hannah then realized that maybe her friends were right. Maybe she’d just needed to meet the right guy, the one who understood her, who appreciated her for who she was. Maybe it was because he was like her in so many ways, or maybe it was because his painful past had taught him how to deal with difficulty. Hannah admired Cain’s fortitude, that he was able to endure such suffering and still continue practicing medicine in what had to be a difficult setting. All she could see was his toughness, how much he cared about others in his own way, and how much better the world was with him in it. How much better her life was with him in it.

They spent the morning hiking and exploring before they packed up and hiked back down. And it wasn’t until Monday that Hannah left Cain’s cabin early in the morning and went home to get ready for work.

That week, Hannah opted to hike instead of attempting to run again. She missed running and longed to put on her running shoes instead of her hiking boots, but her longing lacked the fervor she’d felt before. She would run when the time felt right, when her foot had gained more strength from hiking.

More and more, Hannah had begun to believe that Cain’s approach to running and racing was the way to go. She found that many of the most talented and accomplished ultra-runners shared some version of his philosophy. Regular distance runners could get away with more goal-driven, demanding schedules, but if you wanted to run crazy distances in extreme conditions, you had to learn to train your mind just as much as your body. And you had to respect your body.

When she finally went out for her first run since her re-injury, she only ran three miles, and she did so while paying close attention to her body.

At first, she felt slow, stiff, and labored. As such, she ran at a much slower pace than she was used to, but one that felt right for where she was. She ran along the trail, enjoying her freedom and listening to herself breathe. She stopped now and again to take in a view or take a picture to post on Facebook—she’d begun taking her phone with her on all runs as Cain asked her to, as a just-in-case, but also to capture anything that caught her eye. Then, later, she’d look at the pics, focusing more on those than on her pace or mileage.

True, Hannah wondered how the hell she would ever get back to where she was in terms of mileage and fitness, but she pushed away those thoughts and decided to trust that, somehow, if she listened to her body, she would get there. And these few months of autumn would get her physically and mentally ready to start training in winter.

Besides, if worse came to worse and Cain’s unconventional advice only made her miserable, she could always go back to her traditional training regime and just be more careful about not overtraining.

That evening, as Hannah curled up in her hammock on the cool night, her phone rang. It was Diana.

“Hey sweetie!” came Diana’s happy voice.

“Hey, D! How’s the bump?”

“It’s huge. Or it feels huge to me, anyway.”

“It’s so good to hear your voice,” Hannah said. “You sound happy.”

“I am! How’s your foot doing? It must be killing you not to run.”

“It’s better. I’m just starting to run again. I admit it was totally killing me not to run, but now I’m trying something new. I’m trying to take it slow and respect my body and find pleasure in other things.”

There was a moment of silence at the other end of the phone. “Wait. Did I hear you correctly? This is Hannah I’m talking to, right?”

Hannah laughed. “It’s me. I’ve turned over a new aspen leaf. We’ll see if it works.”

“What brought this on?”

“Oh, long story…”

“Does it have anything to do with this guy you’ve been seeing? The doctor you’ve been so secretive about? The one Teagan said totally has your number?”

Hannah smiled at that. “I’ll tell you everything this weekend, assuming you’re open to a visitor…”

“I’d love a visitor!” Diana squealed. “You can stay in the spare bedroom if you want to, at least until the baby comes. Or if you want to camp, you’re welcome to use our shower. I have a couple clients on Saturday, but I’m free the rest of the weekend. We can go hiking!”

“That sounds perfect, D.”