Stay hidden and go around them

With a deep sigh of regret and annoyance, Jen resigned herself to walking around the clearing and behind the frisbee players. She’d already taken a huge chance at the dog park, and she’d come out ahead. Her luck couldn’t hold. Every time she’d tried playing blackjack, splitting aces always led to losing both hands. But it meant taking a detour, and detours meant it took longer to get her clothes and get dressed.

She turned to the east and started stepping around trees again. Walking in the frisbee players’ direction felt unnatural to Jen, with every instinct in her body telling her to go the other direction. But the trees were thick enough she was certain she could stay out of sight relatively easily.

What was really detrimental to her patience was the pace she had to move at. The closer she got to the teens the more mindful she was of how much noise she was making and made efforts to reduce the sound. She’d had to move slow between trees earlier in the park but that was more about not stepping on anything that might gouge her foot. Now a second purpose hampered her speed even more.

Continuing to carefully trudge through the gathering of trees, Jen paused and peered into the clearing frequently. She drew nearer to the boys with each step and could now clearly make out details she couldn’t have before; one teen’s intentionally messy hairstyle, another’s shirt bearing the logo of a skate shop. She looked south and quickly picked out a path to step further into the forest and moved quickly but quietly. Keeping more trees between her and the young men could only benefit her.

The passage through the woods was arduously slow and Jen had to fight her instinct to move faster several times. The last thing she needed was to step on a stick and the teens investigating the sudden snapping sound. Eventually after walking what felt like a good distance she took cover behind a tree and looked out, seeing that she was nearing the edge of the clearing where the tree line started to curve to the north. She felt the tiniest sense of relief, knowing that despite her pace she was getting closer to her goal.

After another twenty yards she checked her surroundings again and saw it was safe to start turning north. She arced her path and continued sneaking past the teens. Making her way as far as she had lightly reinforced her spirit. Having crept through enough tree lines she considered herself getting better at picking out safe places to put her feet down and allowed herself to pick her pace up the smallest fraction. She couldn’t start moving too quickly as there was no way to completely avoid stepping on dead leaves or undergrowth. But the slight increase in speed gave her renewed hope that she would eventually be out of this ordeal.

Jen found herself walking straight north shortly afterwards. She paused behind a tree to allow herself to relax a moment. Her breathing had gone slightly ragged with tension despite no indication that the teens thought anything was in the woods nearby, and despite feeling better about the time she was making with this long path around. Peeking around a tree she realized that two of the frisbee players were facing her rough direction. The closest teen had his back turned to her. She watched him lob the frisbee towards his friend on the left who started running to his side to catch it. Her heart rate began to slow down. They were still completely oblivious to her presence.

Pressing on she began stepping over rocks and twigs again, pausing behind any tree large enough to hide her nude body. With each pause she listened first, then glanced out from behind the trunk.

Looking ahead of her Jen saw that she had a bit of a distance to the next trunk that would be large enough to completely cover her from front to back. Two thinner trees stood ahead of her. They might obscure her just enough that the teens wouldn’t know what they were looking at, if they happened to look right at her. But it wasn’t a risk she liked. She glanced to her left and saw a fair number of other trees between her and the frisbee players. She tried to work the geometry in her head but felt no true certainty that she wouldn’t be out of sight the whole way. Obscured, yes, but would that be enough?

Well it’s either take my chances or wait here until they leave, she thought. Who knows how long that might be?

She took a moment to look at the ground and plan each footstep ahead of time. It wasn’t a far run, just a nerve wracking one. Feeling like she’d worked out a satisfactory route, she took one last deep breath and left the cover of the tree.

Jen moved quicker this time, still being careful to set her feet down softly enough to not cause too much noise but immediately swinging her other leg forward the moment she felt hard earth underneath her bare foot. She passed one of the thin trees. Her reflexes wanted her to hold her arms to her side to maintain balance but she fought this, not wanting to move more than she had to. Motion draws attention she thought, taking her next step. Then another step, passing the second tree. Another step. After a total of eight long strides and she was safely behind the tree.

She listened carefully over the sound of her near-hyperventilating. For a moment she heard nothing but silence.

“What are you waiting for? Throw it?”

“There’s something behind you, in the trees.”

Jen unconsciously held her breath. She’d been seen. How much of her had been seen, she wasn’t sure. But she was terrified to find out.

“Probably just a squirrel.”

“No, way bigger than a squirrel.”

Jen’s trembling hands slowly lifted to cover her exposed body. She closed her eyes, as though not seeing them coming would make her inevitable discovery somehow better.

“Well then a deer.”

“I’ve never seen deer in this park.”

“I have. Once. Come on, you going to throw that thing or not?”

She kept listening, expecting to hear heavy footsteps coming towards her any moment. Part of her wanted to run, stop hiding and just sprint through the trees, through the park, all the way back to her car.

“Hey, jerk! That almost hit me in the face!”

“Yeah, but I knew you’d catch it!”

“Man, I’m gonna hit you in the nuts with this thing!”

They’re going back to their game, she thought as she heard renewed laughter. They seriously wrote me off as a deer.

Finally she let her breath out, her chest burning with excess carbon dioxide. She didn’t try to be quiet about it. The frisbee players were far enough away that they shouldn’t hear anything. If they did, they’d probably assume it was a deer again.

Eventually her hands stopped trembling and she was able to catch her breath. Then she started moving through the trees once more. After walking a fair distance she hid once again and peered out of the tree line. She was past the teens now.

Jen continued her trek northwards, away from the frisbee players. Their voices were growing quieter as she widened the gap between them. Glancing back again she was far enough that she felt safe walking a little faster.

After another twenty yards she saw the trees start to arc to the right. Jen continued heading straight, unsure what was north of her. Heading along with the trees would only take her further away from her clothes and she had to see if it would be safe to walk straight there.

As she edged forward she saw water some distance ahead. Hearing nothing around her she lightly jogged the last few steps to the end of the trees then took to hiding. A pond, practically a small lake, lay directly ahead. She saw two boats on the water, one at the far end with two people inside, too far away to make out any details about them, and a man standing in a boat holding a fishing rod. His boat was closer, not incredibly nearby but closer than she liked. Close enough that if he saw her he might guess that she wasn’t wearing anything.

She looked to the left, the direction leading back to the trail and the parking lot. There were no trees to hide behind for yards and Jen wasn’t thrilled with going that direction. To the right the trees arced around the pond, providing cover until the far side of the pond. But that was at least another twenty minutes lost, twenty minutes without any clothing, and probably more. She glanced again at the fisherman, his attention solely on the water in front of him

He might not notice anything, she thought. He may not look this way at all. I could just be a sunbather in a bikini. A beige or cream colored bikini. And I’m really getting tired of all these detours… I don’t know…