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beautiful. I had always imagined Arizona to be a desolate wasteland replete with yahoos who shoot their senators in front of grocery stores. Instead, it appeared to be a land of majestic mountains, crystal-clear streams, and lush pine trees.
    When we reached Sedona, I instantly grasped its appeal. It wasn’t desolate at all. In every direction I turned, I could see breathtaking red rock formations towering over a sea of green. I looked back from the natural beauty that surrounded me to the unnatural beauty of Wilbur, only to find him gazing at me.
    “Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Wilbur asked.
    It took me a second to comprehend the fact that his eyes were fixed on me in my awe, not on Mother Nature. I pretended not to notice.
    “I had no idea,” I sighed.
    “I know, right?!” Misty exclaimed, as if she were also seeing it for the first time. “We’re camping right down this road.”
    We turned down Back O’ Beyond Road, and that’s exactly what it felt like: some otherworldly place. I looked up to see the mother of all colossal rock formations—enormous spires of rusty red blended together to form an ominous natural castle.
    “This is Cathedral Rock,” Misty explained as we all climbed from the truck’s cab.
    For the first time, I was happy I’d agreed to come. Whatever Misty thought Sedona might offer my particular situation was irrelevant to me. Simply being in the presence of such spectacular beauty (Sedona, not Wilbur) made me feel better somehow—uplifted. I stared upward, mouth agape, until Misty pulled me aside and whispered:
    “Do you think you can carry a small pack?”
    She motioned to a backpack in the bed of Paul’s truck.
    “Of course. I’ll be fine,” I assured her.
    Evan had made me feel helpless for years, so I was damned if I was going to actually be helpless.
    We donned our respective backpacks and locked the truck. I was surprised to see that ours was the only vehicle in the lot. I took a moment to exchange my high heels for some sneakers that Misty was kind enough to contribute to my cause. The shoes looked ridiculous with my designer pantsuit but there was no place to modestly undress to rectify my fashion faux pas.
    We crossed a small stream then began to climb. I tried desperately to keep up, but being the nature virgin that I was, I just couldn’t. Wilbur noticed my lag and came back to walk with me.
    We ascended the path for about a mile before we took a break for some water. The panoramic view that stretched out in front of me took away what was left of my huffing-puffing breath. Paul’s truck looked like a matchbox car from our spectacular vantage point. It was so spectacular, in fact, that I’d forgotten about how much my quads were burning.
    Once we were rested, we made a right turn and hiked the switchback trails around the back of Cathedral Rock’s peak. There, we crossed a fallen tree to get to the other side of a river that churned and gurgled before us.
    “Can you feel it?” Misty asked.
    “Feel what?”
    “The vortex.”
    Oh, God, here we go, I thought. I’d been kidnapped by a bunch of New Age nut bags who were all going to start chanting to Cerridwen or some other mystic goddess. I had to admit that there was something so astoundingly serene about the place, but…a vortex? I wasn’t even sure what a vortex was, but since Misty appeared to possess some great insight into the secrets of inner peace, who was I to scoff at the idea?
    “What exactly is a vortex?” I inquired of Misty.
    “It’s an energy source, like food or the sun, only it’s an energy radiating and spiraling upward from the earth. You can actually feel its presence,” Misty explained patiently. “Do you see that tree over there?”
    She pointed to a lone juniper tree.
    “See how it’s unusually twisted up?”
    “Yeah. Weird,” I contributed.
    “It’s the energy from the vortex,” Misty said. “Try this: Lie down on your back and close your eyes.”
    I reluctantly complied. I had to