“This hurts. Do you know that you’re hurting me?” I ask him.
“Today a man died because we were screwing each other. That’s on us.”
Oh fuck no.
No. No. No.
“Why are you being so hurtful?” I smack his arm, my hand bouncing off. “So fucking cruel? Why save my damn life just so you can fucking hurl this shit at me, huh?!”
“I’ve never had a team member die on my watch!”
“Not until I came around, that’s what you’re trying to say. Isn’t it!?”
“You’re jumping to conclusions,” he says angrily, basically swatting me away.
“I am not. You’re saying all of this. That I’m a mistake.”
“You are great for the team,” he says quickly. “You are not great for me.”
I shake my head, trying to catch my breath. None of this feels real. None of it can be real. How can we switch from last night to this that fast? How can…
He never told you he cares about you, never said he loves you. He had said it was just for fun. He had told you that a million times but you never listen, you never listen.
I swallow hard, tears burning behind my eyes. It’s all too much. And he’s right. Maybe none of it was real except to me. I started sleeping with him and my emotions came out to play. I couldn’t separate the physical from my heart. I fell head over heels for this man and this whole time I assumed he felt the same way.
The town’s player. He told me he couldn’t commit. God, did I really think that I was that special that I could change him? Did I really think I would be the one? He kept saying I was unreal…that was his way of keeping his distance. To keep me just out of the reaches of his heart.
I’m a big fucking idiot.
Suddenly I’m so drained of energy, I almost collapse right there. It wouldn’t be so bad. The nurses would rush out and bring me inside to a room and maybe they’d drug me and I could dream all of this away.
“Riley,” he says softly when he realizes I’ve been standing here and breaking silently in front of him.
I shake my head, pressing my lips together to keep from sobbing, tears running down my face.
I’m the idiot.
He’s a man who lost a lot today.
I’m the girl he blames.
I should be used to this.
Love is chaos.
There is no shelter for my heart here.
“I’m going,” I tell him. “I’m sorry…” I choke back a sob. “I’m just so sorry.”
Then I turn and run back into the hospital, back out the front doors and all the way home.
I sleep for twelve hours straight.
No calls from the team come in. I know they would come regardless if anyone died or not, but they don’t. God is taking a break with us for the moment.
He’s not taking a break with the weather though. When I wake up, there’s a huge dump of snow and it’s freezing cold again. This winter just doesn’t know when to quit.
I don’t know when to quit either.
It’s something I’m thinking of, though. Leaving.
I came all the way to North Ridge to start over. I would have gone anywhere, to be honest, and their SAR was the first to call me back. So I took the job.
But now, what kind of job is this? My boss fucking hates me it seems. He blames me and himself for the death of a team member.
And I’m in love with him. I try and tell myself I’m not, as if that will harden my heart and spare me any pain, but I’m in love with Mav, head over heels and tumbling and now I think I’ve hit the ground. I was airborne for too long.
It hurts. It hurts so much. It shouldn’t and I wish it didn’t but all I want to do is curl up in the fetal position on the floor and cry. Cry because I lost the closest person I had here in this town, cry because I lost the idea of a future here with him, as vague as that idea was. Cry because I can see his point. I can see why it’s all our fault.
Shit happens. I know this so well. I’ve been so good at outrunning it. I left my home in Washington because I thought running was the way out. I ran away from Colorado because I didn’t want to face the tragedy. And now I want to run away from here, start again elsewhere.
I think about all this for hours. I don’t eat, I don’t shower. I lie on the ground and I think about all the what ifs and I think about things I should have done differently and I think about picking myself back up off the ground.
But everything seems too heavy for me to carry. I can’t fathom walking back into the SAR office. I can’t picture myself rescuing anyone right now because I can’t even rescue myself.
That’s the thing about search and rescue. We go out there and we find those who are hurt, who are lost. But if you’re lost yourself, you won’t be able to find anyone. You can’t help anyone. You’re the one who needs rescuing. And right now, I’m drowning in ice, my head barely above the surface. I’m no use to anyone until I can crawl out on my own.
That day bleeds into the next.
I wake up just after dawn, my body apparently having enough rest now.
There’s that horrible moment, a fragment really, where the reality hasn’t blended in yet. You’re still in a dreamland, living the life from a few days before.
Then you realize the truth…
It hits you like a frying pan.
Takes your breath away.
Freezes your heart.
The truth.
This is your life now.
You don’t have Maverick.
You might not even have a job.
Someone is dead.
This is your life now.
I exhale forcefully, trying to get it all out. I don’t want it to pull me under anymore. I don’t want to sink. It’s too easy to do so.
If this is my life now, I have to make peace with it.
Accept it.
And move on.
Easier said than done.
I reach over for my phone and in the split second before I look, I have the highest hopes that Maverick has texted me. Saying he’s sorry. Saying he didn’t mean anything that he said. That he was lost with guilt and grief.
That he loves me.
But of course, he doesn’t say that. There’s nothing. Because I don’t fucking know anyone in this god-forsaken town.
I sigh and check my emails, thinking perhaps he’s emailed me.
But I see an email that makes my heart drop.
An email I never expected.
Oh my God.
It’s from Levi’s parents.
The subject line reads: We thought you should know.
I click the email and open it before I have a chance to chicken out and delete it. I haven’t heard from them in nearly two years. Everything in me is shaking.
* * *
Hello Riley.
It’s Pat and Art here. We’re not exactly sure if this is still your email or where to reach you, or if you still care to hear from us. If not, then we’re sorry but we feel we have a responsibility to you.
Levi was pulled from life support the other day. It was the hardest decision we ever had to make but it was the best one for him and everyone involved. We’re sorry things didn’t end right between us and we know you should have been there. We also know you’ve probably tried to move on.
We just wanted you to know so you can have your own closure about Levi. We know you loved him dearly and he loved you.
Please take care and God bless you, wherever you are.
Pat and Art.
* * *
Tears are streaming down my face.
The sorrow inside my chest is so intense, so hard, I think it might split me in two.
But I don’t push it away. For Levi’s sake, I let it in and I feel it. Because he deserves to be felt. So does Tim.
I let that in too and I fall back onto my bed, letting the grief climb me, consume me, turn me inside out.
There’s closure in all of this.
But closure doesn’t mean a do
or closing on pain.
You can have peace and pain at once.
The heart can weather any storm.
16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Maverick
“You fucked up big time. Big time.”
I swallow down my beer and try and glare at Fox but I don’t have a lot of anger left in me. Whatever I have is already being directed to myself, like a funnel. I don’t need Fox to do it for me.
“You don’t need to remind me.”
“I think I do,” he says, grabbing the car keys to his jeep from the hooks on the wall. “I think you might have to be reminded until you get it in your thick skull. I can’t fucking believe you.”
I exhale loudly and put my head into my hands. “I shouldn’t have said a thing.”
“Right,” he says dryly. “Hurry up and finish your beer or we’ll be late for dinner.”
It’s been a few days since the accident.
The hardest few days of my life, apart from the ones after I lost my mother.
I’ve had a hard time moving on.
Especially because of the things I’d said to Riley.
I just relayed everything that happened in detail to Fox.
I’m still hurt. Still mourning. Still grappling with the guilt over Tim and Jace.
I just keep thinking…if only my head was on straight. If I paid attention to my phone. If I’d just focused on my job for a second instead of Riley. In a sense I chose her over my career. My calling.
My duty.
And then I lost Tim.
I nearly lost Riley too.
And then…I lost her in a different way.
She hasn’t been into work. No one has, really. Neil of all people has been coming in each day in our absence. We know we’ll all pull together if there’s another call but so far there hasn’t been and I think everyone just needs space. Everyone is off on their own, trying to heal.
Tim’s funeral is tomorrow morning. Afterward we’re going to hike up Mount Ferguson and have our own prayers for him there. That’s the most we’ve been in contact with each other, to plan that.
But I haven’t texted Riley. I just can’t. Not after what I said to her.
I knew how I was hurting her, I saw it on her face, her tears, I saw her broken heart and yet I kept talking. I wanted to hurt her. To push her away.
I don’t know why. I want to say it’s because if she hates me, if she stays away, then everyone will be better off for it. We’ll be able to focus on our jobs.
But I don’t think that’s it. That’s what I want it to be, but it’s not the fucking truth.
The fucking truth is…I almost lost her.
I’ve lost a loved one before.
And I almost lost Riley out there.
It scared the fucking shit out of me.
So I did the stupid dumb shit that only immature morons like myself do. I hurt her to push her away because I believed it would save me in the end.
Pure fucking selfishness.
“Look,” Fox says, coming over and nudging my elbow until I look up at him. “I know you’re not used to this relationship thing.”
“We weren’t in a relationship.”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re in denial but even if you want to pass it off as friends with benefits or colleagues with benefits, whatever, it was still something. She was something to you. She still is. And you’re not used to that. So I get it. I get why you did the stupid shit that you did. But it’s not a free pass. Now, come the fuck on before I make you.”
Fox is leaner than I am but he’s still packing a lot of muscle. I don’t feel like getting into a fight. It always gets messy. I’m bigger, he’s quicker.
And nastier.
Fucking grump.
With a loaded sigh, I finish my beer and follow him out to the jeep. Because he’s feeling somewhat sorry for me, he lets me take Chewie even though she leaves dog hair all over his seats. Chewie and Shane’s dog, Fletcher, get on like Donkey Kong, so she loves going to the ranch.
This dinner is a small one. Delilah and Jeanine aren’t there and Rachel and Vernalee have made spaghetti instead of a roast.
Everyone wants to talk to me about what happened but no one wants to mention Tim’s name. So nothing is said. My grandpa just starts the dinner by saying grace and a prayer for me and my team and the souls lost on the glacier.
But despite the sorrow in my heart, that deep pain from losing someone I was supposed to lead, I look around the dinner table at my family and realize that it’s okay for me to sit in silence. It’s okay for me to mourn and mope and deal with all this shit. It’s okay to not be the happy-go-lucky guy for once, the man who saves the day. I can be whoever I want and they’ll still love me. They’ll still be there.
Riley was like that too, I tell myself. Maybe she hadn’t said she loved you but she told you she wanted John, she wanted Maverick. She wanted all of you. She wanted that from the start.
Fuck. Sometimes, just thinking about her, the shitty things I said, what I’ve done, I can barely get the air in my lungs.
“I have a bone to pick with you,” my grandpa says after the meal is over. He has a pipe in his hand and is throwing on a plaid shawl over his shoulders. He gestures to the door outside. “Come on.”
It’s cold as hell. We’ve been getting dumped with snow all week, ever since the accident, but even so, I grab my coat and follow him out onto the porch where he sits down on the rocker and starts lighting up his pipe.
“Cold night,” I say, rather feebly.
He fixes his sharp eyes on me, glowing from the light of the pipe. “Why don’t you sit your ass down, big boy.”
I raise my brows but do as he says.
“You should be used to the cold in your line of work,” he goes on. “That’s all you do all day, go out into the cold.”
“In the winter. In the summer we go out into the heat.”
“Summer is never as deadly as the winter,” he notes.
“Tell that to Fox.”
He shrugs. “You boys and your jobs. If only your mother could see you now, see what kind of crazy things you do, the way you stick your neck out for everyone. Shane is the only one with any kind of sense.”
“Shane fights fucking grizzly bears. Or at least that’s how he tells it.”
“She would be proud of you, no doubt,” he goes on. “But she would worry. We all worry about you, John.”
“You shouldn’t,” I say, trying to brush it off.
“What happened to your friend, it could have happened to you.”
“It should have happened to me,” I tell him. “I should have taken that call. I’m the first to respond.”
“Why didn’t you?”
I sigh. Too much guilt and nowhere for it to go.
“Because. I was with Riley.”
My grandpa doesn’t seem the least bit surprised, continues to puff on his pipe. “The heartbreaker?” he asks.
“Yeah. But… I think I broke her heart first.”
He fixes his eyes on me. “Why the hell did you do that?”
I shrug, helpless, hopeless. “I don’t know. I…I was with her. You know. In her room. When we missed the call. So right there, I was already distracted. And so when he died…I blamed us.”
He’s glaring at me, big bushy white brows coming together like dueling caterpillars. “I hope in God’s name that you didn’t tell her that.”
I swallow, look away at the snow and the darkness beyond.
“You weren’t raised to be that dumb,” he says bitterly after a few moments.
“I was angry,” I explain. “And hurt and stupid. And I know it had nothing to do with her, it’s just what happened. I have to live with the guilt of losing Tim.”
“So live with it if you want to, you don’t have to, but certainly leave her the hell out of it.”
“You don’t understand,” I say, even though I’m not even sure I understand at this point. “I…,” God, why is this so hard for me to a
dmit? “I got scared. I almost lost her up there too. She went down the slope, right beside me. And I went down after her. We both almost died. But I saved her. I saved her first. And then we went after Tim and Jace. By then it was too late.”
“You regret saving her?”
“No,” I say quickly, almost horrified at the question. “God, of course not. Of course not. But it made me realize how easy it is to lose someone you love. And I thought I’d already gone through that with mom. I don’t want to go through it again.”
My grandfather sighs and blows smoke rings into the air. They seem to crystalize before our eyes, turning into works of art before they float away.
“You saved her because you were the closest one to her,” he says after a few beats. “You saved her because you could. You saved her because you love her. And there is no shame in saving the ones you love.” He pauses. “There’s only shame in throwing that love away because you’re afraid. Man up and grow a pair, John boy.”
I give him an incredulous look. “Did you just tell me to grow a pair of balls?”
“Well there’s nothing to suggest that you have them at the moment.” He shrugs.
I bite back a laugh. The first laugh I’ve felt in days. I almost feel guilty for it, but I decide to let that guilt pass for once. It’s going to take time for me to deal with all of this but at least now I know, deep down, I will deal with it.
I just wish I had Riley by my side, to help me deal.
“Listen,” he says softly and when I look at him, his eyes are shining. “The one thing we can’t buy, can’t find, can’t…rescue, is time. Take it from me. Time is an unstoppable force, moving us all toward the same end. Sometimes that end happens for some sooner than it happens for others. Sometimes others are left behind. But we, as those who still experience time, we have a duty to those who have gone. We have to use every second we have. Life is too fucking short to feel guilty. We all feel it, and sometimes we deserve it, but acknowledge it and move on. Don’t let it hold you back. Don’t sacrifice the time you have left. It’s a gift that so many don’t have. Believe me. It’s all going to be over before you know it.”
My grandfather has been around the block. He’s experienced love and loss. Birth and death. He’s lived through floods and storms and fires. He’s seen life move on around him. He knows what he’s talking about and every time he gives me advice like this, I have no choice but to take it.