Chapter 14 Carter
CARTER
Iwake up to sunlight streaming through the cabin windows and Rhi’s hair in my face.
For a second, I’m disoriented. My neck aches from the angle, my arm is completely numb where she’s been lying on it, and there’s a distinct crick in my back from the couch.
I’ve never been more comfortable in my life.
Rhi’s still asleep, curled into my side, one hand resting on my chest. Her breathing is soft and even, and in the morning light, she looks peaceful. Not the careful, controlled version of herself I first met.
I lie staring at the cabin ceiling.
This is real.
Which means I can lose it.
The thought make me want to run. I’ve already lost so much. What happens when she realizes I’m still figuring out how to be a person again? That half the time I’m faking confidence I don’t feel?
Her hand curls into my shirt in her sleep, and the panic eases.
Not gone. But manageable.
I don’t want to move. Don’t want to break this moment. But my arm really is completely dead, and I need to pee.
Carefully, I start to extract myself. Rhi makes a small sound of protest, burrowing closer, and I freeze.
“Don’t go,” she mumbles, still mostly asleep.
“I’ll be right back. Promise.”
She finally releases her grip on my chest, and I manage to slide out without waking her fully. I stand, stretching out the kinks, and look down at her.
Her hair’s a mess. There’s a crease on her cheek from my shirt. She’s beautiful.
I’m so screwed.
In the bathroom—a tiny room with a composting toilet and a basin with frigid water—I splash my face and try to process everything that happened in the last twenty-four hours.
I called my Dad. Actually called him, admitted I needed him, and he didn’t make me feel small for it. He said he was proud of me.
I rescued Rhi. Actually figured out how to get her out safely, used what my dad taught me, didn’t panic.
I slept with Rhi.
Holy shit.
What do I do now?
I usually never sleep over at a hook-up’s house. I don’t know how to navigate the morning after, how to make things less awkward.
I stare at my reflection—messy hair, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, looking like I got hit by a truck but also like I might be…happy?
“Don’t fuck this up,” I tell myself quietly.
Then I head back out to not fuck this up.
When I come back, Rhi’s awake. She’s sitting up on the thin bed, hair sicking up everywhere, looking around like she’s trying to remember where she is.
“Morning, Happy Christmas Eve,” I say.
“Morning. Happy Christmas Eve to you too.” Her voice is rough with sleep. Then she notices the couch, notices me, and her face goes pink. “Did we—did I fall asleep on you?”
“Little bit, yeah.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Rhi, it’s fine. More than fine.” I sit down next to her, careful not to crowd her. “How’s your ankle?”
She looks down at it as if she had forgotten it even exists. “Swollen. But okay.”
It’s not okay. Even from here I can see it’s worse than yesterday. The compression bandage is tight, and there’s visible swelling above and below it.
“We should ice it,” I say.
“We don’t have ice.”
“We have snow. Close enough.” I stand. “Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
I pack the towel with snow from outside, bring it back, and carefully place it on her ankle.
She winces. “That’s cold.”
“That’s the point.”
“I hate it.”
“I know. Keep it there anyway.”
She gives me a look that suggests she’s only tolerating this because she knows I’m right.
I love that look.
Oh god, I’m in so deep.
After coffee and scrambled eggs, where I reject Rhi’s offer of mayonnaise in my eggs, we sit down to plan for the day.
I’ve been eyeing her ankle since she woke up. It’s worse. Definitely worse. The swelling has spread above the compression bandage, and there’s a purple tinge that makes my stomach twist.
“We should probably skip the data collection today,” I say, trying to sound casual about it.
She immediately goes into protocol mode. “We can’t skip it. We’re already behind—”
“Rhi, look at your ankle.”
She looks. I watch her face as she takes in the swelling, the discoloration, the way she can’t even flex her foot without wincing.
“I could stay here and you could go—”
“Absolutely not.” The words come out sharper than I mean them to. “I’m not leaving you alone after yesterday. What if something happens? What if you need help and I’m miles away?”
“I’ll be fine—”
“You said that yesterday right before you fell through ice.” I soften my voice. “Besides, I’m not going out there by myself. That’s how people end up as cautionary tales in wilderness safety videos. ‘Local idiot freezes to death because he thought he could handle solo data collection.’”
“But the data—”
“Can wait one day. Or we can interpolate. Professor Bam will understand.” I lean back, watching her. I can see the war happening in her head—the need to follow the plan versus the reality of her injury. “Besides, when’s the last time you just took a day off?”
“I don’t take days off.”
“I know. That’s the problem. AND, it’s Christmas Eve, most of America has the day off today.”
She’s quiet for a heartbeat, and I can practically hear her mental list-making. Pros and cons. Risk assessment. Contingency planning.
“Okay,” she says finally, and I can tell how hard that word is for her to say. “One day off.”
Victory.
I grin at her. “Look at you, being spontaneous.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I stand, start clearing our breakfast dishes. “So what does Rhiannon Pierce do on an unplanned day off? Writes in her planner? Sets goals for the week?”
“I don’t always—” She stops herself. “Okay, yes. Usually.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“I don’t have a plan. That’s the whole point of a day off.”
“You’re going to make a plan for your day off, aren’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.”
“Fine. Probably.” She’s trying not to smile. “But it’ll be a very relaxed, spontaneous plan.”
“Right. A spontaneous plan. That makes total sense.”
“It does!”
“If you say so.” I’m grinning now. “Just promise me whatever this spontaneous plan is, it involves you staying off that ankle.”
“I promise.”
“Good.” I grab the dish towel. “Because if you try to go hiking on that thing, I’m going to have to physically restrain you. And that’ll be awkward for both of us.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. And she’s staying. And her ankle will have time to heal.
I count that as a win.
“Oh my god, is that a puzzle?” Rhi’s eyes light up when she spots the box on the shelf.
I follow her gaze. Sure enough, there’s a jigsaw puzzle tucked between some old board games and a stack of field guides. The box shows a mountain landscape. It looks like it has about a thousand pieces.
It looks like torture.
“Yeah,” I say carefully. “Looks like it.”
“Can we do it?” She’s already reaching for the box, an excited energy radiating off of her. “I love puzzles.”
“You do?”
“My family always does one on Christmas Eve. It’s tradition.” She’s opening the box, dumping pieces onto the coffee table. “We compete to see who can finish their section first. My sister usually wins, but last year I got the entire sky done before her.”
She’s smiling. Genuine, unguarded, happy.
I hate puzzles.
Puzzles are tedious and frustrating and I have exactly zero patience for finding tiny pieces that might fit together.
But she’s looking at me with big doe eyes and I’m completely incapable of saying no.
“Sure,” I hear myself say. “Let’s do a puzzle.”
“Really? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“I want to.” Lie. “Puzzles are great.” Bigger lie. “Love puzzles.” The biggest lie I’ve ever told.
Her smile gets wider. “This is going to be fun.”
It’s absolutely not going to be fun.
But she’s happy, and I’d suffer through a lot worse to see her smile.
We’re maybe a quarter of the way through the puzzle—Rhi’s done most of it; I’ve successfully placed about six pieces—when she asks the question.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“You mentioned an ex. The one who... things ended.”
“Kath, yeah.”
“What happened? If you don’t mind talking about it.”
I don’t mind. Which is weird, because usually, I do mind. Usually, I deflect or joke or change the subject.
But with Rhi, I don’t want to.
“It wasn’t that serious,” I say, fitting two pieces together. They actually match this time. Nice. “We’d been dating for like four months. College thing, you know? We went to parties together, hooked up, occasionally studied together. It was fun but not...” I search for the word. “Not deep.”
“Okay.”
“Then Dom died. And I fell apart. Like, completely fell apart. Stopped going to classes, stopped going out, basically just existed and felt sorry for myself.”
Rhi’s quiet, listening.
“Kath tried, I guess. She’d text to check on me. Bring me food sometimes. But I think she thought grief was like... a phase. Like I’d be sad for a few weeks and then bounce back, and we’d go back to how things were.”
“But you didn’t bounce back.”
“No. I didn’t.” I study the puzzle piece in my hand. Blue. Sky or mountain shadow? I can’t tell. “And eventually she was like, ‘I can’t do this. You’re not the person I started dating. You’re too sad all the time and it’s bringing me down.’”
“She said that?”
“More or less. She tried to be nice about it, but yeah, that was the gist.” I shrug. “And honestly? I don’t blame her. We weren’t serious enough for her to sign up for the level of mess I became. It wasn’t fair to expect her to.”
“Carter—”
“It’s fine. I’m fine about it.” I’m not fine about it, but I don’t need Rhi’s pity. “She wasn’t wrong. I was—am—a lot to handle. Grief makes you heavy. Who wants damaged goods?”
The words come out more bitter than I mean them to.
Rhi sets down her puzzle piece. “You’re not damaged goods.”
“I mean, I kind of am, though.”
“No.” Her voice is firm. “You’re grieving. That’s not the same thing as damaged. Grief isn’t a flaw.”
“Feels like one sometimes.”
“That doesn’t make it true.”