Chapter Eighteen
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
T HEY KEPT ON going up the trail, and it narrowed. It got to the place where she had quit last time.
But he held her hand and pulled her up behind him.
“I’m scared,” she said, stopping and hugging the wall. She looked down below at the river, so far down, craggy rocks the only landing offered if a person was to slip and lose their footing. It wasn’t like it didn’t happen. People fell hiking all the time. Her fear wasn’t totally irrational, even if she did feel a bit like she needed to find some extra bravery, in the presence of a man like him.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
And those were the eyes of the soldier. Not just a soldier, but the man who had been in charge of a unit. The man who had promised not to leave people behind, but who had, because bombs went off and stray bullets hit people who didn’t deserve it.
Because that was the nature of things, even if it shouldn’t be.
He wouldn’t leave her behind. He wouldn’t let her fall.
She clung to him, as they navigated the narrower parts of the trail. Him in front, and her coming up behind as she braced herself on the wall, and then would reach for his hand when she got to a wider spot.
He was calm. Measured. He was exactly the kind of man you wanted leading in a moment like this.
Steady. Certain.
She saw the hero. The substance of the real hero. Not just the moments of glory.
This was the real thing she wanted. Not a parade. She wanted this thing he had. In spite of everything, he carried on. In spite of everything, he was like a compass. Pointing north. Leading.
And when they made it past the toughest part of the trail, she couldn’t help herself. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face just there, at the crook between his shoulder and jaw. She rubbed her face against his skin and smelled the sweat, a scent that was uniquely his.
Tears stung her eyes, and she knew she didn’t have a right to those tears. Or maybe she did. Because she had done something on her list. She had completed something she set out to do. She hadn’t quit.
She had finished.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She lifted her head and their eyes met. He reached up and pushed a lock of hair off her forehead, and she shivered. His hold was firm, hot. She wanted to stay pressed against him like this forever. This had nothing to do with the childhood crush.
This was about him. Right now. The man he really was.
In this moment, it was a feeling electrified by her own bravery.
What a wonderful thing.
Finally, he began to loosen the hold he had around her waist, and she stepped back from him.
“Thank you.”
“Everything’s fine,” he said. “You could do it all along. You didn’t need me.”
“That isn’t true. I think I would’ve quit without you. I would’ve been too afraid. But you’re the kind of person you look at, and you just think it has to be okay.”
“Camping spot’s just up ahead,” he said.
It took a while, but they reached their final destination for the day, without encountering any of the terrain that Rory was worried about. Listening to Gideon talk about his time in the desert, about the bomb, made her feel like her worries were so abstract and unrealistic in comparison.
He was a hero. He had been trying to think that a hero was somebody who didn’t react when things were complicated and painful. She thought a hero was exactly who he was. Somebody who saw all the difficulties, who felt them, who recognized that there was a cost to everything. Someone who mourned those who had been in his charge.
Why would anyone want that simple kind of hero they had fashioned him into? She looked at him now, at the strength in his body as he started to unpack and assemble the tent they’d brought, folded up tightly in his pack.
She was fascinated by this man.
Yeah, she’d had a crush on the one she’d known all those years ago, but she hadn’t known him. Not more than anyone else. She had fashioned him into what she needed him to be. She had talked at him, making him the object of her fantasy as a middle school girl.
She had seen him as being handsome and nice, and a great listener, because it suited her for him to be those things. She was happier now that he had poured some of his real self out to her.
Happier now that she had been able to walk with him holding his hand.
“Once I get this set up, I’ll make a fire.”
“Shouldn’t I do that?”
“Are you trying to earn a Girl Scout badge?”
“No,” she said. “I’m not. But it seems like you shouldn’t do all the work yourself.”
“I’m gearing up to be a trail guide,” he said.
“What makes you want to do that?”
“It’s something that I have the skills for. I don’t have much of the know-how to be a cattle rancher, and anyway, competing with Four Corners is a dead end. You can’t do it. Some people have innovative ideas and ways of doing it, but you have to be passionate about ranching for that to work out. I’m passionate about the land my family has always had, but I don’t think I’m passionate enough about cows to try and compete with the massive operation you all have.”
“My sister’s fiancé is a rancher. Right next door to Four Corners. It’s not easy. He kind of introduced us to the concept that people outside our compound don’t think all that highly of us.”
“Jealousy,” he said. “Which again, I don’t have, because I don’t especially want to be a rancher. But I learned wilderness survival, and this is a good way to keep me in shape. A good way to keep me busy. Moving.” He set up the tent quickly and then moved on to making a fire. This early in the season it was still allowed, but once it got overly dry, there would be no open flame out in the woods. The threat of wildfires was too real.
He looked up at her, his blue eyes clashing with hers, and she felt a spark ignite in her stomach. She had no doubt between the two of them there was enough tinder to start a whole wildfire. Something was happening. Something outside of her experience. She knew about attraction. She never experienced it like this.
He hadn’t said anything or indicated that he felt the same, not really. Except... If I said I would kiss you...
She swallowed hard.
He got a fire going, and then reached into his backpack and took out... Sticks. And hot dogs.
“These are the survival rations?”
“Yeah. They’re basic. Perfect. Hot dogs.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said.
“Trust me. It’s going to be great.”
He had a package of hot dog buns that were only mildly squished, and she was surprised to find a small plastic container that had sauerkraut and ketchup packets and mustard.
She speared the hot dog on the stick and quickly put it up over the fire.
“Don’t look like you enjoy that too much,” he said. “I’m liable to take it personally.”
It took her a second. And then she laughed. Because suddenly she realized that he was thinking of...
She blinked. “Oh, I have no desire to... That is, I’m not angling to spear... I don’t...”
“Settle down there.”
His voice was just so soothing that she did settle.
She felt like things were reckless between them. Even if she couldn’t pinpoint how. Or why?
Maybe it was the way he held her. The way she clung to him.
Maybe it was that.
“To climbing the damned mountain,” he said, holding his own hot dog stick up as if it was a glass he was raising in salute.
She lifted her own hot dog out of the fire. “Climbing the mountain.”
They tapped them together, and her cheeks got hot.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Rory.”
“I didn’t... You... I...”
“You’re cute when you’re flustered.”
And then he smiled.
He was different. Relaxed. Like the hike had given them something, or maybe the walk up had been cathartic.
Telling the story of what had happened that day.
Just maybe.
They assembled their hot dogs, and both drank cans of sparkling water with them.
And then they sat there in silence, as the fire crackled. The stars above were clear and bright, and her heart felt...full.
Finally, it was time to turn in, and only then did she realize that sleeping in a tent with him was...was maybe a little bit more intimate than she had realized. In truth, she hadn’t thought about sleeping arrangements. Perhaps intentionally.
She got her bedroll, complete with her sleeping bag, and he got his, as they entered the tent.
It was small. Any tent that could be carried backpacking was bound to be.
“I don’t mind sleeping outside,” he said.
“No,” she said.
She didn’t know what was going to happen. But she knew that she wouldn’t be unhappy if...
They were pretty silent. The only sound was the rustle of them arranging the sleeping bags. It was dark inside the tent, but they didn’t need lights.
She got into her bag, and he into his. She could hear him breathing, ragged.
And then she shifted, turning over onto her side, looking at him in the dark. He did the same. There was space between them and two separate sleeping bags. And even still she was...electrified.
She turned, and moved closer to him, closing the space between them. Then she reached out and put her hand on his chest. His hand came up and trapped hers there, and she could feel his heartbeat raging. She looked up, and he looked down at her, and she could feel his breath against her lips.
“I’m going to tell you something else,” he said.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“I was burned when the bomb went off. Severely. It took some surgeries and skin grafts and things like that to get me on the road to recovery. It was very painful. Burns are a pretty hideous thing.”
She remembered, absurdly, a time when she had spilled boiling water on her hand, just at the fatty part between her thumb and forefinger. She’d had red scalded skin and a giant blister for weeks. She couldn’t even imagine a burn that penetrated deeper than that. Couldn’t imagine how painful it must be.
“And I just wanted everything to be back to the way it was. They give you pain pills. And for a few hours, you feel better. Functional, almost. By the time I got home, there were all kinds of awards and things happening, because we were considered heroes. We were given Purple Hearts for acts of bravery. And Cassidy wanted to go to everything. It was exactly what she wanted. I don’t mean that in a bad way. But it was hard for her to see me so different. Without the energy that she was used to, not feeling up to it because of all the pain I was in. I had headaches on top of it. So I started taking more pills. More and more. And whatever other issues I had, whatever PTSD stuff was happening, whatever traumatic brain injury side effects I had, it was all eclipsed by the pills.”
She didn’t say anything. She had thought maybe he had an issue with alcohol. It hadn’t occurred to her that it could be related to other substances.
“For a while, it made me better. I could do more, I could push past whatever was going on in my head as far as depression or anxiety because it wasn’t me. It was like I wasn’t there. I was pretty damned vacant. But that didn’t matter. I could put on my dress uniform and show up. I could be the soldier that she needed me to be. I seemed unaffected, and that was what she wanted, so I kept pushing. When I realized it was becoming a problem, I tried to cut back. But that just...”
He took a sharp breath. “I would get so short-tempered. And that was when I was trying to assemble some bookshelves in our living room, and I couldn’t figure out the directions. I couldn’t figure the fucking directions out, and Cass was in the other room and she was on the phone, and she was just talking and talking. I just... I was so filled with fury. And I just stood up and threw the screwdriver right through the wall. Not at anyone. But that feeling of being out of control, the fury building until I couldn’t take it anymore... I just went and took more pills. Because at least they made me feel the same. But you lose weight, it’s obvious. You start looking like a junkie. And you are.” His voice was rough, and he shifted behind her. She wanted to touch him, but she was afraid to move and break the spell. “I was a junkie. I might as well have been sticking a needle into my vein. I was close enough to that. All my life, I felt better than everybody else. And it turns out that when things are hard, I don’t know what to do.” The last word was tight. Like it had cost him to speak. “I needed crutches. I didn’t walk through hellfire on my own. I made the flames hotter. Something happened to me that I had no control over, but I made it worse. And I need you to know that. I need you to know that’s part of me.”
“You’re here,” she said, because of all the things it was the only thing that came to her. They were the only words that she could find. “You’re here, you’re not dead. You’re not in the gutter. You’re healthy, fit. As far as I can tell, not taking pills.”
“No. I’ve been clean and sober for two years. And I made sure to take everything away from myself. Absolutely everything. Because I didn’t trust myself. Not anymore. I didn’t want to give myself a new thing to lean on, so that meant getting rid of everything.”
“Did you go to rehab?”
He shook his head. “No. Because I would’ve probably needed to do it through the military to have it paid for. And I had some issues with that. With people knowing. It’s a common thing. But I never thought of myself as common. There’s a lot of alcoholism in the military, but that’s easier for people to ignore. There’s a socially acceptable quality to problem drinking. But it’s not socially acceptable to have a problem with prescription pills. That’s fine. I didn’t need anyone to support me. I was killing myself. Plain and simple. I bottomed out when Cassidy told me to leave.”
“Why didn’t she want to help you?”
He closed his eyes. “She was the woman I married. You have to understand that. She and I were both golden. Absolutely golden. She was the apple of her daddy’s eye, the prom queen, the head cheerleader. She was my female counterpart in every way. Top of her class, brilliant in college. Wanted to marry a man who was going places in the military. And we went through life not recognizing that the only reason we were where we were was that we never really struggled. We didn’t have to fight. We just walked easily to right where we were. And I remember clearly one day we saw a homeless veteran with a sign. Asking for help. Asking for food. He was skinny. Obviously on drugs. And she said... it’s sad how many of them can’t hack it . And I said... I don’t get it. I’ve been out on tour, it’s shit, but you just deal with it. You get over it. You don’t need to be self-indulgent. ” He laughed, hard and fractured. “That’s what I thought. That I had some kind of magical inner strength they didn’t have. And now I know, it’s a thin line separating you from becoming your worst nightmare.”
The only sound now was crickets. She didn’t speak, because she knew there was more.
“The day I left she said... you promised me that this would never be us. You became that guy holding the sign. I didn’t know I married a weak man. And I don’t think she’s right. Not about everything. But I married that woman. And I knew she was that woman when I married her. I was a man who matched her then. I am the one that changed. Not her. I’m the one that changed and I’m the one who had to go.”
She felt his heartbeat slowing beneath her fingertips. Almost like he was relieved to have it out.
She wished she could give him advice, but the truth was she was a woman with a very basic list of things she wanted to do because she hadn’t done much of anything.
The hiking trail was a triumph for her. He had been to hell and back.
“She sounds like a bitch,” said Rory.
And what really shocked her was that he laughed. He tightened his hold on her hand and laughed, the deep rumble vibrating through his body.
“Well, given that I’m the one who caused all the problems, I tend to have a nicer view.”
“I don’t have a nice view at all,” she said. “And I don’t have to. She isn’t my...my friend.”
There was a short silence. “I appreciate that.”
“Honestly. When you marry somebody, it’s supposed to be through all of that,” she said fiercely.
“Addicts hurt people, Rory. We lie. We’re erratic. We’re unpredictable. Some people want to stay and try to shepherd you through it, some don’t. Neither is wrong. That’s just how I feel about it. She didn’t change, but sometimes she was cruel, and the truth is, I made her cruel. She didn’t like that version of herself any more than she liked me, and why should she have had to keep living in that?” He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I sorted myself out. But only after she kicked me out. Only after the safety net was gone. Not everything is black-and-white. I thought marriage was forever, but I thought I was going to be a certain kind of person forever. I’m not. Even if we had fought through to me getting sober, I don’t know if we would’ve worked. She’s marrying another officer. That’s never going to be me again. I’m done with that life. And it’s a life she loves. I’ll tell you what, I don’t want to be married to somebody I’m dragging down. Making miserable. I need you to know that about me. That I’m not golden, or perfect. That when shit was hard, I folded. I need you to know that I was homeless for a while. And I flirted with the idea of sticking a needle in my arm. When it was getting too hard to get pills because I was visibly and obviously a pill seeker. I need you to know that when I say I hit rock bottom, I was really far down. Because you have a right to know if you’re going to put a hand on me. I’m not the guy you wrote about in your diary.”
His words were raw and bloody. Painful.
“No,” she said. “You’re not. I think you’re better.”
It was his turn to squeeze her hand tight like he was thinking he might fall off the edge of a cliff.
And she rested her head on his shoulder and held on to him like that. Until his breathing went steady. She probably could’ve kissed him. Here in the darkness. But it felt like an even bigger triumph that he’d shared .
And she could wait. Until it was right.
You’re leaving. When will it ever be right?
She didn’t know. She had a plan. And she was so certain of it. Her list. And now here she was at the top of the mountain, that damned mountain, with Gideon Payne.
And she felt like she just wanted to stay on the mountain forever.
Not because she was afraid of climbing back down. Just because they were here together.