60. Blake
BLAKE
I survived the panic attack.
I don’t know how. I thought I was going to pass out from lack of oxygen.
Or maybe my heart was going to explode. But somehow, I managed to keep breathing.
Somehow, I managed to push my back into the rock and lock my body into position until that wave of dizzying nausea passed and I could inhale a full breath again.
I feel sick now.
Drained.
But I’m too afraid to close my eyes and fall asleep.
What if my limp body slips off this shelf?
I’m not ready to die.
The thought makes my insides hitch, and once they start trembling, they won’t stop. It’s fucking freezing up here.
Checking my watch, I light up the little screen and wince at the crack across the glass.
Shit.
The time is still showing, though, and it’s one thirty in the morning. The temperatures are only going to keep falling and…
My jacket.
Feeling around my waist, I let out a surprised, choking laugh when I notice my jacket survived the fall. Carefully untying it, I inch it around my body, my ankle whining in protest.
I hiss but refuse to straighten my leg. If I do that, my foot will be dangling off the side of this little shelf, and that’s too much.
I have no idea how high up I am or how steep the drop is. But my imagination is filling in the blanks, and it’s terrifying. So I keep my extremities as close to my body as I can while wrestling the jacket out from under my butt and around my torso.
Rather than putting it on, I use it as a blanket, wrapping it around myself and bunching it under my chin. My teeth are starting to chatter. This is going to be a fucking long night.
Glancing up at the night sky, I try not to get freaked out by the vast expanse and instead focus on the twinkling stars. I home in on a cluster of three and stare at them until they blur.
Closing my eyes, I feel that edge of exhaustion tugging at me. The adrenaline is fading from my body, but?—
I snap my eyes open, willing another injection of that stuff to course through my veins.
I can’t rest. I can’t relax.
“Stay awake,” I order myself. “You have to stay awake.”
A cold breeze whistles over my face, and even though it makes me shiver, I welcome it. I need it to keep me alert. Sleep is not an option on this precarious shelf. I have to keep my wits about me and stay still.
Tightening my grip around my legs, I pull the jacket even closer to my chest and start whispering under my breath. I play the alphabet game because it used to calm me as a kid.
“Pick a topic, sis,” Wily would tell me.
Wily. Shit, I miss him. I’ve screwed up so badly. I lost him without even meaning to, and it’s never gonna be the same again.
I’m not his sweet little sister anymore, the one he’s determined to protect.
I’m the lying delinquent who had to withdraw from college. The girl who got herself arrested. The one who lost her V-card because Cleo dared her to do it, and Nico had never done a virgin before.
Shit, I’m such a fucking loser.
Why would Wily want to be related to me?
Tears flood my eyes as my little pity party goes into full swing.
“No,” I whisper. “A topic. Pick a topic!” I growl at myself, then start with an easy one.
“Boys’ names.” Swallowing, I lick my lips, then instantly wish I hadn’t.
The breeze is so much colder against my wet skin.
With a grimace, I clench my jaw and mutter, “A… Adam. B… Barry. C… um… Carson.” My eyebrows rise as I think about Wily’s grumpy-ass friend.
“D… Donovan. E… Edward. F…” I blink, my brain starting to hurt and telling me to shut up.
Just let me sleep!
No!
F… let’s go !
“F…” I close my eyes, then force them back open. “Frank. G…” My stomach twists, this pain in my chest making me believe for just a moment that souls are a physical thing. Because my soul is aching as I whisper the word “Grady.”
I’d give anything to have him here with me right now.
He’d know exactly what to do.
Exactly how to help me.
And he would. In his calm, sweet way, he would once again get me out of trouble. Even though he’d rather be with Teah. Sweet, simple, uncomplicated Teah.
Who thought he was boring.
My insides writhe with anger for a moment, but then logical thought overrides the emotion.
“She’ll wake up and realize that she was wrong.” My voice is slow and kind of slurred as I whisper to the stars. “She’ll wake up and he’ll be there, telling her she’s strong and she can make it. Being the perfect boyfriend.”
My eyes feel heavy as they once again flood with tears.
I wanted him to be my perfect boyfriend, but why would he want a train wreck like me?
“I’m such a mess.”
So stop being one. You know how to do that.
“But I don’t want to go back to the way things were. I don’t want to be an intense study nerd again. I want a life. I want to enjoy my life.”
So do it. Enjoy it.
I nearly ask how, but I already know how. Enjoying life means doing the things you love, right?
So… what do I love ?
“Grady,” I whisper, my lips rising into a sad smile. “I love being with Grady.”
But that’s not an option anymore, so what else? What else, Blake? Stay awake. Stay alert and THINK about it.
Blinking, I shake my head, trying to wake myself up and force my brain to comply.
What do I love?
What do I love?
“Nature,” I whisper. “I loved hiking with Grady.”
But it wasn’t just about Grady. It was about being in the woods. Watching… hearing… nature around me. I loved photographing it and studying it. I loved standing still and submerging myself, like I was becoming one with the forest.
That worked for me.
I felt joy like I’d never experienced it.
That’s why I came back here tonight. I was hankering for that feeling again.
A cloud, which was covering the moon, glides away, allowing a shaft of light to flood my little spot here on the edge of this cliff. I stare up at the pale orb in the sky, my lips parting as that sense of wonder takes me out again.
Being out here, even in this precarious state… it’s… it’s where I belong.
Not in a library surrounded by books, but out here. I want to be out here!
Which means I need to stop fucking up my life and make it happen.
Inspired, my brain starts calculating all the ways it could happen. What kind of jobs work in nature? What kind of training would I need to do?
The minutes tick by as I work out a plan in my head .
My chest starts to thrum as images of me hiking through the forest with a kick-ass camera flood me.
I see myself snapping images, selling them to nature-loving websites.
Maybe I could even start my own company?
I could learn all there is to know about photography and selling photographs.
Coffee table books, large prints—there’s so much potential, right?
And maybe I could tie that in with conservation, the way Grady wants to do with his engineering. Maybe showing people how truly amazing and beautiful this world is could inspire them to get out into it, to preserve it, to…
I start to smile, more ideas exploding in my brain as an excitement I’ve never felt before starts to buzz through me.
I want that. I want that life.
So go get it.
I swallow, the thought of telling my parents making me shudder.
Seriously, you’re still afraid? Look at where you are right now!
The thought makes me stiffen, and then this weird laugh pops out of my mouth. I’m basically facing down death. There’s a serious chance I won’t get found and this is the end of the line for me… and I’m still shuddering at the thought of telling the truth?
I am so screwed in the head.
Another laugh pops out of me, but it quickly turns into a tearful little wail.
Shit, if I do survive this, I have to get the fuck over myself .
I have to stop bullshitting my way through life and stop striving for people’s approval.
The only approval I really need is my own.
I need to stop making decisions out of fear and start making them based on what lights me up and gets me excited.
I have to get my life together, and I need to tell my parents that it’s my turn to start making the big decisions.
They think they’re supporting me by constantly giving me advice, pushing me, demanding certain standards, but all it’s done is pressured me to the point of exploding into a reckless idiot child.
“I want to do photography.” I test it out, picturing them in front of me as I lay out my plans.
“And I want to stay in Nolan. I love it there. I’m not a big-city girl.
I never have been. I just didn’t realize it until I had the opportunity to be somewhere small-town.
” Gripping my legs a little tighter, I battle my chattering teeth and quaking insides to keep telling them all the things I want to do.
“And I want to be with Grady,” I finish, my bravado dying the second his name slips off my lips.
That’s not really up to me, is it?
I may want him, but he’s probably already back with Teah.
And I need to get on with my life and just hope that one day, he’ll come back to me… or I’ll find someone else who is exactly like him.