Chapter 21
Cameron
Mars somehow arrives almost before the call ends, courtesy of the Mars Hawke magic that means he’s always right around the bend when you need him, and within moments of Sammy leaving I’m on his Harley and tearing up the mountain, looking for her.
I watched her long enough to know she came this way instead of heading for the train tracks, and that means she’s on her way to the bridge.
The one she likes to jump off when she feels the need for.
.. whatever it is she’s seeking. Honestly, I’ve never asked her why she does it, partially because I’m certain she wouldn’t tell me, though I have my guesses.
The girl has been deserted more in her life than any person should, starting at a very early age, and it’s given her the idea that her life isn’t worth anything.
That she could disappear and no one would care.
I wouldn’t call her suicidal, exactly, but she looks for ways to make people prove themselves to her.
Looks for opportunities to make people tell her she matters.
I don’t even think I can blame her for that, either.
Her father left her before she was born, and then when her mother married my father, he spent most of his time leaving as well.
Her own mother killed herself when we were fourteen, and for some reason, made sure to do it in a way that ensured we would be the ones to find her.
Most of the people in Sammy’s life have done her wrong.
I don’t blame her for thinking it means she’s not worth anything.
But I wish she’d fucking get over it. The girl is sunshine personified and worth more than any other two people put together. She’s the town darling, and I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t sell their soul for her.
She’s the only one who can’t see that.
I hit a straight section of the road and shift gears, pushing the bike faster up the mountain. Sammy has at least ten minutes on me, and I don’t trust where she’s going and what she might do with those ten minutes.
I have a horrible, sinking feeling that she’s already at the bridge, standing on the ledge she likes to stand on and staring down at a river that’s filled with water but too rocky to be safe.
This time of year, the river is still rushing rapids and deep enough to jump, in theory.
But boulders litter the water and you have to jump out from the bridge to make it to a safe spot.
Sammy is a tiny girl, and she can’t jump as far as she needs to.
The thought has me downshifting and asking the bike for more speed, then shifting up and tearing around the next corner, my eyes on the top of the mountain and the bridge I know is up there.
Please let me get there in time, please let me get there in time, I chant to myself.
Because I don’t know what I’ll do if she jumps before I can stop her.
I’ve had the girl in my life since I was seven, and I don’t remember how to live without her.
What would I even be without the tiny spitfire of a hellcat running next to me, trying to trip me and then laughing at me when I fell for it?
Who would bully me into doing things I don’t want to do and then soothing me for the drama with ice cream afterward?
Who would hold my heart safe while having absolutely no idea how much power she had?
When I hit the next turn, I spin through it, wheels skidding, and say a quick apology to Mars for whatever I’ve just done to his tires–though he won’t mind.
He’s been trying to protect Sammy since the day she came into the family, and spends more time picking her up when she’s stuck than anyone but me.
The man is gruff and enormous, and any normal child would probably have been scared of him, but he’s got the biggest laugh I’ve ever heard and the heart of a Great Dane.
He’s a saint for how he’s always treated Sammy and me.
He won’t care about the tires.
Hell, if I’d told him where I was going and why, he would have insisted on coming with me in case I needed help.
God, maybe I should have. I don’t know what state she’s in or what position she’s gotten into, and another set of hands might have... well, come in handy. Especially Mars, with his enormous shoulders and ability to get out of any situation he gets into.
Though if I’m being honest, I don’t want anyone else helping.
Sammy is my girl, and I want to be the one that saves her–even if that makes my job harder.
I grimace at the thought, knowing how ridiculous it is, but shoot out of the corner and hit the straight path that will take me up to the bridge.
Old Man Rivers’ house is to my right, on the other side of our favorite meadow, but I don’t bother to look over there.
She’s not at his house and I’m positive she’s not in the meadow.
It wouldn’t make any sense for her to be there.
There isn’t anything that might kill her in that field of grass and wildflowers. No tools to give her freedom from the world she’s always thought didn’t want her.
I turn my eyes to the bridge and the turnout in front of it, looking desperately for my truck and the tiny form of a girl intent on doing herself damage.
The bridge itself is the only way over this part of the mountain, and though it’s not at the peak of the summit, it’s close enough.
A large, sweeping structure of steel and arches, the lines more graceful than you’d expect up here, the bridge stands out against the sky, glinting silver and rust in the sunlight and making me wonder again who the fuck built something like that up here.
The engineering must have been nearly impossible, never mind getting all the steel and concrete up to this point.
Why the fuck did anyone ever think it was a good idea, or even necessary?
I’ve thought more than once that the bridge’s size and beauty is why Sammy comes up here, and why she thinks she needs to jump off it.
I therefore hate the men who decided this was a good idea, and hope they died fiery and very painful deaths. My life would have been a lot easier without this fucking bridge and the danger it presents.
I skid into the turnout, confused as hell when I don’t see my truck, and have a horrible, bone-numbing, heart-crumbling realization.
God, what if she didn’t go onto the bridge to jump at all.
What if she decided to take a faster route and just drove off the cliff right here, where there’s no guardrail and nothing to stop her.
I’m off the bike almost before it’s parked and running toward the side of the mountain, my heart trying to climb out of my mouth.
This girl. This fucking girl. I’ve never thought of her as actually suicidal, just sort of insane, but maybe I’ve been wrong.
Maybe this entire time she was actually trying to kill herself and I just stupidly thought it was for attention or for the adrenaline rush.
Oh my God, if I’ve been wrong all this time and this is my fault, I’ll never be able to kill myself.
I should have called Mars sooner. I should have been paying better attention to her mindset over the past week.
Wasn’t I just thinking that I hadn’t seen her enough lately to have told her about Gabe and Taryn’s plan?
Holy Christ on a bicycle, did she jump because I didn’t tell her?
My mind is flitting through possibilities so quickly I can hardly keep track of them all, and though the more rational voice in my mind is telling me to calm the fuck down, my heart is racing so hard I think I might have a heart attack.
If she’s dead, I’ll jump off the cliff after her.
I don’t want life without her. I can’t even stand the thought of it. I’ve already lost too many people, and if I lose her too, all the color will go out of my world.
I skid to a stop at the side of the mountain, just before the ground drops into clear blue sky, and look around me, desperate for some sign of her. Is she here, staring out at the empty expanse of blue and getting ready to jump? Has she already gone over? Is everything already finished?
But there’s no truck up here, and no tire tracks to show there ever was one.
The brush around me is undisturbed, still green and whole, the world smelling like fresh grass and flowers, backed by the smell of growing pine trees.
The wind is trickling past me in a soft, gentle caress, teasing me with its presence and whispering that I’m the only one here.
My whirring mind stutters and comes down to a standstill as all the adrenaline drains out of me. There’s no one up here, and the lack of tire tracks tell me no one has come this way in months, if ever.
Where the fuck is Sammy?
I stare up at the bridge, running my eyes along the rails and looking desperately for her, but there’s no figure up there.
When I come to the ledge where she usually stands, I squint my eyes, wishing I had better vision so I could see if she’s hiding behind one of the poles.
I move three steps to my left and lean around, looking, but I’m positive she’s not u there. I’d see her if she was. I’d know.
I whirl, staring back out to the road, and take in every inch of it. The bike is there, laying on its side–Mars is going to kill me–but there’s no truck. No tire tracks, no Sammy.
Wait.
I walk back out to the bike, staring at the dirt around me like it holds the secret of eternal youth, but I don’t see anything. There are no tired tracks up here, and the only footprints I see are my own.
She hasn’t been here.
No truck came across this path to even get to the bridge, and if she came on foot, she must have been flying, because there are no footprints, either.
I take a moment to acknowledge the possibility of her flying here–she could be a pixie for all I know, she’s the right size for it–but then turn to look down the road toward the meadow.
Sammy’s a creature of habit and I saw her take the road up the mountain, so she’s up here somewhere.
And the meadow is the only other place she might be.
It doesn’t make sense, as there’s nothing dangerous in that space, but there are literally no other options.
No options aside from her having hidden the truck and then taken a dive right off the cliff.
I scan the road below me, trying to calm my mind and get it to freaking work, and suddenly stop on the shine of light off metal. And not just any metal; that’s not the dull shine of fencing or an old piece of farm equipment.
That’s polished steel.
That’s the fucking bumper of a car.
That’s my truck.
I’m running before I complete the word, my feet flying past the motorcycle laying on the ground.
And though that voice in my brain tells me I could get there faster on the bike, my heart doesn’t have time to stop and get it off the ground and running again.
My heart sees my truck, and if my truck is there then Sammy must be, too.
And my heart doesn’t have a fucking second to waste on turning on a god damned motorcycle.
It needs to fly with the speed of the wind toward the girl down there, her soul already reaching for mine and her heart singing out to me.
Her live soul. Her live heart in her live body, because if she’s in the meadow it means she didn’t jump from the cliff, it means she stopped down there, and that means. ..
That means...
Alive, alive, alive, my brain starts chanting the beat of my feet on the ground, until it becomes the rhythm of my heart and the only thing I can think. I know I’m not making sense and my thoughts are a stream-of-consciousness flow that has no logic, but I don’t care.
I have never had anyone solid in my life.
Never. My mother hated my existence and my father didn’t care enough to stick around, and I knew from the start that I wasn’t wanted.
Hell, my mother told me often enough that it was my fault my father had left.
I was raised on it like it was mother’s milk, a constant accusation in my tiny toddler ears.
When I was old enough to talk back, ask questions, I was punished.
Up to the attic, Cameron Hawke.
Up to the attic, little boy.
Up to the attic, pain in my ass.
I fight down the memories, the tears and pain and confusion that comes with them, and try to get my brain back around to Sammy, but it’s no use.
The little boy inside me is screaming that everyone leaves, that no one cares enough to stay, and that I never knew anything true until I was seven and I moved to a new house.
And found Sammy, who was so full of life and love and laughter that she filled all my dark corners with bright sunshine and dandelion fluff.
She propped me up and showed me how to look at the world in a different way, saved me from the kids at school when they bullied me.
She stood between me and reality, threatening anyone who wanted to harm me.
She gave me her entire self at a time when I didn’t even know it was possible, and she has never taken that away.
I don’t know how I’d live if she ever did, because there isn’t any world without her. No air, no wind, no joy.
So, when I get near the meadow and see a black, curly head pop up out of the grass, I don’t bother to think.
I can see from here that she’s been crying, the tears tracing silver tracks down her face, and I turn and sprint toward her, need bubbling out of me and emotions surging through my veins with a power I’ve never allowed them.
She sees me and her eyes grow wide, her mouth opening in an O of surprise, but she jumps to her feet and runs for me, too, somehow understanding that I need to have her in my arms.
“Cameron!” she shouts, her voice filled with a desperation I don’t understand. “I was waiting for you!”
I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what’s happened.
But when I finally reach her, after what has to be ten business years of running, I still don’t think.
I take her in my arms, twirl her around until she’s laughing, and then set her on the ground and kiss her the way I’ve been dreaming of kissing her since I was twelve years old.