Chapter 14 Point of No Return
Point of No Return
Alone at the top of the world, the wind whipping around me ready to sweep away my cries, I finally let down my guard. I had reached The Point, a rocky plateau strewn with a smattering of trees, wide open to the elements, and well beyond the safer confines of The Lookout where most people stopped.
The Lookout was where Noelle and I always ended our hikes. Where we polished off a bottle of wine before she left town over a decade ago.
It was where hikers paused to rest and take pictures of Silver Lake before beginning the long trek back down the bluffs to the beach below. Where wooden benches invited visitors to carve their names in the wood, just as the five of us had so long ago.
I couldn’t pass that bench without running my fingers over the faded grooves of our names.
That day, like so many others, was firmly imprinted in my mind.
God, we were so naughty when we were young. Not bad, not by any stretch, but so fucking naughty.
In that respect, Hunter was our fearless leader. He made Hawkley laugh and forced Max out of his introspective shell. He offered Noelle and me companionship when Hawk and Max escaped us to chase girls.
He made me feel tall, so tall, as if by his mere proximity he infused that effervescent quality that made him larger than life into me.
Where Hawkley protected, Hunter empowered. He was the offensive lineman to my running back.
He made me feel like I could fly.
And when he needed me…
God! I pushed the heels of my palms into my eyes as the familiar suffocating panic billowed in my chest like sails in the wind, forcing the air from my lungs, stealing my next breath.
Arresting my control.
If only…
Did two more terrible words exist?
I tried to breathe, to control the release of the pain, but it tore through my lungs, wrenching an agonized inhuman bark from my throat on its way out.
“Oh, God,” I gasped as relief and agony intertwined, free to mourn where there was no one to know how I failed, how I suffered.
No one to smell the rancid decay of my regret.
But, oh God, the agony of dropping the pretense.
“Hunter,” I rasped against the wind, my tears strangling my voice. I rolled my hands into fists, a sob clawing back my words.
Gulping down a breath, I tried again to call out to him. “Hunter,” And again my voice failed me.
If he could hear me from anywhere, it would be here.
Here where we stole away when the world became too much for him. When he needed rest. When he needed to yell and scream and release the cauldron of energy that forever boiled beneath his amiable surface.
Here where the wind would carry it all away.
“Hunter,” I sobbed freely, here where there was no one but him to hear me.
No one to burden.
No one who would choose to turn away, walk away, or move away from me in my weakness.
I inhaled harshly, expelling the words branded on my heart in one exhale, my choked voice deep and gritty. “Hunter, I miss you so much.”
My chest heaved.
I lifted my face to the wind.
Pulled in a deep breath, then another as the pressure and panic in my lungs mounted. Because as much as I needed to let out my grief, the power it had to consume me was frightening in its intensity.
I walked as close to the edge as I could safely muster while my body quaked like the leaves on the trees. I tipped back my head, inflated my chest, clenched my hands into fists, and roared his name into the ether.
“Hunter!”
I closed my eyes. That felt good.
The wind, colder up there, slapped the wet from my cheeks.
Even if everyone down below forgot his name and refused to leave an empty chair at the table.
If they no longer spoke about him, moving on as if he wasn’t present in every childhood memory and every other thought, as if I didn’t wait for him around every corner, I would speak.
Even if only the heavens above would hear me.
The heavens would bear witness to my pain.
The leaves in the trees would shudder just as I did.
And the wind would carry it away, the weight of my sadness burdening no one.
“Hunter!” I thundered, my voice breaking. “I miss you.”
I missed his raucous laughter and his easy smile, his sneaky smile and his magnetic presence in every room, the way he made everything fun and never made me feel unworthy or unwelcome.
Fury at the unfairness of it all leant me strength. I opened my chest, spread my arms wide, and raised my face to the sky. “Hunter!” And his name turned into a scream that shredded my throat and sent me to my knees.
“Hunter,” I rasped. “Hunter. Hunter. Hunter.” Oh, God, the pain and pleasure of saying his name, a name everyone else avoided for fear of remembering too clearly all that we lost. “Hunter.”
The regret. The remorse.
The if only.
I braced my palms against the cold, solid rock, and my tears flowed freely. But they would never cleanse me of my grief.
“Hunter,” I sobbed raggedly. “I’m so sorry.”
I curled up on my side and hugged my legs to my chest, completely and utterly alone.
The one day out of the year I devoted entirely to him. The one day a year I didn’t hold it together. The one day I didn’t, couldn’t, pretend.
I lay there, as close to heaven as I could climb, and waited for the fatigue to catch up to me and urge me home.
My breaths came easier, slicing through the agony in my chest with every inhale.
I breathed deeply, the pressure in my chest, on my heart, alleviated.
A change in the atmosphere alerted me to his presence before I heard him.
Somehow, I knew it was him. How did he find me up here? How did he even know where to look?
I closed my eyes.
I was good at pretending. Maybe I could pretend him away.
Because I didn’t want to talk.
Or explain.
Or God forbid, listen as he explained it for me, thinking he could make it better with the same useless, ineffectual, condescending platitudes that served more to comfort the speaker than the griever.
He sat down behind me.
I curled tighter into my ball.
Then he did what no one else had. He pushed his arm under my head, laid his cheek on my hair, and curled his big body around mine, his other arm wrapped around my chest, his palm splayed over my heavy heart.
I jolted at the feel of him, warm and solid, at my back.
He held me. It was everything I needed, and exactly what I didn’t want.
The panic that had subsided rumbled anew and gained momentum. I latched onto his forearm.
He rocked against me and held me tighter.
A keening mewl broke the seal of my lips followed by a shuddered inhale. How I despised my lack of control.
But he only wrapped his hand gently around my throat, his thumb caressing my pulse. A vault of agony I never knew existed cracked. I had reached the point of no return, a pain so deep it would no longer be denied.
It was mine, mine alone, and I curled around it.
Away from him.
Almost selfish in my desire to keep this grief to myself, nurse it and nurture it like a child at my breast.
Daire rolled away abruptly, exposing my back to the wind for but a moment before flipping me around onto his chest.
I pushed back, my palms pressing against his wide chest.
He held on, one arm banded around my waist, his other hand wound tightly into my hair, the sting at my scalp grounding me.
He pressed his cheek against mine, his stubble rough and grating against my tear-stained, wind-whipped, cheek.
His breath sawed in and out harshly in my ear while his tender heart thudded violently in his chest.
His chest that vibrated with warmth and life beneath me. His chest that protected me from the hard ground. His chest that gave my grief a safe place to land.
His chest that was wide enough to carry this burden for a time. Strong enough for the moment to hold all of me.
My head cleared. The tension drained from my frame.
His hand in my hair gentled its grip and moved to cup the back of my neck.
I answered the demands of his hands and tucked my face into his neck.
Folded my knees around his hips.
Wrapped my arms around his shoulders and dug my fingers into the bone and muscle and sinew that held him together.
That held me together.
I cried.
And he stayed.