Chapter 13 #3
He sank back in his pillow, the pain in his chest rolling over him—deeper and more devastating than any physical wound.
An ache that wouldn’t respond to morphine or time.
He’d pushed her away over and over, believing that somehow if he lost her, it would be less painful if he’d kept his distance, built up walls, and protected himself.
But he’d been wrong.
This hurt more than he could imagine. At least he knew Mary would have chosen to stay if she could. Would have fought to be with him. Would have wanted the future they’d planned.
This was a different sort of pain and darkness.
This was watching someone he loved walk away because they didn’t believe they deserved to be loved.
And being too broken himself to stop her.
The hospital-room door clicked shut behind her, and Meg’s world shattered.
She made it three doors down the hallway before her legs threatened to give out. She caught herself against the wall, one hand pressed to the cool painted surface, the other covering her mouth to hold back the sob clawing up her throat.
The fluorescent lights above buzzed softly, glaring off the white tile at her feet.
I can’t do this.
Except she’d just done it.
She’d walked into that room, looked into Noah’s deep-brown eyes—those eyes that saw straight through her—and destroyed whatever fragile thing had been building between them. She’d seen the exact moment her words had landed.
His expression had shifted from relief to confusion to devastation. And she’d kept talking anyway. Kept pushing him away. Each word a knife. Each sentence a wall.
Because the alternative—staying, loving him, waking up every day terrified that this would be the day she’d lose him—was unbearable.
She pushed off the wall and forced herself to keep walking.
One foot in front of the other.
That was all she had to do.
Just keep moving forward, away from his room, away from the North Rim, away from the man I—
No.
She refused to even think it. Wouldn’t give the feeling words. Wouldn’t make it real.
But the truth was there anyway. A physical presence in her chest.
She loved him.
Loved him so much it hurt. But she had to leave. The canyon would always be the place where she’d failed, where she’d frozen, where Noah had almost died in her hands.
Every step away from his room felt like tearing off a piece of herself.
It took everything she had not to turn around. Not to go back and tell him she was wrong, that she loved him and wanted to stay.
But she wasn’t right for canyon life.
She’d proved that. Each panic attack. Each moment of paralysis. The nightmares that woke her gasping.
And Noah lived for the canyon. He belonged there in a way she never would. I came to the canyon to escape…but somehow the quiet, vast landscape became a refuge. My home.
Noah needed the canyon, and she needed to leave.
Because every time she thought of staying, she saw his face again—pale, covered in blood, eyes growing distant. She felt again the paralysis that had seized her, the way her hands had shaken too badly to help, the way her mind had simply stopped.
She’d made the right choice.
She had to believe that or she’d shatter completely.
Pennsylvania meant safety—for both of them. She could get help there, work through the panic attacks with a new therapist. Start fresh somewhere new, like she always did. New city. New job. New people who didn’t know her history.
It always helped…at least for a couple years. Until the patterns caught up. Until the fear found her again.
Maybe eventually she’d stop seeing Noah’s face every time she closed her eyes.
The lobby was busy with evening visitors—families carrying balloons and flowers, couples holding hands—and Meg kept her head down as she moved through the crowd. She swiped quickly at her cheeks.
She probably looked like a mess—rumpled Chewbacca scrubs, red eyes swollen from crying, hair falling out of its tie—but she didn’t care.
She just needed to get out of this building, get to her car, get away from here before she fell apart completely.
The automatic doors slid open with a soft whoosh, and late-afternoon sunlight hit her face. Warm and gentle and completely at odds with the storm raging inside her chest.
She walked across the parking lot on autopilot and fished her keys from her pocket with shaking hands.
The moment she slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door, the careful control she’d been clinging to shattered.
The sob came first—raw and broken. Until she was crying so hard she couldn’t breathe.
She gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white, her whole body shaking.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, crying until there was nothing left. Until her eyes were swollen. Until her head throbbed with each pulse. Until she felt hollowed out.
Finally, moving on autopilot, she started the car.
She couldn’t stay here. Couldn’t sit in this parking lot where Noah was three floors above her. But she needed time to clear her head. Then again, the four-and-a-half-hour car trip back to the North Rim Campground would give her that.
She pulled out onto the highway, heading back toward the canyon, toward her office that needed to be emptied. Boxes to pack. A life to dismantle.
Four hours down the road, her phone rang through the car speakers and her mother’s name flashed on the dashboard screen.
Of course it was her mom. Somehow her mother always knew.
Meg pressed Accept, routing it through her car speakers. “Hi, Mom.”
“Sweetheart.” Her mother’s voice was soft, concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine.” The lie came automatically, but her voice cracked on the words.
“Margaret Elizabeth.” Gentle steel filled her mother’s tone now. The voice that had gotten Meg through scraped knees and broken hearts and medical-school burnout.
“Don’t you dare tell me you’re fine when I can hear you’re not. What happened?”
And somehow, hearing her mother say her full name—the same way she had when Meg was little and trying to hide her mother’s broken teapot behind the couch—broke something loose inside her.
“I took the Pennsylvania job.” The words tumbled out. “I’m leaving the canyon. I’m leaving Noah.”
Her mother was quiet for a moment. “Oh, honey.”
Two words. But they carried everything.
“This job is a good opportunity. A solid career move.” Why did it sound like she was trying to convince herself?
“I had to, Mom. I can’t—”
“What are you really afraid of?” Her mother’s voice had dropped into that soothing tone. The one that had coaxed confessions and fears from Meg since childhood.
“I’m not afraid of anything. I just can’t do this anymore. I can’t wait for the person I love to die because of my failures. I’m just…I’m not a good enough doctor.”
Her mom was quiet a long time before a deep sigh came through the line. “Meg, your father’s death was—”
“We aren’t talking about Dad.” The words came out sharp.
“Yes, we are.” Her mother’s voice was firm now. The voice that had raised four kids and buried a husband and kept going. “I have let you push me off for too long. Your father’s death wasn’t your fault.”
Meg’s hands tightened on the steering wheel until her knuckles went white. “Mom, please—”
“You refused to have this conversation, and I was grieving too much to fight it, but that ends now.” Her mother took a breath. “You didn’t kill your father, Meg. It wasn’t your fault. I know you have heard it, but it’s time you believe it.”
“But I should have been able to save him.” The words tore out of her, all the guilt and shame she’d been carrying for years spilling over. “If I hadn’t stood there in shock, if I had started CPR sooner—”
“No.” Her mother paused a beat. “There was nothing you could have done. The doctors at the hospital told us that. Even if you’d started CPR the second he collapsed, even if you’d had a full code team standing right there—it wouldn’t have mattered.”
“You don’t know that.” Meg’s vision blurred, and she blinked hard.
“I do know that. The autopsy confirmed it. His heart—” Her mother’s voice broke.
“Baby, his heart was so damaged. No one could have saved him. Not you, not the paramedics, not the emergency-room doctors. Nothing. He had extensive scarring from three previous silent heart attacks. The cardiologist said he was a walking time bomb.”
Meg shook her head even though her mother couldn’t see her.
“I was a trained physician. I was right there, and I froze. Just like I did when Noah…I froze in that cave, Mom. When he was bleeding out, I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t help him. I just knelt there with my hands pressed to his side, watching him die. ”