Chapter 11 #2
Over the past days, it had been easy to forget she was a girl genius. She didn’t talk about work. But Ivy League grad school at nineteen. Damn. “What exactly does one do with a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale?”
“Research usually. It’s what I was doing before the accident.
I wound up in Chattanooga because they offered me a teaching position that I could still manage around my surgeries and physical therapy.
Most of my classes are online. But I’m healed up, so it’s time for me to rejoin the real world professionally. ”
“And you’ll have to leave Chattanooga to do that?” Hudson kept his voice casual.
“Yeah. The next logical step is taking a tenure track position at a large research university.” She paused, beginning to work the other leg. “I interviewed for a position at UC Berkeley right before I came to camp.”
“California.” It might as well be Australia.
She sighed with an utter lack of enthusiasm that had an unreasonable surge of hope burgeoning in his chest. “Yeah. If they offered me the job, it would be a big feather in my professional cap, get me back on the fast track, almost as if the accident never happened.”
“But?” Please let there be a but.
“I don’t actually like California. They don’t have real seasons out there. Not like I’m used to. And…”
Hudson’s heart began to pound as he waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he prompted, “And?”
“And—this is practically heresy in my family—I don’t know if I still want the things I wanted before the accident.
With everything my parents sacrificed for my education, I’m pretty sure they’d have a cow if I walked away from all that.
But I’ve gotten to where I like the slower pace.
I’d never have had the time for something like Camp Firefly Falls in a research position.
It’s all about publish or perish, eighty-hour work weeks, and always pursuing the next grant.
I…can’t imagine going back to that.” She gave a little laugh.
“Which is a moot point. They haven’t offered me the job, and considering I’ve been out of mainstream academia for two years, they probably won’t. ”
It sounded like a misery to him. He began to massage her other calf. “What do you want?”
She was silent so long, he didn’t think she’d answer.
“Marriage. Family. A life. When I’m ninety, I don’t want to be in a place where I’ve got academic accolades out the wazoo but no one to sit by a fire and read with.
If I were in a different discipline and my research held the potential to be life changing, maybe I’d feel differently.
But that’s not what I do. What I’ve done.
Not that I couldn’t change my area of research to something more impactful, but…
figuring out the why of things just doesn’t seem as important as it used to.
And I haven’t figured out what to do with that.
It’s a scary thing finding out that the path you’ve been certain of your whole life isn’t necessarily the right one. ”
“Did you really pick that path or did your parents kinda shove you on it?”
She considered the question. “Hard to say at this point. I was on board from the beginning. I’d still be on board if not for the accident. I guess, in a way, I’m grateful it happened.”
“Really?”
She tugged her leg free and sat up, brushing a quick kiss over his lips. “It brought me you.” Her hand slid into the hair at his nape. “However long it lasts, I’m beyond grateful for that.”
Emotion tangled in his chest—a bittersweet mix of regret for the brevity of their time and a longing for something he hardly dared hope could be a possibility.
She was a gift. A reminder that not all the world was darkness and despair.
Hudson laced his hand with hers and brought them to his lips.
“I’m grateful for you.” For more things than he was prepared to say.
So, he laid her back and showed her instead.
Much later, they strolled back into Camp Firefly Falls holding hands like a couple of giddy teenagers.
“Not gonna lie. I’m going to hog every drop of hot water in the shower,” Audrey declared.
He hooked an arm around her shoulders as they went up her cabin steps. “You could share. Really, it’s the environmentally responsible thing to do.”
“You cannot possibly—Can you?”
Hudson shrugged. It seemed worth the ache in his balls to try for the chance to see her naked, wet, and soapy. “Looks like Sam’s out. We could hang a sock on the door.”
“You’re incorrigible.” But she grinned as she said it.
The phone in his pocket buzzed as several texts hit at once.
Audrey dumped her pack. “You get that. I’ll go start the shower and let the water warm up.”
Admiring her very fine backside, Hudson fished out his phone to find two missed calls and several text messages from Rachel. They all had the same theme, with an increasing level of urgency. Call me.
He dialed immediately. She picked up on the second ring.
“Rach? I’ve been out of cell range. What’s up?”
“Hud, I…” At the strain in her voice, his hand tightened on the phone.
“Rachel?”
“John’s gone, Hud.”
The denial was swift and automatic. “No. No. You said he was getting better. He squeezed your hand.”
Audrey came out of the bathroom, her hand covering her mouth.
On the phone, Rachel was still talking, her tone choked. “The doctors warned us this was a possibility in the beginning. A probability.”
“No,” Hudson snarled. “There are things they could have done, kept him going until he could get better.”
“Hudson.” Rachel’s voice was gentle. “You know how he felt about life support. He didn’t want to be hooked up to machines, and he filed a do not resuscitate order.”
In some dim, distant part of his brain, Hudson recognized that he was out of line. That taking his grief out on John’s widow was beyond a dick thing to do. But that realization was drowned out by the grief that battered him like hail.
John was dead.
Yesterday, he’d been alive. He’d been alive and responsive for the first time in three months.
And instead of getting in his Jeep and driving home, Hudson had taken that news as a sign from God that he could let go and live again himself.
That his friend was on the mend. That they’d have more time.
He’d missed Rachel’s messages. And he’d missed his chance to say goodbye.