Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
I had to.
The reminder of how short life was had blossomed in my head and stayed there, and I knew I had to at least try and knock another hike out of the way since I actually had the time. Might as well. Go big or go home, and my mom had been a supernova of guts and fearlessness. I had to do it for her.
I’d pumped myself up to try and make this hike my bitch once and for all. The forecast was good. There had been a post I’d found on a forum from someone who said they’d done the trail two days ago and it had been great.
So why not? I’d gotten my things mostly together, and I was going to do this. To prove to myself that I could.
For my mom and for all the years she hadn’t gotten. For all the experiences she had missed. For the path that her life’s course had paved for me.
I was here, in this place, with hope in my heart because of her. It was the least I could do.
And that was probably why I was so caught up in my head, as I finished lugging my supplies downstairs to my car, that I didn’t notice the figure approaching from across the driveway until Rhodes asked quietly, “Are you good?”
Over my shoulder, I caught a glance of his silvery hair and smiled at the handsome face looking at me. “Yeah. I’m great, just thinking about my mom,” I answered before dropping my backpack into the back seat.
“Good thoughts or bad thoughts?” he asked softly before covering his mouth for a yawn. He was already in his uniform, but the top buttons were undone and he hadn’t put his belt on.
Had he come out here just because he saw me through the window?
Turning around slowly, I took in his heavy features, those slashes of cheekbones, the subtle cleft in his chin. He was pretty awake even though he couldn’t have been up for long.
“Both,” I answered him. “Good as in I’m here because of her and I’m really happy that I came back and things are going good, but bad because….”
He watched me closely, so good-looking it made my chest ache a little.
I had never really spoken the words out loud. I’d heard them from other people’s mouths but never mine. But I found that I wanted to. “Did you ever hear that there were some people who didn’t believe she got hurt and couldn’t make it out?”
Rhodes’s eyes bounced from one of mine to the other, but he didn’t bullshit me. He took a small step forward and dipped his chin, still watching. “There were a few trains of thought that she—” He sucked in a breath like he wasn’t sure he wanted to say the words either, but he did. “—harmed herself.”
I nodded.
“Or that she walked away to start a new life,” he finished quietly.
That one specifically had stung the worst. That people would think she would leave everything behind, leave me behind, to start over fresh.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I wasn’t sure how much you’d heard. I never thought she would leave like that, not even because of all the financial issues she was having that I didn’t know about. How she was going to have to declare bankruptcy, how we were about to get evicted… or how she might have….” The words bubbled in my throat like they were acid, and I couldn’t say the S-word. “Not come back on purpose,” I settled for. “I know the police knew about how she was on medication for depression.”
Rhodes nodded.
“I was just thinking about that, I guess. How her going on her hike and all those things and how that one decision of hers changed my life completely. How I wouldn’t have moved to Florida and gotten to know my aunt and uncle. How I wouldn’t have gone to Tennessee, and then I wouldn’t have lived that life there… and then eventually ended up back here. Life is just weird, I guess, is what I was thinking about. How one decision that you don’t even make can affect another person’s life so dramatically.
“I just miss her extra today, I guess, and I wish I had answers. I wish I knew what really happened,” I finished telling him, adding a shrug to hopefully make it seem like it was all casual and fine. It wasn’t the first time I had mornings or days like this, and it wouldn’t be the last.
You didn’t survive someone taking a wrecking ball to your existence and not have thousands of fractures to live with the rest of your life.
The hand he had over mine lifted and Rhodes set it on my shoulder, his fingers curling around, lying flat against me. “It was a strange case, and maybe if I didn’t know you, I could see why people would think that. But now that I do—know you, Buddy—I don’t believe she left intentionally. I told you, I don’t know how anybody could let you walk away. Or how anyone could be the one to do the walking. I’m sure she loved you very much.”