In the tumult, I watch her go over the edge of the raft and into the rush of water.
I go in after her.
“Gabe,” Easton yells, but I ignore him.
I see the flash of yellow that signals her life vest, and I’m on it in an instant, adrenaline driving me. There’s nothing that matters except that yellow, which is Lucy, which is everything.
I see her head strike the rock, and a bitter rage flows through me. The world would not, it absolutely would not, do this.
I’m grabbing for her, for every bit of gear she’s wearing that I can get my hands on. Tugging her by the loop on the back of her life vest, by her ponytail, getting her head above water.
She’s unconscious.
I can’t think about anything except getting her to safety. I’m on my back, trying to keep her afloat, trying to aim my feet downstream, praying that there are no strainers here. We go under again, despite my best efforts, and the water is dark and choking and I hate it fiercely.
And then we’re out of the thick of it, back into calm, and Easton’s throwing out a line. I grab it and he tows us in, and a moment later we’re in the boat, among the stricken faces of the other tour members. Easton gets a rescue blanket and wraps it around her. She doesn’t stir at all.
“Lucy,” I beg.
If she’s not okay—
She has to be okay. That is all there is to it. I will bargain anything I need to. Wilder Adventures itself. Why did I think saving this business mattered? We will find another way to survive. But I will not survive without Lucy.
I will not survive without Lucy.
She opens her eyes and blinks at me, obviously confused as shit, but definitely conscious.
I exhale for the first time in what feels like ten minutes, even though I know she wasn’t out anything like that long.
She sits up and coughs up a bunch of water, spluttering and gasping until she clears her lungs. My relief is so fierce that I almost laugh. I’ve never felt like this, like the feeling of coming up for air from underneath a swirl of whitewater.
“I hate boats,” Lucy says, her voice rough.
I clutch both her hands. “No more boats,” I say. “I promise. You don’t have to go in any more boats if you don’t want to.”
“My head hurts,” she says.
It’s bleeding, and because it’s a scalp wound, it looks ten thousand times worse than it is, but even so it’s scary. The blood flow calms down when Easton presses a handful of gauze to it. She might need stitches, but I’d bet not.
The other occupants of the boat are all spilling their relief in words and fussing and big sighs, telling her how glad they are that she’s okay.
“No more boats for me, either,” one of the men says, gray beneath his olive skin.
I don’t care about any of them. I can’t let go of Lucy’s hands or stop staring at her beautiful, perfect face, or thinking, I love you I love you I love you.
I don’t say it because she just almost drowned and she’s bleeding and now she’s shivering even in the rescue blanket.
But I think it, and then I think about how sometimes, there’s no way out. I was always going to fall for Lucy, no matter what happened. I could make all the rules I wanted, tell myself all the lies I needed to, and in the end, it was going to come down to this.
I’m the guy who falls in love with women who leave.
“Mr. Wilder?”
I raise my head to see a nurse standing inside the doorway of the Five Rivers Regional hospital waiting area.
I’ve been sitting here, biting my nails—something I haven’t done since I was fifteen—and practically jumping out of my skin, for what feels like hours but is much closer to forty minutes.
“Ms. Spiro is asking for you.”
I leap up so fast I nearly trip over myself.
And then I stop, halfway across the waiting room, like I’ve run into a wall.
When we arrived at the hospital, Lucy was pale and queasy but making jokes. About boats and how city girls should stick to dry land and 600-thread-count sheets.
She was hurt, and I hated it. It made my stomach clench.
And also she was tough as nails, and I loved it. It made me want to follow that goddamn gurney anywhere they took her. Hold her hand. But they asked me to wait in the waiting room, so I did.
If I go in there, I’m going to ask her to stay in Rush Creek.
I’m going to beg her to stay in Rush Creek.
And I’ve done that once, even though all the facts were stacked against me.
Ceci had told me, so patiently, why she couldn’t stay in Rush Creek. She’d been away from her tenure-track job as long as her university’s policy—and a whole lot of exceptions—could allow. She wasn’t a small-town girl. She loved me, but.
But.
The thing about that but—which I understand now—is that it contains a whole world of information. If you love someone but, you love something more. Your freedom, your old life, a place.
Ceci loved me, but she didn’t love me enough to stay.
I begged her anyway.
What I felt for Ceci wasn’t half what I feel for Lucy.
And if it were only about that—my pride, the risk of getting hurt again—I would beg Lucy in a second.
I’d march myself right down to that exam room, and I’d fucking grovel.
One thing I learned from Ceci is that when a woman tells you she’s not staying, you need to believe her. Not for your own sake, although it definitely would have saved me a lot of pain.
For hers.
Because after I begged, Ceci tried to stay. She stayed another six months.
She was fucking miserable, and we both knew it. Everything between us curdled and froze and dried up, even the sex, which had been pretty good. (Not Lucy good. But pretty good.)
When Ceci went back to Chicago, she started teaching again. Married a professor colleague five months later. They have a kid now. I see her on Facebook. She’s beaming, happy.
I want Lucy to look like that.
Taking Lucy and pinning her down in Rush Creek would be like taking some fantastic, strong, exotic tiger and putting it behind bars in a zoo.
I want Lucy to be in her element. Powerful, dignified.
I want to think of her striding down the streets of New York, presiding over a glossy conference room, getting the primo coveted reservation in some chic new restaurant. Seeing an artsy flick the day it comes out, a once-in-a-lifetime art exhibit the moment it arrives. Her clothes cleaned and delivered. Her fashion up-to-the-moment.
“Sir?”
The nurse has both his eyebrows raised and is tapping a foot impatiently.
Even with all my doubts, I take another step forward, because I can’t—won’t—let Lucy be alone in there.
I hear a waterfall tumble of human voices behind me and instinctively turn, and there they are.
I texted them, and they came.
Lucy’s mom and Gregg, my mom, Amanda, and Hanna, spilling through the main entrance with enough laughter and chatter and hubbub to be a dozen people instead of five, the best possible medicine for Lucy.
“That’s who she really wants to see,” I tell the nurse.
I head off the gaggle, and they start fussing immediately. Hugging, checking me over like I’m the wounded party. Gabe, are you sure you’re okay?
Well, except for Hanna, who rolls her eyes in sympathy with me.
“I’m fine,” I reassure them. “Lucy wants to see you. She’s ready for company.”
I follow the nurse and Lucy’s friends and family down a fluorescent-lit hallway, past gurneys and carts and closets, to the room where she’s waiting. They pile in, and I back into the corner closest to the door, letting them all have Lucy.
She’s sitting on the edge of a padded exam table, wearing a hospital gown. There’s a small patch on the side of her head where her hair was shaved. I imagine she must hate that. I can picture her fiddling with it in the mirror, trying to get the rest of her hair to cover it. Experimenting with the stash of cute, stylish hats she must own. I can’t stand the ache in my chest.
Her family and friends surround her, fussing over her, hugging her, telling her she scared the shit out of them. They want the story, and Lucy tells it. The story is more dramatic in her retelling; she’s animated, and with the color slowly coming back into her face, she has never looked more beautiful to me.
When she gets to the part where she goes overboard, her eyes flick to me. There’s a question in her eyes.
I look away, because if I don’t, I will shove them all out of the way and tell her she’s never leaving Rush Creek. That she belongs here. Belongs to me.
She finishes the story, filling in the part where I dove into the water after her.
When all the storytelling and fussing is done, the nurse says that someone has to watch over Lucy tonight.
“Come stay with us,” Gregg says.
Lucy’s cheeks get pink. She casts her gaze my way again, the question in them.
Lucy’s mom catches the movement and looks from Lucy to me.
“Unless—” she says.
“No,” I say quickly. “You should be with your mom. She’ll take care of you. I should—get going.” I take one step closer to where Lucy sits. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
Her eyes lock on mine, and I see the sadness in them.
Me, too, Luce, I think. Me too.
I turn to go.
“Wait,” Amanda says. “Where are you going?”
“Easton and I have to file some incident paperwork.” My hand is on the door, turning the knob. I’m out in the hallway. I draw my first full breath in what feels like hours.
“Gabe?”
Amanda has followed me down the hallway, her voice puzzled.
I almost don’t turn around, but she calls my name again, and I do.
“You’re leaving?”
“I have to go.”
“Gabe, what the hell? Don’t be a doofus.”
She’s worried. And mad. One thing I love about Amanda, you always know exactly where you stand.
I get it. I know Amanda loves Lucy, too. Hanna’s become like a sister to Amanda, but Lucy—Lucy’s a kindred spirit for her.
So I’m not the only one who’s about to get their heart broken.
“I’m not,” I say. “This time, I’m doing the smart thing. For me and Lucy. And if you took your own feelings out of it, you’d know I’m right.”
And I turn and keep walking.