Chapter 36
Riley froze, stunned by her own anger. She certainly hadn’t meant to say all the horrible things that had tumbled out of her mouth. Some of them were true though. Most of it was. She didn’t want to live a miserable existence just to appease Gray’s pride. She didn’t want to spend her life tiptoeing around the subject of money or just scraping by when there was no need for it. Her money could do so much for them, it could set them up for a happy life. They could buy a business. We could travel, have fun, but all he wants to do is waste that opportunity. And the audacity of him acting like I’m some kind of spoiled brat, accusing me of being selfish just because I have money! Those words still scalded her heart.
“Go to hell!”
“I’ve already been there, in that stupid apartment with you!” she shouted, glaring at him as he took a step back.
His arms flailed for only a split-second before he was flying backward, his body arching and his feet kicking, a cry coming from his lips.
It seemed to take an eternity for her to react, but when she realized what was happening, she shouted, “Stop! Gray, no!” She raced forward to try grab his arm, but it was too late. The last glimpse she caught before he plummeted was the terrified look on his face.
“No!” A long scream split her lips as Gray thudded against the rocky point just below the spot where he’d been standing a moment before. The sound was awful, bone shattering. Her hands went to her ears to try to block it out, and she kept screaming as he bounced off the snow covered rock point and continued rolling down, farther and farther away from her.
Shock set in almost immediately, but she managed to break through it with a coherent thought: I have to get to him! Heedless of the danger, Riley raced down the trail, toward the spot where Gray lay, crumpled and still. Her feet slid on a patch of leaves and ice, and she fell on her backside, so hard that the air was knocked out of her lungs in a long, painful whoosh before she made it back to her feet and ran on again.
As she ran, she found her phone and fumbled her fingers over the buttons to dial 911. Her voice was a garbled rush as she tried to explain to the dispatcher what had happened. She was hysterical, crying and still screaming when she finally made it to him. She dropped the phone, knowing they would be found now, and hit the snow next to Gray.
Terrified, she looked down at him, trying to assess the damage.
Blood seeped from his forehead, trickling out from under his hairline. Her hands found his pulse, and she cried even harder as she felt the thin, threadbare beat below her fingertips. He was still alive, the best she could hope for at the moment. Her Grayson was alive, and she had to get him out of there and to a hospital.
“Gray, please, please listen to me,” she cried. “I need you. Don’t you die on me, you hear me! You can’t. I l-love you. I need you.”
He offered no answer, no response whatsoever, and his eyes remained closed. Dirt and snow clung to his cheeks and hair.
Shaking all over, Riley pressed a glove against his head, in an effort to stop the bleeding. His arm was twisted at a strange, unnatural angle, and one of his legs was bent behind him in a way that stopped her heart.
This is all my fault, she thought. Why the hell was I so mean to him? Yeah, he’d been a jerk to Brent, but still… He wasn’t exactly wrong about him either. The truth was that Riley didn’t like Brent that much, and she had no idea why she’d been so dead set on defending him. She knew Brent was a horrible person, a pretentious, condescending snob, just like Gray had said. If things had been different, she would have walked off without even thinking twice, but she’d harbored an anger against Gray all morning. She was sick of his gloomy mood, especially since he refused to talk about it, and she had knowingly used the conversation with Brent to get under his skin. It was a payback, of sorts, to teach him a lesson. Things were ending between them and she wanted to blame him.
What a stupid, stupid, idiot she’d been! Picking a fight, for what? He didn’t want to be here. Like she didn’t want to be in Dominica. And now? She stared down at his unmoving body. Terrified that she might never get the chance to tell him how sorry she was.
Time seemed to stand still as she waited for help to arrive. As much as she wanted to hold him in her arms, Riley knew better than to move him. Instead, she talked to him, reminding him of all the things they’d done and telling him about all the things she still wanted to do with him. Tears washed her face with their salt, and she felt a sudden, wild urge to see the ocean again, to sail it with him like before, when they were happy, in a time that felt like a lifetime ago.
She was distracted from her thoughts by the whirring and thrusting of a helicopter as it chopped through the sky, at a distance but quickly approaching. “They’re almost here, Gray. You just hold on,” she consoled, knowing the words were more for herself than for him.
The helicopter hovered lower, and Riley, her face soaked with freezing tears, looked skyward as the shadow of the chopper fell on the ground. Her hands clutched Gray’s, and she could feel the chill of his skin, even through their gloves.
Scared, lost, and guilt stricken, she looked on as the helicopter hewed lower.
Snow sprayed up, and the gust of wind off the helicopter smacked her hard. She leaned over Gray’s body, trying to protect him. Ice formed in her breath and on her soul. Why? Why did I insist on this stupid hike? I know how dangerous, cold, and slippery it gets out here. Especially with fresh snow. This is all my fault! she silently raged, torturing herself as she looked down at him again. She asked herself those questions over and over.
Gray lay perfectly still, other than the slow rising and falling of his chest. His wan face grew paler in the shadow of the whirlybird. Behind them, the lake shimmered like a mirror, cold and deadly, reflecting a faux serenity that hid death.
A paramedic rushed over, his face shaded by a ball cap. He knelt down and asked, “How far did he fall?”
Riley lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know exactly. We were hiking up there.” She waved a hand at the steep bank of mountains, where the trail suddenly cut off. “I-I forgot to check for closed-off sections this morning, and… Well, we sorta got lost, so we turned around, but h-he slipped on a patch of black ice right below the snow and j-just f-fell,” she stuttered. The part about his fall was true, and she saw no sense in bringing up their vicious fight that had caused him to step back, away from her. Once again, the guilt of that flooded back into her mind, and she almost wished she was the one lying there, instead of him.
Riley couldn’t hardly bear the memory of that twisted, horrified look on his face as she helplessly watched his perfect body tumble away from her, the smacking, crunching sound his body had made as it collided with rocks and small trees. Horror swallowed her whole, and tears streaked down her face as she begged, her voice still breaking, “Please! Make sure he’s okay. He has to live because I…because we…”
The paramedic was too busy tending to Gray to give Riley any immediate answers. Someone wrapped a blanket around her and herded her over to the shelter of some fallen rocks. The wind was not so fierce there, and she was grateful for that, but she was also so scared and didn’t want to be so far away from Gray.
“Is he okay?” she asked, not sure if anyone heard her.
The medics worked quickly and got him onto the stretcher, ready to airlift him out. Riley shook all over, shivering far worse than the cold had ever made her. The thought of losing Gray was like an icicle stabbed straight into her broken heart.