Carry Your Heart (30 page)

“I can’t get it out of my head,” I say, choked. “I found Ryan first. I had to dig him out. And his neck was just spun, all around. His legs were…he was so fucked up. You can’t imagine what a body looks like after that. I couldn’t…I couldn’t help him. And then—Danny. Danny was blue. He was trying…trying to scream and breathe and…I turned him over and tried to get him to breathe and he wouldn’t breathe…he wouldn’t fucking breathe…”

The sobs come like a storm, sudden and raging. His hands slide under my arms as I collapse on the bathroom floor and he holds me tightly, and I let him, because his arms around me seem to be the only thing that keeps me from falling to absolute pieces.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers in my ear.

“Nobody wants to hear that shit, Hunter,” I manage to choke out.

“I can take it,” he says. “I’m tougher than I look.”

I manage a half little laugh.

“I should never have let you push me away,” he says. “I’m not going to let you do that again. I’m here. For real. As long as you want me. And we’ll be okay.”

“I want you,” I admit.

He squeezes his arms tight around my chest and I give into the emotion until it’s over, and it’s just us, just him, his strong arms, and his warmth. His promise that we’ll be okay.

Chapter Forty-Five

I wake up in his arms, fully clothed for a change, and looking even more like shit than I did the night after the party.

I try to get out of bed to wash my face, and he holds me snugly. “No,” he mumbles.

I laugh and turn into him. “You have to compete today.”

“You’re coming?”

“Is that an invitation?”

He smiles. “Yes. I can beg, too. Whatever it takes.”

“I’ll be there,” I say.

“Hunter?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“Speedy, you know I’d do a lot more than beg for you.”

I laugh. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes,” he says, kissing me. “I do.”

***

He leaves before me, to warm up on the super-pipe—a massive half-pipe that doubles your air, and doubles the danger. It’s his favorite event, the one that requires a great deal of creativity, along with an insane amount of discipline and attention to detail. There are so many opportunities to land big tricks and so many more opportunities to crash out.

I get prime real estate to watch the competition. Hunter’s going close to last, so I can only let the strangers mesmerize me with the way they move. It’s such a different aesthetic than racing. Rather than pushing for maximum efficiency, everything they do is steeped with a damning challenge. The tricks that hit hit big, and the falls are especially scary, with the steepness of the pipe.

Everyone looks like they can fly until the landings. One bad edge, and they crash so hard, they’re lucky to get up and snowboard out, let alone finish.

When it’s Hunter’s turn, the crowd gets especially loud. He won this event last year and the year before that.

I watch him standing, ready to go, cool and relaxed in loose red snowpants and a black jacket. On the big jumbotron back and beyond the half-pipe, a video feed gives the crowd a close up of his face. His goggles shield his green eyes from, them, but I know that little half-smile above his chinstrap.

The text on the screen offers his name and age
Hunter Dawson, 23.
My heart pounds in my chest. I know this is what he does, and that he’s better at it than anyone else, but seeing him about to drop into the pipe freaks me out.
That can’t be safe.

He drops in smoothly, seemingly faster than the other athletes and he gets high and vertical, grabbing the front side of his board with his hands and landing with his knees bent. He’s picking up momentum and I bite my lip nervously as he flies fast and high up the pipe. He starts to spin and flip at the same time, rotating as he gets higher and higher over the pipe.

I exhale when he lands to big cheers, one hand brushing against the snow to steady himself, but just momentarily, before he does the exact same trick, and the crowd begins to shriek excitedly

I bounce on my toes. He gets breathtakingly high and starts to drop, spinning. I hold my breath as I watch him come down. It happens fast. He catches his board and goes head over heels down the slope to the flat center of the half pipe.

The crowd goes quiet and I can hear him yell out in pain.
No. No.

I have to get down there. I try to move forward, but Lottie grabs my arm. “Just, wait, Pippa,” she says. “They won’t let you down there.”

I move as quickly as I can towards the officials’ section. I see Micah McKenzie, who I met with Hunter at the benefit back in Utah—our fake date. I catch my breath. He’s going to be fine. He
has
to be fine.

“Pippa,” he shouts.

“That’s my boyfriend,” I tell an official, who waves his hands at me, when I try to cross the barrier separating the crowd from the athletes.

Micah jogs over. “Hey, she’s with me.” He grabs my wrist and we duck under the rope.

“Where is he?” I ask.

“Snow patrol’s taking him off.”

“Is he conscious?” I say.

“I think I heard him…” he shakes his head, like he doesn’t want to upset me. “They’ll take him to the hospital. Come on. I can drive you.”

We rush down to the parking lot. I see the ambulance pulling out with its sirens blaring. I try to breathe but all I can think about his how he fell. It happened
so
fast. I don’t remember if he went head first, or if he got one of his legs jammed up. All I know is that he fell and kind of crumpled.
Oh god, oh god, oh god.

The hospital feels like it’s miles away, but when we get there, things start to move quickly.

We tell them we’re with Hunter, and all they can say is that he’s in surgery. “Is he going to be okay?”

“We’re hopeful. There are always risks with surgery.”

Hopeful. Hopeful. Risks.
I swallow. “I mean what kind of risks?”

“We should know more in an hour, when he’s out of surgery. Let us know if you need anything.”

The waiting is excruciating. I never thought a minute could move so slowly, so unrelentingly, while Hunter lay under anesthesia, cut open in an operating room.

I sit in a blue plastic chair an absently tear the corners of
Parenting
magazine, when I’m not clutching the ring around my neck, pleading that Danny or God or something or someone more powerful than me can keep Hunter safe.

Hunter had just last night held me in his arms.
I’ve got you.
And he did have me and I believed him. He has to be okay. He just has to. I can’t recover if he’s not.

I start making deals with Danny. I tell him about Hunter in my head, like Danny is God, my own personal God who died, but is still out there to listen to my prayers.

He’s really good to his little brother. I don’t know if you’ve been watching, but he is. And he’s funny and he doesn’t care that I’m kind of crazy. I think he might even like the fact that I’m kind of crazy. He loves me.

Danny doesn’t say anything, but I can imagine him liking Hunter. I mean, if Hunter weren’t sleeping with me. And Ryan. Ryan would love Hunter. The prickly sense of humor, the irrational fear of flying.

I swallow thickly, wondering if Hunter’s in pain.

Of course not, he’s under anesthesia.
I can’t stand the thought of him in pain.

I think of Danny dying so young. I wonder what his life would have been like if he’d known the whole time that he was going to die when he was 21 years old. Would he have asked me out sooner? Kissed me faster? Asked me to marry him?

If Hunter is okay, I’ll stop being such an idiot. I’ll live. I’ll really, truly, and deeply live like I might die young, too. Because I could. Because any of us can.

***

The Indian doctor, Dr. Thakkar, who tells me that Hunter is out of surgery and will be okay, gets a bonecrushing hug.

“He’s not awake yet,” he says. “But he should be soon. You can see him if you want.”

He’s down the hall in his own room, just starting to stir in the deep sleep when we walk in. Micah brushes tears discreetly from his eyes and steps outside to call Doug and let him know that the surgery went okay.

Dr. Thakkar explains his injuries softly, as I touch my hands against Hunter’s face. He has a split lip and a bruise underneath his chin. He feels warm and his breaths come up shallow.

“He ruptured his spleen, so we removed that,” he says gently. “And he broke several ribs and his wrist. But nothing that won’t heal.”

I nod, gratefully.

“He’ll be in pain when he wakes up,” he warns me.

“Okay,” I smile.
That’s okay, because he’s going to wake up. He’s tough. My boyfriend is tough.

The doctor lets us watch him alone, quietly, grateful for his breathing, and the monitors that show his heart still beats.

***

“Shit,” Hunter says, opening his eyes. His voice sounds cracked and dry.

“Hey,” I say, softly, getting to my feet and walking to him.

He sits up. “I think I fell.”

“Yeah,” I say. He looks at me.

“You’re here.”

“I’m here,” I say.

He reaches out for my face. “I thought it might have only been a dream.”

“What?”

“That you let me get you back,” he whispers.

“No,” I smile. “You’re kind of stuck with me.”

He leans forward and kisses me, wincing.

“I got you,” I say, repeating the words he told me the night before and cushioning his head back against the pillow.

He closes his eyes. “You know I’m like madly in love with you, Philippa Baker.”

“I think you’re on a lot of drugs,” I joke. “But I’m not. And I love you too.”

Chapter Forty-Six

“I fucking hate hospitals,” Hunter says, getting into my Jeep.

I raise my eyebrow. “I thought you hated planes.”

“More people die in hospitals than die in planes.”

I smile.

“I am never breaking four ribs again.”

“Good.”

“Or rupturing my spleen.”

“I don’t think you have one anymore.”

“Yeah, well, fuck that,” he says. “Who needs a fucking spleen anyways?”

“Not Hunter Dawson.”

“Damn straight.”

I pull out of the hospital parking lot and onto the road.

“And now I have to get on a plane…” he groans.

I raise my eyebrows. “Says who?”

“Ah, I live in Utah and this is Colorado.”

I smile. “This is a car. There are these things called highways.”

I turn on the radio. “Thought I’d save you the heart attack.”

“We’re driving?”

“We’re driving.”

He smiles at me. “I thought I couldn’t love you anymore.”

I switch the song. “I might make you listen to Taylor Swift.”

“I will
jump
out of the car. And I have broken ribs.”

I smile. “I’ll take my chances.”

We pull onto the highway headed to our strange little home in Utah. He has months of rehab in front of him and I still have races to win and we both have so many stories to tell each other. But this time it’s for real.

It turns out we’re both a little bit screwed up. And that the whole world and everyone in it sometimes feels exactly the same way. But the most important thing that I’ve learned is that time is a funny thing. You never really know how much of it you’ve got on your side. And it turns out once you stop worrying about next week, all you can see is today. And the people next to you and around you. And that’s all that matters.

The people who have got you. The people who you won’t have forever. You gotta hang onto them as long as you do.