“I’ll try again,” I say. This time, as I twist the handle, I give it a shove with my shoulder. Something moves just the slightest bit. I’m going to have to be a lot more forceful.
I hold the doorknob, and this time put all of my bodyweight behind a swift shove with my shoulder. The door releases, but I don’t shift my weight in time and have to catch myself with my bad leg.
The hard landing reverberates from my foot up to my bad knee. I inhale sharply and instinctively pick up my leg to get the weight off it.
Abby is by my side in a blink, grabbing my shoulders. “Oh my god, Miles. Was that your bad knee again?”
I nod, pressing my lips together so tight that I might bite through them.
Abby doesn’t say a word, but she rubs my arm, which is saturated from the rain. “Can I do anything?” she asks quietly.
“The door…” I gesture to the open lighthouse door, water pouring in seemingly sideways from outside. She shuts it, so the only light comes from a window farther up the stairs. Abby turns on the flashlight on her phone and holds it pointed up to light the space better. I rub my knee, trying to soothe the pain, but as expected, it does nothing for me.
Abby hovers, a pained expression on her face.
“I’m okay,” I assure her.
She chews on her bottom lip, obviously not believing me. “Do you want to stay down here until the storm passes? Do you think you can climb some steps?”
“How many?”
“One hundred and fifty-four,” she says with confidence, and when I raise my eyebrows at her again, she says, “I read some reviews.”
“I don’t think?—”
“We don’t have to go all the way up. There should be a room somewhere where the lighthouse keeper would have stayed or had his meals or something.”
It sounds like too many stairs, but the floor down here is half soaked, and given the intensity and longevity of the rain so far, this doesn’t seem like a quick summer storm. The stairs don’t have an inviting look to them for lounging—rusted, grated metal—but standing in a puddle of water is definitely out of the question. Up it is then.
I give a quick, terse nod.
“Should you go first, in case you need me to?—”
“No,” I say, but it comes out too harsh, too sharp. “I’m sure you’re very strong, but I…would squash you like a bug if I fell on you.”
“I am very strong, thank you for noticing. And I don’t want to be a bug, so I’ll go first.”
She takes my joke the way I intended it, glazing over my harsh tone in stride. She hangs her raincoat on the end of the railing. I remove mine and lay it out on the bottom few stairs.
I follow behind her on the steps. She takes them slowly, I assume for my benefit. I start the climb using both legs, but it becomes evident quickly that my knee is getting to the point where it’s almost unable to bend, much less put pressure on it, so I climb with my good leg, leaning too heavily on the thin, rusting metal railing. The stairs creak and groan with each step, which doesn’t fill me with a lot of confidence that they won’t just collapse under our weight.
“Miles?”
“Yeah?”
“Give me one of the backpacks.”
I stop and look up at her. She’s only a step or two ahead of me, holding her hand out. My pride can’t take the hit.
“I’m fine, Abby.”
She doesn’t argue, just sighs heavily and continues to climb. I know she’s being thoughtful, but it makes me feel so goddamn weak for her to watch me struggle like this.
Just fucking push through. This isn’t even that bad.
That voice in my head is louder than my logic, and on my next step, I try to use my bad leg to lead, but it’s too weak to support me. I go down, knocking it into the hard, unforgiving stairs.
I cry out before I can stop myself.
