She made it three doors down the hallway before her legs threatened to give out.She caught herself against the wall, one hand pressed to the cool painted surface, the other covering her mouth to hold back the sob clawing up her throat.
The fluorescent lights above buzzed softly, glaring off the white tile at her feet.
I can’t do this.
Except she’d just done it.
She’d walked into that room, looked into Noah’s deep-brown eyes—those eyes that saw straight through her—and destroyed whatever fragile thing had been building between them.She’d seen the exact moment her words had landed.
His expression had shifted from relief to confusion to devastation.And she’d kept talking anyway.Kept pushing him away.Each word a knife.Each sentence a wall.
Because the alternative—staying, loving him, waking up every day terrified that this would be the day she’d lose him—was unbearable.
She pushed off the wall and forced herself to keep walking.
One foot in front of the other.
That was all she had to do.
Just keep moving forward, away from his room, away from the North Rim, away from the man I?—
No.
She refused to even think it.Wouldn’t give the feeling words.Wouldn’t make it real.
But the truth was there anyway.A physical presence in her chest.
She loved him.
Loved him so much it hurt.But she had to leave.The canyon would always be the place where she’d failed, where she’d frozen, where Noah had almost died in her hands.
Every step away from his room felt like tearing off a piece of herself.
It took everything she had not to turn around.Not to go back and tell him she was wrong, that she loved him and wanted to stay.
But she wasn’t right for canyon life.
She’d proved that.Each panic attack.Each moment of paralysis.The nightmares that woke her gasping.
And Noah lived for the canyon.He belonged there in a way she never would.I came to the canyon to escape…but somehow the quiet, vast landscape became a refuge.My home.
Noah needed the canyon, and she needed to leave.
Because every time she thought of staying, she saw his face again—pale, covered in blood, eyes growing distant.She felt again the paralysis that had seized her, the way her hands had shaken too badly to help, the way her mind had simply stopped.
She’d made the right choice.
She had to believe that or she’d shatter completely.
Pennsylvania meant safety—for both of them.She could get help there, work through the panic attacks with a new therapist.Start fresh somewhere new, like she always did.New city.New job.New people who didn’t know her history.
It always helped…at least for a couple years.Until the patterns caught up.Until the fear found her again.
Maybe eventually she’d stop seeing Noah’s face every time she closed her eyes.
The lobby was busy with evening visitors—families carrying balloons and flowers, couples holding hands—and Meg kept her head down as she moved through the crowd.She swiped quickly at her cheeks.
She probably looked like a mess—rumpled Chewbacca scrubs, red eyes swollen from crying, hair falling out of its tie—but she didn’t care.
