He looks up. “Anything.”
“You can’t hug me. If you do, I won’t—”
“You don’t have to explain.” He comes to his feet. “Goodbye, Maddie. I hope you have a wonderful life.”
He doesn’t smile. His face is stone-cold. Then, without another word, he walks out the door, and out of my life.
I’m standing here in an empty room in dead silence, wondering if I just made the biggest mistake of my life. I can’t hold back the tears, and he’s not here to make me feel better. I’m all alone now.
I try to hold back a sob, but I can’t.
It hurts more than I thought it would… so much more.
CHAPTER 45
Riggs
“Has it been only two months? It feels like two decades.”
“Sixty days as of today, bro.”
I do the math. “That means we’re averaging around 1.7 miles per day. What did you tell Top?” Ash and I are hiking up a ravine to get away from everyone while they set up their cameras for yet another unnecessary shot of something boring and meaningless.
“I reminded him that we had to average 6.3 miles per day, or we’d be fucked.”
I feel bad for Top. He’s done everything he can to make this work. He’s a good guy who knows what he’s doing, but the network keeps sending him shitty people to work with. Most of them last less than five days before quitting, and he still has no say in the hiring process. “What did he say?”
“He said we were fucked the moment management decided they could run things from Los Angeles. I had to agree with him on that.”
“He didn’t call them ‘management,’ did he?”
He laughs. “I think his exact words were, ‘Thosefucking cunts with their heads up each other’s asses screwed us when they started sending their friends and relatives instead of people with real experience.’ There were a few more colorful adjectives in there, but that’s the gist of it.”
“He’s not wrong.”
Ash shakes his head. “No, he certainly is not.”
“It’s nice here.” We’ve reached an elevation with plenty of snow. In a place like this, you’d expect a lot of pine trees, but there aren’t many. Still, the view is impressive. We find a rock formation coming out of the hill to sit on. It’s tranquil, and if there’s anything I could use right now, it’s more tranquility.
“Yeah, it is nice.” Ash pulls a long stem of grass from a crack in the rock, pinches off the roots, and starts chewing on the end. “You know we’re never going to see a bull tahr at this rate.”
A bull tahr is a large mountain goat with a heavy coat of long brown hair. We’d hoped to start seeing them a month into the trip, but we still haven’t made it far enough into the mountain range. “I’ve given up on that. I’ve given up on just about everything as far as this trip goes.”
He nods. “Yeah, I think we’re all a little depressed.”
I crack a smile. “Not everyone. Every time I see Rhonda, it’s like she just woke up on Christmas morning.” She seems to love learning from Top. And because he can count on her to be there and not quit like the others, he’s been teaching her everything. “What’s the latest with you two, anyway?”
He picks up a rock and throws it down the gorge. “I don’t know. She’s a wild woman. I think we just needto take a break for a while, maybe a permanent one. I’m not sure.”
That’s takes me by surprise. Trouble in paradise? Do you want to talk about it?”
He looks at me with a curled lip. “Do you want to talk about Maddie?”
I sigh. “Point taken.”
Walking out of that hotel room two months ago was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and a day doesn’t go by that I don’t regret it. I should have fought harder for her. I’d hoped things would get easier with time, but it hasn’t. If anything, it’s worse. I can’t stop thinking about her. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop missing her. The pain just won’t go away.
Ash throws another stone. “We should probably get back before they send a search party for us.”
