Page 77 of Liquids

You want to go outside?

Seriously? I could do that?

You’re with me, suited up and clipped on, then yeah. Not planning on going anywhere, just standing outside and feeling the weather.

That sounds amazing.

On my way.

The memory of watching him out here before rolls through my head. I head back to the mudroom. Rain has started lashing against the windows, the wind howling through the pipes and the buildings.

Rig’s already almost fully suited up when I arrive. “Done all we can do right now,” he says. “The monitoring team is keeping an eye on everything in the control room. I’ve got a thirty-minute break. Thought I’d give you the experience of standing in something like this for a few minutes.”

I grin at him. “Sounds like fun.”

He gives me a lip quirk, and then his radio crackles to life and he presses the button. “Just heading out now,” he says.

“They know we’re going out?”

“Of course. Had to get clearance.”

Nothing happens on this rig that isn’t monitored. They know where all the men are, all the time. Rig steps over to me and checks my suit and harness, and I check his, running through the protocol. It reminds me of the checks we do in nursing, particularly with the drugs we’re administering. When we’re done, Rig shifts toward the door.

“Is it safe out there?” I say.

He laughs. “None of this is safe, babe. As you probably realized when you did your training.”

He opens the door, and I’m hit by a blast of icy air, and we’re not even outside yet. This is just the first door into the little anteroom before we get outside. It’s always freezing, but the wind seems to seep through all the cracks.

He puts his hand on the outside door and grins down at me. “Ready?”

I nod, and he opens the door and the force of it almost takes me off my feet, the cold stealing my breath away. Rig clips immediately onto a railing, and I tuck in behind him, clipping on, too. We shuffle out onto the deck. The buffeting wind is hard and mean, whining through the handrails and the antenna masts. The creaking and groaning of the rig is much louder out here, the sea a mass of seething gray.

Rig looks down at me, hunched against the wind, grinning.

And I know in a heartbeat that I’m safe out here. I trust him. More than I’ve ever trusted anyone. I stare up at him, and his smile fades. “You all right? We can go back.” His voice is whipped away as soon as the words are out of his mouth, ice already forming on his beard. My eyes fill with tears.

He frowns down at me. “You’re not okay. Let’s go back inside.”

I grip his arm. “I didn’t think I could change my life because I kept digging myself deeper and deeper into problems. Everything kept getting worse. You said I fell down a hole, and you were right.’”

He looks up at the rig above us and rolls his eyes. “I’m a fucking idiot, babe. It was bullshit. I used to tell myself shit like that to justify why I was stuck. Stuck trying to find a way to make money to pay off the mortgage on the farm and escape. Fighting. The rigs. Never should have pinned that on you.”

“Then tell me why I stayed there.”

His face changes. He knows exactly what I’m talking about. “Marion?”

“Yeah.”

“You want an honest answer?”

“Yeah.”

“Habit.”

That was not what I was expecting him to say.

“The brain loves fucking habits, babe, so it doesn’t have to work out what to do. It’s how we survived so long as a species. Kept us safe. Gotta fight that shit all the time, you want a better life. Doing different shit, coming out here.” He waves an arm around at the sea.