Faking Christmas(69)

I looked both ways through the bridge as though a car might drive through at any moment. But only black clouds and snow met my sights. I shivered, running my hands up and down my arms. I had worked up a little sweat with our brisk walk to the bridge, but now that we were here, the bitter wind whipping through the tunnel seemed to freeze me at my core.

Miles tugged on my hand, drawing my body down beside him. When I sat, he stuffed our clasped hands into his coat pocket, tossing me a small, tight smile as he did so. He appeared to be slowly coming back to himself, but it seemed forced.

“Thanks for your help back there,” I said.

“In almost killing you? You’re welcome.” The words, full of sarcasm, spat out bitterly.

“No.” I squeezed his hand inside his jacket. “It was an accident. That could have happened to anyone. It’s not your fault.”

He shook his head but didn’t say anything. Instead, he leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Though he still held my hand, his actions left an unfamiliar distance between us. A bridge we hadn’t yet crossed in our growing friendship these past few days. I wasn’t sure what to say or do.

“I know I’m being a jerk right now. I’m sorry. I just need a minute.”

“You’re okay,” I whispered.

My entire body went into maternal-instinct mode. I wanted to hold him, to make whatever was inside of him not hurt anymore, but I didn’t know how to do that, especially with him. This was a man that I wasn’t really dating in a really confusing way. So, I did the best I could and just sat there in the quiet, holding his hand.

“Do you want to talk about anything?” I asked after a few minutes, listening to the wind howl through our tunnel inside the bridge.

He let out a humorless chuckle. “I’ll be fine. Tonight just dug up some bad memories.”

“Bad memories?” I prompted lightly.

I began to think he wasn’t going to answer before he mumbled, “It’s…just this thing that happened a long time ago. Took me a while to get over.”

“This thing that happened,” I repeated slowly. “Care to expound on that, writer man?”

He smiled for a moment before it was gone.

“Was it in college?” I guessed.

A long pause. “High school.”

Goodness, it was like pulling teeth. “With a girl?”

He took a deep breath and crossed his legs out in front of him at the ankles. “It’s a long story. You sure you want to hear this?”

“If you want to tell me.” I motioned with my hands to the blizzard swirling in the openings of the bridge. “I happen to have some extra time right now.”

“Buckle up, then.”

It took him a minute to start the story, but slowly, he began. “When I was a senior in high school, I was dating this girl. Kelly. I’d known her my whole life. I had a crush on her off and on growing up. We were friends, but I was always quiet and didn’t think she’d have anything to do with me. She was…a terror. Wasn’t afraid of anything. Lived every second going a hundred miles an hour.” He chuckled dryly as though he was remembering something from long ago. “Anyway, our senior year, we ended up working on the school paper. She was one of the photographers. I’m not sure what she saw in me, but we started dating, and it got serious pretty quick. We started planning to go to college together, and we were even talking about marriage.” At my surprised face, he amended, “Not right away, but you know, later. Down the road.”

I nodded.

“Anyway, that March, we had one of the worst winters Vermont had ever seen. It might as well have been January. It was pretty crazy, but it made for good skiing. She had taught me to ski earlier that winter, and so, every chance we could, we hit the slopes. For our six-month anniversary, I wanted to surprise her, so I planned this big ski trip. Just the two of us. I wanted her to think I was more of a rebel than I used to be, so I convinced her to cut school that day, and we rode up to Killington Resort together. It was two months before graduation.”

My hand covered my mouth to brace myself as he continued his story. The tension in the air was thick and dense with untold grief.

“Anyway, it was going to be our last run, and she wanted to do the hardest run. She’d done it before, and I wanted her to think I was pretty hot stuff, so we went for it. It was all going fine until about halfway down. I was behind her, watching her go off a jump. From what I could tell, she caught the edge of her ski and plowed right into a tree. It took her down immediately. I skied over to help.” He paused, looking as though he was far away in his thoughts. His voice was low and steady. He wasn’t speaking, as though the grief was fresh and painful. He was calm and matter of fact but with an air of regret and sadness lingering around the words. “I thought she was playing a joke on me at first. She liked to pull pranks, but usually she’d start laughing after a few seconds. But she didn’t. Then, I noticed she wasn’t breathing. It just looked like she was sleeping. But she was gone.”

I sucked in a deep breath as I imagined a younger Miles watching all that unfold.

“I started doing CPR and yelling for help. The medics got there pretty quickly and took over for me, but she was gone. She was gone before I had even gotten to her.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to him.