Swap Out (32 page)

I bend to grab my climbing pack, but I stop when I see Zoe’s laptop open on the coffee table and panic races though me. She always closes it once she’s done, unless she’s in a hurry.

Slow and cautious, I go over and sit on the couch, staring at the screen. And I’m still reeling from the sucker punch my world has taken and my eyes can’t really take in the words, but a few of them still register.

Like women. And clinic. And abortion.

I blink to clear my stinging eyes, realizing I’m looking at a confirmation of an appointment scheduled for
three hours ago
, e-signed with Zoe’s name and today’s date, and directions to the clinic in Grand Junction.

The words appear in my head, floating and disconnected, and I stand. I can’t feel my arms or legs, but I know I’m slowly shuffling backwards and away from reality because the sight of the laptop gets farther and farther, everything else around it blurred, but it stays in sharp focus. My back hits a wall, and I try for a breath that doesn’t work, and then it happens all at once: a raw sob wrenches out of me and I sink down, all the way to the floor. I curl in on myself, my arms hugged protectively around my head and it hurts, it hurts so much. Ten fingers and ten toes and they’re gone, just gone, because she did it.

How could she do this?

After everything, all the times I begged her, all the times I told her I loved her and she promised the same, and she…

My baby…is
dead
.

God, I can’t take this.

I pull in strangled breaths, trying to get myself under control. I scrub a hand over my face, and then I get up. It doesn’t take me long to carry all my stuff to my car, piling it in the trunk and then shutting it. I leave the ring box exactly where it was.

And just as I’m getting in my car, another swings into the driveway beside me.

The horn is blaring and tires screech to a stop, and the passenger door of her Enclave flies open as I’m shutting my driver’s door. I start my car as Zoe jumps out wearing a t-shirt and jeans and wrapped in her favorite cashmere throw blanket that’s falling away, mascara running down her cheeks and eyes red and swollen like she just spent the last twenty years of her life crying.

“Luca!” she shouts, the base of her fist harsh on my window, and I stare at her: this woman who suckered me in and has ruined my life. She reaches for my door handle but I lock it from inside before she can open it. “Please,” she begs through the glass, “you don’t understand…”

I quickly open my door so it pushes her back before I wrench it closed again, then gun my engine and speed backwards out of the driveway.

Faster than I ever have before, I shift into first gear and peel out, seeing in my rearview mirror as Zoe falls to her knees on the driveway, Tori racing to her side.

Fuck ‘em both. They just conspired to rip my life apart and murder my kid, and I’m supposed to care about their feelings? The only thing I care about is getting as far away from Zoe as I possibly can.

I get to my apartment quicker than I knew I could, grabbing all my shit from the trunk except for my climbing pack. I carry the bags inside and drop them on my living room floor, dumping them out so I can re-pack only what I need. Few shirts, few shorts, few pairs of boxers and grabbing my toiletries from my bathroom, the other leftover crap just sitting abandoned on the floor. I zip it closed and stand, hurrying into my room and throwing open my closet door. I survey the empty space for anything I might have missed and need to take with me when I forever leave this cursed state. My eyes land on the box on the top shelf, and I’ve never left it behind before but I just…I can’t take it now.

I turn away and crouch down in front of my nightstand, wiping the splashes of water off my cheeks that have been steadily leaking out since I turned off her street. My gun safe unlocks without protest, the magazine sliding perfectly into place with a forceful click. I check the safety is on, then hook my Beretta into the waistband of my cargo shorts over my lower back. I go to tug the hem of my shirt over it, then flinch when I realize I’m still wearing my work shirt with Zoe’s last name on it. I claw it off my body, tearing the fabric down the middle and flinging it away. But it’s only the beginning.

I’m exploding with rage and hate and when my gaze settles on my bed, I can’t rein it in. I roar as I rip off the covers, then kick at the mattress and send it flying. The box spring is the next to go, then I bend and grab the side rail closest to me, flipping the frame over with a splintering crack of fracturing wood. I gasp for breaths once it’s destroyed, staring at the mess, and then I turn away and walk into my living room. Only to see my front door fly open and Zoe dart inside.

“Get the fuck out!” I scream at her, and she jumps back, her hands held out in front of her.

“Please, Luca,” she cries as she back up, “just listen to me for a minute.”

“No!” I prowl forward. “You expect me to listen to you when you…you…”

I can’t even say it.

I grit my teeth against the shrill pain in my chest, and she runs towards me until her hands cradle my face. Her fingertips steal the dampness off my cheeks, her breaths shallowing and color fading from her skin as she shushes me.

“You killed her, Zoe!” I shout, and her eyes pinch closed.

“Stop,” she whispers, her voice broken, but I don’t care. “Just for a second, please. I can’t…I can’t…”

I push her hands away and take a step back.

“You know what?” I snap, swiping a hand over my face and then pointing at her threateningly. “Stay there. Stay right fucking there.”

“Luca, I can’t breathe,” she chokes out as I turn and head into my bathroom.

I open my drawer and take out the sonogram, stalking back into the living room. I hold it up in front of Zoe, indifferent to the sight of her hand splayed across her chest as she gasps for air.

“Neither can
she
.”

She sucks in a breath, eyes wide and filled with tears as she takes in the truth of what she tried to ignore, then her eyes close as she sways.

I grab her by the elbow, keeping her upright.

“Look at her!” I scream. “Look what you murdered, you crazy, selfish—”

“No,” she whispers, shaking her head, her hand clenched around my dog tags as she tries to pull herself out of the attack.

“Yes! Look at her, Zoe. Look at her face, her hands. She was real, and she was alive. But you…” My voice trails off as my vision blurs and body sags, wracked with grief and treachery. I can’t even look at her and my eyes close as my head falls forward, the sonogram crinkling as my fingers curl into fists.

I startle when slender arms wrap around me, one draped behind my neck and the other hugging my waist, holding me up even though I’m bigger, and without the self-preservation to stop it from happening, my head falls onto Zoe’s shoulder. Her chest quivers against mine, palms soothing as they search for purchase on my back and shoulders, and for a reason I can’t explain, I find myself desperately hugging her back.

“I loved you,” I choke out. “I would have done anything you asked, given you anything you wanted.” I struggle for breaths, my voice weak and thin when it squeaks out with, “
Why
, Zoe? Why did you do this to me?”

“I’m so sorry I hurt you,” she says, her breaths steadying but still shaky. “I made a mistake when I made that appointment. I wanted to protect you but I…I was wrong. I was so wrong and I want to be with you, Luca.” She leans back and cups my jaw in her hands, making me look at her. “I want to marry you, I want a family with you.”

I roughly pull away from her. “You think I want you
now
?” I yell, then rip the sonogram in half and let it fall to the floor.

Zoe gasps and then dives after it, grabbing the pieces and holding them together like that’ll erase everything.

“What did you do?” she whispers, and I shake my head at her.

“What did
you
do? I warned you, Zoe. I
warned
you what would happen if you did this, and you did it anyway. And if you didn’t want to be together, then fine. But you could have given her to
me
. I would have taken care of her.”

Her head snaps up, new tears and hurt taking her eyes as she clutches the tattered photos to her chest, then slowly stands.

“Was that what this was about?” she asks, and I lift my chin. “Did you propose to me just because I was pregnant, out of some archaic sense of duty or obligation?”

“What does it matter why I did it,” I growl, “when it’s never going to happen?”

She throws the sonogram on the floor. “It was always about the baby for you, wasn’t it? You never really loved
me
!”

“You want to talk about love? You have
never
loved me, and now I have the proof! You don’t do this to someone you love, Zoe!”

“I knew it! I
knew
you were lying the whole time about wanting both!” She narrows her eyes dangerously as she points at me. “Thank God I didn’t say yes to you before you were finally honest about what you really wanted!”

“You psychotic bitch!” I roar. “Congratulations on proving a point that wasn’t even valid, and you did it by ripping my heart out of my chest and killing your own fucking kid!”

I swipe the back of my hand across my eyes, resolve strengthening under my black hate and unfiltered disgust.

“And for the record, I asked because I was in love with you. Because I thought you were a person I could trust with a part of myself that I never knew existed until you were in my life. Looks like I was wrong.”

I turn away and grab my bag, hooking it over my shoulder before I look back to Zoe. I peer down at her, my scowl as cold as my voice.

“You’re going to burn in hell, Zoe, and I hope it hurts.”

I blow out of my still-open front door, hurriedly making my way to the parking lot. She yells my name and when I catch the sound of her running after me, I reach into my pocket and take out my knife. It’s the only way to ensure she won’t follow me.

I hear her gasp and come to a halt when I flip it open at my side, and without hesitating I stride to her front-left tire and punch the blade through the sidewall, then pull it back out and slash her rear tire as well.

I don’t look at her as I return my knife to my pocket and walk around the trunk of my car, parked crookedly right next to hers. I slide in and dump my bag on the passenger seat, sealing my gun in my glove box, then let my eyes take one last look at Zoe: standing in shock, her eyes wide and hands covering her mouth.

I start my car and as fast as I left her house, I reverse out of the parking lot. Zoe runs forward and shouts something, but I can’t make out her words over the noise of my engine. I don’t want to.

There’s nothing she can say that will bring our life, our baby, back from the dead.

I’m woken from my temporary peace, bought by a drunken slumber, when the door I’m sitting against swings open and I fall back with it, my head smacking on the floor and the empty bottle in my hand rolling away.

“Oh my God! Should we call the cops?” a voice I’ve only heard a few times before asks. I groan and make my eyes open: blinding sunlight not helping the throbbing in my head or the rawness of my eyes, but both of those are nothing compared to the emptiness in my chest.

I grin sloppily at the people looking down at me as I sprawl over the threshold, giving a thumbs up to Scott, and he shakes his head.

“It’s fine, I know him,” he says, and I pucker a kiss at my buddy.

“Don’t worry,” I slur to his doctor. “I’m happy to share.”

Scott growls, irritated, and my eyes widen when he grabs my arm and hauls me up.

“Does he man-handle you like this too?” I mutter as Scott props me against the wall inside his front door. But instead of answering, his doctor lady friend just looks at me like I’m some piece of trash hobo, tucking her hair behind her ear and glancing away as she hugs her purse closer into her body. I slump back, turning my gaze to Scott. “Or does he only bust out his Dom side with me?”

Scott glares and I mockingly scowl back. “Shut up and don’t move.”

I hold my hands up in surrender. “As you say, Chief.”

But my slippery amnesia of the soul crushing, rest-of-my-existence happiness-erasing, nuclear meltdown terribleness of last night is lost when I see him turn to her and run his hand down her arm, then place his palm on her lower back and guide her towards the front door. Everything in me aches, and my eyes droop closed as I listen to him whisper that he’ll call her later before his front door shuts.

His steps move farther away, pause, then come back closer and stop in front of me. “You want to tell me when you got here?”

“Hmm,” I start, trying to suck up the desolation running through me.

Because I arrived probably about ten minutes after my world exploded and I realized that my life was destined to be spent alone. Like how I sat for hours in front of my best friend’s door, drinking whiskey by myself because I could hear the unmistakable sounds that meant he was not open for drunken venting and Moab escape planning.

“Sometime between ‘oh baby,
yeah,
just like that…’ and ‘call you later’?”

My eyes open in shock when Scott kinda smacks my cheek and grips my jaw, shaking me into alertness.

It takes me a second to focus on him and when I do, I realize he’s searching my face, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed. And I’m waiting for him to punch me for all that crap I said to his girlfriend and for admitting that I was unintentionally listening in, but instead he lets me go and gestures with the empty whiskey bottle that must have rolled inside with me when I fell into his apartment.

“And is this number one or number ten?”

“One,” I answer, then shrug. “Of a future ten.”

He curses and stalks off into his kitchen, and I push off the wall and follow after him. He grabs a glass and fills it with water from his sink, handing it to me with a couple of aspirin and watching as I chug it down.

He clears his throat, crossing his arms. “Was it just a fight or—”

“I want the Lightning Bolt,” I interrupt, then finish my glass of water. “North Six Shooter tower, right now.”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re not climbing today.”

“Fuck you!” I spout off, slamming the glass down on the counter and then pointing in his face. “You can’t tell me what I can’t have, what I can’t do, and I’m not asking your permission. If you don’t want to come because you’re too much of a pussy, then that’s your problem. But I’m going.”

“You’re drunk,” he hisses. “You know how stupid it is to climb when you’re—”

“When I’m what? Going out of my fucking mind?!” I yell, and he winces. I blow out a breath, trying to calm down. “I have to do this, Scott. And it has to be today.”

“Why?” he counters, and I swallow.

“Because after this, I’m leaving Moab.”

His eyes widen. “What about—”

“Are you coming or not?” I snap, and he hesitates for a long time, just looking at me, then he nods.

“Just let me get my stuff,” he mutters, refilling the glass with more water. “Drink this,” he says, shoving the glass at me, and I take it before he stomps off, cursing under his breath and running a hand through his hair.

By the time he comes out of his room, showered and dressed and climbing pack slung on one shoulder, my headache is dissipating but the gurgling in my stomach is going at full blast. My knees are bouncing and hands are shaking as I sit on the edge of his couch, but I don’t know if that’s just because I’m hungover or because of everything.

“Ready to go?” he asks, and I nod. I grab the two water bottles I filled and the stack of granola bars I grabbed from his pantry, following him outside and waiting as he locks the door. He throws me a disapproving look and heads toward his truck, tossing his pack into the bed. I get mine out of the trunk of my car, seeing his eyes close and head shake when he spots my other bag in there.

I moved it to the trunk after I stopped at the liquor store last night, unable to look at it anymore because all I could see was the mental image of it sitting inside her entryway and overstuffed with my clothes. And after I peeled out of the parking lot of my apartment I wanted to just drive and drive and drive, but I couldn’t leave without seeing my best friend first. Not after he stayed here with me in this asinine town for the last year.

I throw my climbing pack into the bed of his truck, then get in the passenger side and shut the door. He doesn’t say anything on the way to Indian Creek, just sneaking glances at me over the forty mile drive down south 191 until finally turning on 211. He clears his throat when we pass Newspaper Rock, jerks his chin at the gate when we get on Davis Canyon Road, and when I get back in after he pulls through, Scott waiting while I re-close the gate, he still stays silent. But whether that’s because he doesn’t want to ask what is driving me out of Moab or he’s just concentrating on navigating his truck through the off-road terrain of rocks and creek beds and washes, I can’t be sure.

We finally stop when the clearance of his truck is outmatched by the unstable landscape, and I get out and take in the sight of North Six Shooter tower in all its glory, tall and famous and begging to be conquered. Determination pumps through me, and I grab my climbing pack from the bed of his truck and strap it on.

For two hours we hike to the tower, the summer sun beating down on us as we sip water and nibble on the granola bars in preparation for a three-plus hour climb. My hangover is gone by the time we finish ascending the rocky base to the starting point for the Lightning Bolt Cracks, but everything else inside of me still feels sick, empty, wrong. But I can’t think about it now.

I set down my pack and take a final drink from my water bottle, then tuck it into my bag and crouch down, taking out what I need. I can’t think about Zoe, where she is and what she’s doing, how she’s feeling. If she’s back at the house and crying uncontrollably, or if she’s still at my apartment and thinking I’ll come back to her. I grab my harness and a length of rope, trying to forget the curve of her handwriting on the note she left me last time I went out, telling me they were required to be used. I shake my head at myself. I can’t wish things were different, that I could erase the last thirty-six hours and take it all back, the choices I made and the questions I asked that sent it all spiraling out of control. I can’t think about the life that isn’t here anymore.

I have to think about decisions that will matter
now
. I have to think about water, about the sun, about the slippery nature of sandstone.

I smear sunscreen on my legs and the back of my neck, over my face and then slide on my sunglasses before I wash the residual oil off my hands.

It’s that easy, I tell myself. Just wash it off. The pain, the betrayal, the crazy need I have to be with her so we can mourn together and the nausea that rolls through me when I realize I’m missing the murderer of my child.

I don’t know how I’ll ever let it go. The love, the hate, the mess of it all.

“Want me to lead?” Scott asks as he tightens his harness, checking that he has enough cams and slings to lead and inspecting his rope, and I shake my head as I toe off my hiking boots, trading them for my rubber climbing shoes.

“Nope.”

“All right,” he mutters, turning away to take everything back off his harness, and I ignore him as I buckle on my own and collect my gear. Except all I need is enough rope to rappel back down, plus a chalkbag that sits over my lower back.

I blow out a breath. I’m still me and I can do this. Zoe or not, baby or not, I can still climb. I did it before her, and I can do it now.

I head over to the start of the Lightning Bolt route and dip my hands in my chalk, making sure they have enough coating to give me a decent grip. I then slide my right fingers inside the crack, thumbs up, and lock them in place: my knuckles grating against the sandstone as my fingertips press against the other half.

“What the fuck?” Scott bursts out just as I’m setting my left foot, and I look back over my shoulder.

“What?”

“You are not free soloing this!”

“Um, yeah, I am.” I stretch up to secure the next fingerhold as my right foot finds the crack, and I hear him curse behind me.

“Luca, this is stupid.”

“Luca, this is stupid,”
I repeat mockingly, rising up on my right foot and once I’m stable, I dip my hand into the chalk again before reaching up.

Fuck, this crack is small. It’s not my first time on a 5.11, but I can barely get my fingers in past the first digit and there is hardly any space for a foothold, which means I’m basically squeezing in as much of my toes as possible and then turning my knee vertical so it pinches my foot in. Awesome. And not at all painful or anything.

“You cannot do this when you don’t have your head in the game!” Scott snaps, and I brush it off. The danger of free soling provides unparalleled focus, which is one of the reasons why I’m doing this. I don’t want my head to be anywhere else.

“Look,” I grit out, wincing against the sensation of skin being torn from my knuckles as I pull myself up, “if you’re going to do nothing but bitch, then feel free to stay on the ground.”

“I hate you,” he calls out, and I roll my eyes.

“It’s going to be worth it when we summit.”

“It’ll be worth it once you tell me why we’re doing this,” he mutters, and I bite back my grunt of effort when I push myself higher, needing to put as much space as possible between me and everything that happened in the last twenty-four hours.

Faster and faster I climb, my fingertips straining to carry my weight and my feet screaming with anguish from the sharp edges of the crack, the sun already scorching and sweat running down my spine, but the air is clean and it doesn’t smell like white tea and ginger. That’s good enough for me.

“Slow down, dumbass,” Scott says and when I check, he isn’t far behind: gritting his teeth as he pulls up to a higher stance at maybe twenty-five feet off the ground to my thirty-something, and he isn’t tied in. Look who put on his big boy pants.

I turn my attention back to the rock and move my left foot. The most I can do is lay the base of it against the vertical edge of the too-small crack and hope the rubber sole has enough friction to hold. I re-dip my hand in the chalk, reaching and struggling to find a good fingerlock. But this’ll have to do.

“Luca,” Scott says, and I pause and catch my breath after another haul forward, my body hugged into the rock. “We’re ten feet from the first belay station. We can still stop and go back down.”

I swallow and shake my head.

“Whatever happened with you and Zoe, you shouldn’t—”

“I asked her to marry me.” Nothing comes from below. “She answered by having the abortion.”

Scott still doesn’t say anything, and I force myself to choke down the explosion of anguish in my chest that wants to destroy me, to make my eyes water and my muscles collapse. But I can’t. I have to push through this, one way or the other.

“I’m sorry, man,” he finally tells me, and I shift my left foot higher, the base of it barely slipping into the edge of the crack. My weight is dependent on the fat-tipped fingers of my right hand, dug into the crack with my knuckles flexed against the other side. My left is hardly locked in above it, but I push up.

“So am I,” I grit out, my right arm already reaching for the next hold as my right foot does the same. I hiss with the effort, but before my fingers can find the space I need, my foot slips.

Oh no.

Time slows down to an extended pause of horror that I don’t have time to grasp when my knees scrape the wall and my weight drops, my entire body suspended by the three wedged-in fingertips of my left hand. My right palm scrabbles and slaps against the slick wall, but there’s nothing to grab.

It’s happening.

Today, I’m going to die.

I’m not surviving the forty-foot fall and the jagged rocks waiting to claim me. But Scott is directly below and if I fall straight down, I’ll take him out and we’ll
both
be dead.