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It’s hard to see him worry about his friends, his brothers, this man who exudes confidence with every waking breath. And he won’t ever say when he’s concerned, but his tells are clear. His phone stays closer, and he can’t be inside. He opens the garage door and stays in there for hours, working out or messing with his car, building shelves and organizing my years’ worth of junk. And at first he was doing this stuff only on the weekends, and it was rare at that, but recently I’ve begun waking up in the middle of the night to find him on the back porch, just sitting in a chair and sipping a bottle of water in the moonlight.

I shake my head at myself, icy tears running down my cheeks. I should have listened to him. I should have paid more attention. I should have understood that he’s been as afraid as I have, that his entire life just got turned upside down and it was pushing him to the limit. In the last seven weeks he’s been told he’s temporarily a father but won’t stay that way, moved out of the stability and comfort of his own apartment and instead has been living in my house, nearly died during an AFF jump with Scott, found out his most beloved foster mom
did
die, proposed marriage and begged me to let him keep his child, and every step of the way, I hurt him.

I’ve yelled and screamed, accused him of being selfish after he worked a twelve-hour day and then went grocery shopping, came to my house and cooked us dinner and then sat beside me on my couch and watched some old black and white movie he doesn’t even like. I mean, what kind of man does that? And what the hell is wrong with me for getting upset because he wanted to get up in the middle of the night and breathe clean air and have five minutes of space? And the pathetic excuse that’s been burning through me for weeks was I’ve been undeniably hard on him because
my life
has been changed? I got pregnant. That was it. No moving into a place where most of the time I probably felt unwelcome and was frequently told I was exactly that, no death in the family, no near-death experience. Just pregnant.

And it’s not like the morning sickness was a breeze, because it wasn’t. It’s not like I haven’t been exhausted every minute I’m awake, that I’m not fed up with craving weird things I don’t even know how to name. The cramping is agonizing, the peeing irritating, the nightmares just…beyond awful. But people do this. Women get pregnant every single day and it’s not this dreadful thing that tears their lives apart. It’s supposed to be beautiful, but physically, I’ve never felt so gross.

Except Luca, he made me feel beautiful, like I was the most precious thing in his world. He would get this smile, soft and reverent and it completely melted me. And the way he would touch me, kiss me, like he was doing it with not only his entire body but also with his soul… There is no resisting that. But I’ve never been able to resist him. It’s why after months of fighting my attraction to him, thinking about him constantly every minute he wasn’t at work, I gave in. I told myself that it would solve it, the draw I have to be near him if only I could touch him and feel him and just be free to accept it for an hour at a time. But it was never enough.

Every morning I told myself I wasn’t going to do that anymore, that I wouldn’t knock on his door because he didn’t realize I was getting more out of it than he was, that I had lied when I struck our deal. I was taking advantage of him, stealing moments and caresses he hadn’t wanted to offer, and I knew it was wrong. But every night, I found myself right back in his bedroom. And that was the rabbit hole I tumbled down, the alternate universe it spun into existence one where he loved me and I loved him, I was pregnant with his baby and he wanted us to be together, to
have
and
be
the dream.

And as I stand here, the sky so clear and the wind lazily blowing, the last of this day just anatomically
perfect
and the kind that always made him twitch restlessly when he was stuck inside, my fingertips brush the bottom of my eyes, wiping away the tears that can’t seem to stop forming.

I miss him so much. The deep timbre of his voice when he first wakes up and it’s all scratchy and rough, the way he shamelessly flirts with me during the day even when he knows there’s a client in the next room. How when we’re on the couch, his steady breaths lure me asleep as I lean against him before he carries me to bed. I miss his hand on the small of my back and the way his fingertips graze my skin when he sweeps my hair to the side to kiss the back of my neck; the way he always, always opened my doors for me. I miss his horrible singing and how he whistles off key in the shower, his crappy Arnold Schwarzenegger impression and the way he sucks at math so bad he needs a calculator for everything above single digit addition.

He ate all my muffin tops once. A dozen cinnamon crumble blueberry-banana muffin tops, leaving the bottoms untouched and perfectly level because he cut them in half with a knife. And it was all because I made some joke about him being a prima donna since he told me he was going to practice his caveman grunts in the bathroom mirror, and when I went in there two minutes later to find out what he was really doing, I busted him in the middle of moisturizing his hands.

My eyes close, my entire body shivering.

All I had to do was say yes.

That’s all it would’ve taken and he would be here.

He never would have gone climbing. And even if he had, he would’ve used the ropes.

He wouldn’t have fallen.

He wouldn’t have—

“Ms. Pearce?” a man to my left asks, and my eyes fly open. “ETA is two minutes.”

“Okay,” I say and nod, swiping at my eyes again and preparing myself for what’s about to happen.

“I need you to stay back from the rotary when they arrive,” he says shortly, and I nod again.

Everyone is mad at me, but I don’t care. When Scott called from a weird number and the first words out of his mouth were to stay calm, I already knew what he was going to say next and I didn’t want to listen, but I had to hear it anyway.

“Luca is hurt,” he says, his voice trying to be strong but still wavering. “We were climbing and he fell, and AirMed is on their way but it’s not going to be easy to get him out of here and I need you to get to the hospital.”

Fell.

Hospital.

AirMed.

“Can I talk to him?” I whisper, horrified.

“Not right now,” he says quieter, then takes a deep breath. “It’s not good, Zoe. He wasn’t tied in or wearing a helmet, and I’ve got him breathing and stable but I—”

“What do you mean you have him
breathing
?” I shriek, tears stinging my eyes.

“I mean I need you to get to University Hospital in Salt Lake, and go
now
.”

“How high?” I ask, my mind speeding over everything Luca’s ever told me about climbing and distances and that one really disturbing conversation when he admitted that if he ever falls, he hopes it’s over thirty feet. Thirty-five, just to be safe that he’ll die and not be paralyzed or something for the rest of his life.

“What?” Scott asks.

“How high up was he when he fell?!”

Scott pauses for a long time, then utters, “Forty feet.”

“Oh my God,” I gasp out. “Is he going to…?”

“I don’t know,” Scott says. “I’m doing everything I can, but I just don’t know.”

I was still at his apartment, waiting for him to come back, my car totally useless with two flat tires and my phone barely charged. But I called Tori and she came right away, picked me up and we raced here. The front desk said he still hadn’t arrived which I don’t understand because we’re
three hours
from home and helicopters are supposed to be faster, but when I asked what was taking so long they told me to take a seat and they would let me know when he got here. Then some perky nurse had the nerve to tell me she’d keep me “updated.” I lost it.

I demanded to be up on the roof when AirMed landed and screamed my way down a list of at least six managers and a whole bunch of hospital board members and I think I offered to donate a new pediatric wing to make it happen, and they’re all pissed, but they eventually caved. I know they’re just concerned I’m going to interfere, but I don’t care about them. I don’t even care that I’m hundreds of feet off the ground, standing on the roof of the hospital with a big circle painted in the middle, being glared at by waiting doctors and nurses and technicians. All I care about is seeing him alive. He has to still be alive.

“Ten seconds,” the man to my left says and my eyes search the sky, and I hear it before I see it: a massive helicopter with four huge blades spinning so fast it makes me dizzy, half white and the other part red, the tail black and three huge windows where I can see people moving around inside.

He’s in there. Luca is in there.

My eyes cloud with tears and I swipe them away, the man beside me holding his arm in front of my body to keep me corralled against the wall as the air around us becomes a hurricane. And slower than I can stand it, the helicopter lands, taking forever as it touches down when it should be hurrying because Luca’s life depends on it and they’re not doing
anything
!

Eternity and an hour later, the door opens and people pour out and I can’t see him. I stretch and strain but this horrible man has me pinned and I can’t see him. What I
do
see is the person I want to destroy, the one who is supposed to take care of Luca in the ways I can’t and protect him from getting hurt and I detest him with everything in me when he smoothly jumps down, his body perfectly unbroken as he turns back to the helicopter and says something to a paramedic beside him.

“Scott!” I scream, but he either doesn’t hear me over the sound of the slowing blades or he doesn’t care right now.

“Don’t move,” the guy beside me bites off, and then he bolts towards the helicopter with everyone else. One of them shuffles Scott out of the way and he backs up hesitantly, his head ducked in deference to the rotary blades as he watches whatever they’re doing.

“Scott!” I yell again, and this time he hears me, his head whipping to the side and eyes widening before he runs over to where I am.

“What are you—”

“Why aren’t they moving him?” I accuse, tears biting my eyes, and he grips me by my shoulders.

“They’re getting him secure.” He stares at my eyes with an intensity that petrifies me, blood on his shirt and hands that doesn’t belong to him, then commands, “Don’t look at him, Zoe. Whatever you do, don’t look.”

I reel back. And out of the corner of my eye I see people moving, very carefully backing up from the helicopter door and before he can do anything about it, I run.

Six people are guiding out a stretcher and I can’t grasp the concept that it’s Luca who’s on it, but when I come to a halt beside him, I can’t be in denial anymore.

He’s covered in blood. His head, his face under the clear mask they’re giving him oxygen through, it’s even in his eyes as they lazily drift open and search, seeing nothing or everything, I’m not sure. The rest of him is covered in a tin foil blanket but one person is holding up a bag of blood with a tube that goes under it, people’s hands careful as they hold him steady and lower the legs of the stretcher. And I know they’re talking beside me and behind me, rattling off things to one another, but I can’t hear them because all I see are Luca’s eyes, open and settled on my face, and I try to smile as comfortingly as possible.

“Luca,” I breathe. “It’s going to be okay. You’re here now.”

His eyes close and mine sweep down his body, just as the last gust of air from the blades comes down and it lifts up the foil blanket like a sail.

Nausea strikes fast and hard, and I instinctively cover my mouth against it. His right shoulder is
wrong
, a bone is sticking out of his right arm and his entire right leg looks shattered, his foot facing the wrong way. There’s a thing sticking out of his chest and blood just everywhere, and I have no idea how he’s alive and conscious. The pain he must be in…

“Oh my God, Luca,” I whisper, my voice cracking as I burst into tears. “What did you do?”

“We have to move,
now
,” the medic says, and I nod.

“Okay,” I tell him, not resisting when he nudges me out of the way and they begin jogging him towards the elevator doors they said go right into the operating room hallway. I run ahead and Scott meets me beside the elevator, then tries to stand in front of me to keep me shielded but it’s too late for that.

I gulp deep breaths as the elevator door opens, and after they roll Luca in, I dash inside and past the nurses to find a space by his head. The doors close and the elevator starts to move, and I lay my hand against his cheek, rough with stubble and sticky with blood, but then Scott pulls my hand away and yanks me further into the wall, his arms locked around me from behind and I can’t keep myself from crying louder and louder when they pull off the blanket. He’s so broken.

“Start a second IV for morphine, we don’t have time to wait,” the doctor says, a team of foreign hands starting to shine lights in his open and wandering eyes, checking his pulse,
touching him
and rapid-fire spouting off things like, “BP dropping, pulse: thready and weak…”

“…possible internal bleeding…”