A Heart to Heal. Allie Pleiter

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СКАЧАТЬ was often his enemy, the river gave him even more freedom to unwind his nerves. Sea Legs may be a mildly tacky joke to some, but it was actually close to how he saw the boat. Anything that gave Max speed and movement gave him life. They counterbalanced all the parts of his life that had become slow and cumbersome since falling from that cliff a little over a year ago.

      In a matter of minutes, Sea Legs was under way, slicing her way through the Gordon River and catching the perfect breeze that blew through the warm September afternoon. Heading upriver and upwind, he angled the boat toward the opposite shore, ready to “tack” back and forth as the craft moved against the current and into the wind. He watched Heather settle into one of the seats closer to the bow, the breeze tumbling through her hair.

      “You’re different here than at school,” he offered, liking how she angled her face up toward the sunshine. “Not so serious.”

      She shot him a look. “I take my job seriously. Don’t you?”

      Max shrugged and tightened up a line. “I don’t have a serious job. I’m...enthusiastic about it, but Adventure Access is about making fun, so it’s not the kind of job you ought to take seriously.”

      Heather brought her knees up and hugged them. He found himself staring at her bright pink toenails peeking out of the blue thong sandals she wore. Funny the details that don’t come out at the office. Max spent a lot of time noticing feet—now that his weren’t much use—and she had ridiculously cute toes that wiggled when she realized he was staring at them.

      “Are you serious about anything?” she asked, shifting to tuck her legs underneath her and blushing. Some part of Max was highly entertained that he’d made her blush. What kind of woman wore sensible clear polish on her nails but bright pink on her hidden toes?

      “I’ve been seriously injured. Been listed in ‘serious condition’ at Lincoln General.” He tied off the line. “And I’ve been in serious trouble lots of times.”

      She looked more disappointed than annoyed. “What does it take to get a straight answer out of you?”

      That was a loaded question. His boss and now brother-in-law, Alex Cushman, had asked pretty much the same thing before bringing him on board at Adventure Access. Nobody seemed willing to take a smart aleck at his word these days—they all wanted to see some deep and serious version of him, as if what he’d been through didn’t supply enough credentials. “It takes a straight question. Duck, by the way—we’re coming about and the boom is going to come across the boat.”

      “Okay,” she said as she ducked. “Straight question. What did it feel like?”

      It was obvious what she meant by “it.” “When you cut to the chase, you really cut to the chase, huh?” He had a couple of stock answers to insensitive questions like that—mostly asked by curious kids who didn’t know better or adults who only wanted gory, tragic details—but opted against using them. He’d asked her for a straight question, after all. He just hadn’t counted on “straight” going to “serious.”

      “You don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business.”

      “No.” Max was surprised to find he didn’t feel any of the irritation that kind of question generally raised. He actually wanted to tell her. It must be some kind of empathetic-counselor trick. “It’s okay. But it’s not especially pretty.”

      She didn’t reply, just leaned one elbow on the bow behind her and looked ready to listen. So he told her.

      “I wanted to die.”

      * * *

      Heather swallowed hard. Max said it so matter-of-factly. As if I wanted to die was like my left shoulder hurt. All her counselor training left her no response to his casual attitude.

      He actually laughed—a dark half laugh, but still, it sounded wildly inappropriate to her—and she cringed at the sound. “That’s horrible,” she said, not exactly sure if she meant his feelings that night or his disturbing attitude now.

      “Horrible, tragic, devastating—pick your sad word. I’ve heard them all. Everybody was being so kind and vague and optimistic, but it didn’t fool me. People get that look in their eyes, you know? The one they cover up in a second but you still catch it?”

      She did know, but she didn’t say anything.

      “I think I knew right when I fell that something really serious had happened, but I don’t remember hardly anything from that night. I don’t remember the helicopter ride—which is rotten, by the way, because I think that would have been cool—or the hospital or surgery or really anything until about a day later. And even my memories from those first days are sort of blurry.” Max pivoted the seat and shifted a bit down the rails, adjusting his position as the boat picked up a bit of speed. Heather felt the wind lift her hair and the sun warm her shoulders. It was easy to see why Max craved time on this boat.

      “The first thing I clearly remember,” he went on, his voice still remarkably conversational, “is waking up in the middle of the night and trying to get up out of bed—I think I wanted to go find JJ or something. That was the moment when I really, truly figured out that I couldn’t feel my legs. Like the world just stopped at my hips.” He pretended to busy himself with some adjustment to the rigging, but even without a counseling degree, Heather could’ve seen he couldn’t look her in the eye while talking about the trauma. His eyes darted everywhere around the boat but at her, and she could see how hard his hands gripped the tiller. Why even pretend this was an easy memory? What had made her think it would be a good idea to ask?

      Max cleared his throat and shifted. “I remember pinching my thigh, hard, and feeling nothing. Zip. Nada. Then all the tubes and nurses and Mom showing up clicked in my head, and I knew. Alone, in the dark, I just knew. And I decided it would be better if I stopped breathing, right there and then. It was like I didn’t even have enough life left in me to get mad. I was hollow, empty...just gone, like my legs.”

      He ventured a glance up at her, and she felt the severity in his eyes as fiercely as if he’d grabbed her hand. “So that’s what it was like. Lousy’s not really a strong enough word, if you get what I mean.”

      She had a way-more-than-lousy memory like that. The scars running down her left hip and thigh shouted memories that made her feel hollow and “just gone.” Only she couldn’t brandish them like Max did. There had been another man in her life, years back, who pushed his pain out onto the world like that. Mike had forced his illness on people, daring them to cope with the nasty details, almost looking down on her when she couldn’t do it that way. Heather could count the number of people who had seen her scarred leg on the fingers of one hand. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, not knowing how else to respond.

      Max shook his head, his sardonic smile mocking her compassion. “You know, everybody says that. I’ve got enough I’m-sorrys to fill this river twice over. That always struck me as funny, ’cause it never accomplishes anything.”

      “Oh, yes, you make it clear no one’s allowed to feel sorry for you.” That came out a bit sharper than she’d planned, but some part of her was having trouble swallowing Max’s nonstop bravado. Sure, he laughed off his huge trauma—and looked down on anyone else who couldn’t do the same—but he wasn’t fooling anyone. He thought all that casual charm hid his dark edge, but it didn’t. Not to her.

      “I don’t think Simon wants people feeling sorry for him, either. I think half his problem comes from how much people coddle him.” Max waved his hand around СКАЧАТЬ