“Aw, this place ain’t that bad,” he said with a laugh, surprising me by pulling me toward the door overflowing with the sound of people and the smell of food. “Let me show ya around before Reggie shows back up and starts his tour again. Trust me, you’ll be here all day if ya let ’em do that.”
“Sure,” I said, smiling and feeling the best I had in weeks now I had someone I knew to guide me.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’d followed him into the unknown, so maybe it wasn’t going to be all bad being here.
CADE
It wasweird seeing Walker after all this time, almost as weird as calling him by his first name, and I didn’t know if I was ever going to get used to that. Not that I wouldn’t have time since we were both here for the next few weeks, so I wasn’t going to rush anything. It was probably selfish, but it was nice to have someone I could consider a friend again and not just on the other end of a phone. Not that I could say we were friends like we had been before; it had been years, after all, and things change.
Walker was different from what I remembered.
“I have to admit,” he said as we walked away from one of the coffee stations. He had taken a sip of the coffee and made a surprised face. “They do a surprisingly high-quality job around here.”
It was the sort of comment I’d been hearing since he’d shown up a few days ago. He was constantly surprised by the effort the resort put into things. He was surprised, but I had never detected that he was pleased by any of it. If anything, the more he was surprised by something good, the more it somehow fueled a foreboding sense of anticipation inside him. As if forevery good thing that happened, he had to keep an eye out for when things would inevitably take a sudden downturn.
Which wasn’t the first time I’d been surprised by a pessimism he’d lacked years ago, and in fact, the sort of pessimism he had always been quick to fight. He’d always been good at turning it into something positive, or at least making something sound less bad. That apparently had gone the way of my right leg, but sadly, life didn’t provide much in the way of mental or emotional prosthetics, so he was just…more negative than I remembered.
“So, what’re ya thinkin’ of doin’ today?” I asked as we walked.
It wasn’t as if he was expected to do anything, especially during the first week here. There were plenty of things to do, and some guys could be overwhelmed when they first arrived. It wasn’t just the daily activities, but the freedom and lack of pushing could be odd. Combined with the fact that all responsibility disappeared when you came here and guys just…hung out.
“I’m not really sure,” he said, looking out of one of the windows onto the mountains. That was also something a lot of new people did, especially if they were from somewhere without mountains. “Jesus, do you ever get used to seeing this?”
I smiled. “I dunno, if ya do, it hasn’t happened to me yet. I guess some guys have, especially if they’re used to it.”
“Or just dead inside,” he snorted, taking a sip of coffee. “You’d have to be one of the two not to find it distracting.”
“I’ve got used to it. At least I don’t get distracted anymore,” I said with a snort. “But lemme tell ya, when I first got here? I got distracted all the time. I would stand at these windows and just…stare.”
“Well,” he said, casting a sidelong glance at me and smiling. “Makes sense. Not a lot of snow and mountains where you came from…or where you were stationed most of the time.”
“True,” I chuckled. “I took pictures all the time to send to my parents. Ended up promisin’ my mom I would bring her to the mountains one of these days.”
“Have you?”
“Naw.”
“Why not?”
“Well,” I said, feeling uncomfortable now that we’d hit the topic. “Probably ’cause I told her I’d do it when I finally got my head together, but that, uh…that ain’t happened yet.”
“I mean, you’re the one who said everyone’s allowed to go at their own pace,” he said gently. “Isn’t that the whole point of this place? No point in kicking yourself when you’re not making the progress another place might not be so understanding about.”
It almost sounded like the old him, and I wondered what had happened since I’d seen him taken away on the Medicopter. Helookedlike the Walker I’d known back then, but more than just his attitude had changed. I could see the difference as I stood there, letting him bask in the peace and quiet of the mountains. There was something gone from his eyes that had once been there constantly. It wasn’t as cheesy as saying the light in his eyes had been extinguished, because there was still plenty of light there. Though sometimes when I watched him, that light looked more like a fire that threatened to burn anyone who got too close, but even then, that wasn’t quite it.
Maybe I was thinking too hard about it. I was seeing someone who no longer acted like the same person I had known. It wasn’t like I was the same person either, even if he thought not a lot had changed about me. Maybe the only difference between him and me was that he was more obvious about not being the same person, where I justfeltdifferent. I could still be the Cade most people would recognize from the past, but deep in my heart, I knew I was far from that person.
“I didn’t get the details,” he said suddenly, bringing me back from my thoughts. He turned to look at me, a troubled expression on his face. “But I heard what happened with the team.”
“Oh,” I said, fighting the urge to look away. It was one thing to tell people about it on my own terms, but it was weird to have it done for me, and bad that I had to remember I was talking to someone who had known them. “I, uh…God, I probably should’ve let you know, huh? You were there with us for almost two years and I didn’t?—”
He snorted. “You were dealing with losing your second family. You don’t have to be sorry because you didn’t call me.”
“I should have, though,” I insisted.
He shrugged, taking another sip of his coffee. “Well, I don’t think you should worry about it.”
“Yeah, sure, I guess.”
