“Yeah,” he said with a soft smile. “It’s, uh…different at this time of night.”
That was true. I had never journeyed out of whichever of our rooms we crashed in after a certain time, and I realized the lighting must be on a schedule. It was normally well-lit, even in the darker parts of the resort, but now the lights were low, giving everything a strange but comforting glow. It made more shadows, but they were softer somehow as we walked, coming to a stop at one of the large walls of glass. Even with the moon out, glowing bright and big, it was a little hard to make out much in the distance. The valleys of the mountain range looked like yawning black holes that stretched for miles. Only the snow caught the moonlight, making everything sparkle and glitter as we stood there, watching a few light flakes drift down.
“Somehow creepy and comforting,” I said as I peered down into the black abyss below us. “I guess it depends on your perspective.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “That’s what I thought the first time I saw it like this. It’s a lot creepier when there isn’t any snow, or the moon isn’t big. Ends up looking…I dunno, ominous?”
“I can definitely see that,” I admitted as I leaned forward to see if there was more. Instead, I was met with that infiniteblackness, and I stepped back to gaze up at the sky. “That’s pretty, though.”
“Yeah, it makes me wanna go out there, stand and look at all the stars. I asked once if we could, but they don’t really have anywhere for people to do that. Kind of a shame.”
“They’re probably worried that a resort full of guys who are not having a great mental health time might decide to throw themselves off the edge of something, just a thought.”
He was silent for long enough that I finally looked at him and had to hold back a laugh when I could see the look on his face, twisted in confusion and then realization. When he glanced at me, he sighed. “I didn’t think about that.”
“Well, I’ll take that as a good thing,” I said with a chuckle. “It means I don’t have to worry about whether you’ve been thinking about…that.”
He leaned back in surprise. “I…no, I guess I haven’t. Closest I ever got was wonderin’ if maybe things might be quieter if I was dead. But it’s not like…I dunno. It just never crossed my mind.”
“Well, you won’t hear me argue with that,” I said with a smile. “There’s not a lot in my life to be happy about, but knowing you’re still alive and wanting to be alive can be one of those things.”
“I dunno, it’s not like I want to be alive sometimes…but I don’t wanna be dead either,” he said with a frown. “Which don’t really make much sense.”
“No, but I understand what you mean.”
There might not be much difference between the two, but actively wanting to be dead, or at least considering if it might be a lot better if you were miles away from wondering if life was worth the struggle and heartache. I knew what it was like to wake up and go through the day, wondering if this was all there was left in your life. To wonder why so many people kept clinging to life when it just felt like one bit of drudgeryand suffering after another. Other times I would wake up and wonder what my malfunction in the days before had been, because while things weren’t exactly bright and sunshine, they weren’t nearly as bad as I had been making them out to be.
“What about you?” he asked. “Did you or do you ever think about…endin’ it all?”
“There was a time when that was all I could think about,” I said quietly, and it surprised me how easily that admission came. “I’ve never told anyone about that.”
“Tell me?” he asked, and I felt his hand slide into mine and squeeze gently.
“Not much to tell,” I said with a shrug, but I kept his hand in mine as I stood there, staring out into the twinkling abyss. “It was months after I was finally discharged from the Army. I kept waking up every day, wondering what the point was, what was worth fighting for because that’s what every one of my days felt like, a fight to keep going. Fighting with myself, fighting against the world, fighting to keep breathing when, really, it didn’t matter. The team was gone, you were…I didn’t know where you were actually, and there was just…nothing.”
“Your sister?”
“Oh God, it would have broken her heart if I’d actually gone through with it. I know that. But it got to the point where I thought maybe she would eventually get over it. Not that it would be easy, and she would be pissed at me for the rest of her life, I’m sure,” I said with a laugh. “God, she would come to my grave or wherever they dumped my ashes and bitch me out the whole time. I know that. But it wouldn’t destroy her, it wouldn’t stop her life, and she would have gone on with life, with her family.”
“Well, ya didn’t do it…what changed your mind?”
“I got mad.”
He looked at me with wide eyes and then let out a laugh. “You’re tellin’ me that what kept you livin’ was that ya got pissed off at somethin’?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I said with a grin. “I started thinking how miserable my life was, and how there were so many other people out there just like me…just like you. Left to fend for ourselves, to deal with the weight of things we had little say in, even though it was painted like it was a choice. And I realized that if I went off and killed myself, I would just be one more number, a statistic for people to collect and post about on the internet. I’d end up being one of those poorly edited photos on Facebook, but that would be about it. Everything else wouldn’t matter, not why I lived, not why I fought, or what led to my death.”
He looked at me in amusement. “Spite? That’s what kept ya goin’?”
“It did,” I said with a shrug. “I realized I could just throw myself off a bridge, pop more pills than was necessary, or whatever poison you wanted to pick. I would just fade into the background, and that would be that. But if I really wanted, I could choose to be a problem. So that’s what I did. I aspired to become a problem, maybe even a noticeable one, but I’d be happy just being annoying if it came to that.”
He snorted. “I think ya managed that just fine.”
“You think?” I asked, unable to stop myself from being a little hopeful.
Cade arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t ya say that the men in suits came knockin’ on your door, threatenin’ the people ya cared about and brought ya here after makin’ ya look crazy to everyone else? I’d say that meant ya were bein’ a big enough problem as far as they were concerned.”
“You know what? You’re right. I guess being a problem wasn’t all it was cracked up to be since they took over my life andthrew me in here,” I said and then glanced at him. “Which isn’t a total loss.”
