Megs nodded. “Ahearn held me together after that. He got me through it. He came up with the idea for the Team, gave me a new focus, a new passion.”
Thatis where Conrad had heard this story. Dean’s death had inspired Megs and Ahearn to found the Team.
Megs went on. “But none of that changes the fact that Ahearn and I left Dean behind. We left him there, alive and breathing, and when we came back, he was a corpse. We left him because it was easier for us. For the rest of my life, I will regret that we didn’t push on and try harder to get him down. And do you know what makes it tougher to live with?”
Conrad shook his head. “No.”
Fuck, he was drunk.
“All these years of doing rescue work have proved to me that wecouldhave gotten him down. Dean died because we didn’t try hard enough.”
“You’re too hard on yourself.”
“Pot meet kettle.” Megs pointed straight at him.
Wait. “What?”
“I read your interview in the Scarlet Gazette. I watched the Good Day Show with Corrine Roberts in her very fine makeup. If anyone knows what you’re going through, I do—and Ahearn. You’re not the only climber to lose a close friend.”
“I know that.” Conrad didn’t like where this was headed.
“You feel guilty that you survived and they didn’t. You wonder if the sport you dedicated your life to is even justifiable in the face of their deaths. You swear you’ll never climb again. You ask yourself what you should have done differently. Would they still be alive if you had done X instead of Y?”
“Stop! I don’t want to talk—”
“Here’s the thing—Bruce and the Stenger twins were killed by tons of falling ice. They died instantly, and no force on earth could have saved them. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You didn’t walk away like we did and leave them there to die. There wasnothingyou could have done to help them. You were almost killed, too.”
Something inside Conrad cracked, a fissure opening in his chest, the nearly empty coffee mug falling from his hand to the floor. “Ididleave them there. I tried to dig them out, but I couldn’t. I tried. God, I tried. But when the rescue team came, I turned my back on them, and I walked away. I walked away, and I left them.”
Megs was there beside him, drawing him into her embrace, holding him like a mother holds a child. “I know how it is. I know.”
For the first time since his father’s death, Conrad wept.
Chapter 21
Conrad woke the next morning,feeling lighter despite intense thirst and a raging headache. He sat up, reached for the glass of water on his nightstand, and drank. When he set it down, empty, he remembered who’d put it there for him.
Megs.
He groaned as memories of last night flooded back.
I walked away, and I left them.
I know how it is. I know.
Shit.
He’d made a complete ass of himself. Not only had Megs seen him stupid-drunk, his home a garbage dump, but he’d lost it in front of her and cried like a fucking baby on her shoulder.
No, he hadn’t.
Oh, yes, he had.
Do you like how this feels? Welcome to rock bottom, buddy.
God in heaven.
How was he going to face Megs again?
