Under a Storm-Swept Sky

by Beth Anne Miller

  “That you were bold? I disagree.”

  She lifted her head and stared at me. “What do you mean?”

  “I think it was pretty damn bold of you to come on the Skye Trail with barely any hiking experience, and on short notice.”

  “Liar. You thought I was a spoiled twit who didn’t belong out here.”

  “At the beginning, yes. But that was before I knew why.”

  “I did it for Carrie.”

  “I know. And that makes you even more bold. You stepped outside your comfort zone to do an eighty-mile trek over mountains and along cliffs, in wind and rain and cold, for someone else.”

  “Is that why you offered to help me finish the trek? Because you thought I was brave? Or was it because of…”

  Her voice trailed off, but I knew what she didn’t say. “Because of Connor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was both. You’d said that Carrie was like your sister, and my brother…he was everything to me. I would do anything—anything—to have him back. And yes, because you were so brave, and I admired that. I still admire that about you.”

  “Thank you. It means a lot to hear you say that.”

  I kissed her forehead and lay back, twining a lock of her hair around my finger. It was so nice, being with her like this, just holding her in my arms. It had been so long since I had someone to hold.

  “Rory?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Can I be bold again?”

  And she was.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Amelia

  I lay in Rory’s arms, my head resting on his chest after we’d made love a second time. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why do you keep guiding this trail? I mean, surely Scarlet wouldn’t force you to.”

  “I force myself to. Or at least I did at first.”

  “What, like punishment?”

  “Kind of, yeah. The first few times were…difficult. But I had to do it. I needed the pain and the guilt. It kept me going, when nothing else did.”

  It wasn’t unlike my reasoning for doing the Skye Trail in Carrie’s place and for refusing any assistance early on. But now? I wanted to—needed to—finish it for her. But I also wanted to finish it for me, to look back at my pictures of the intimidating peaks and glens and the scary cliffs and say “I did that. I walked all that way.”

  And I would do it, with Rory’s help.

  “Has it gotten any easier?”

  “It has. But I still have the nightmares, and then sometimes something will trigger a flashback.”

  “Like Tommy almost slipping off the edge the other day.”

  “Exactly. And I haven’t been over Bla Bheinn since then. I can’t even look at it, as you probably noticed. But one day,” he whispered, as if to himself, “one day soon, I will go back up there. I have to. For Connor—and for me.”

  “Will you tell me a little about him?” I asked hesitantly. “If it’s not too painful.”

  He played with a lock of my hair. “You know, it’s funny. I’ve spoken more about Connor these past few days than I have in years. Tommy was his best mate—”

  “He was? Is that why Mrs. Mac brought you two together?”

  “Yeah. She felt he would understand me in a way no one else could.”

  They really had been through a lot together, and I was so glad they had each other. What would Rory have become otherwise?

  “Tommy and I talk about Connor every now and then if we’ve had a few pints and are feeling nostalgic. But otherwise? There’s no one for me to really tell about him. The only constants in my life are Tommy and Scarlet, and Gav when I’m on Skye. And now you. And I’ve already told you the very worst things, so it can’t get any more painful. What do you want to know?”

  God, he was so alone. And he was so casual about it, like he had no right to expect anything different. My heart just kept breaking for him, over and over again. “Tell me your favorite story about him.”

  He didn’t even have to think about it. “I remember when Connor taught me how to skip stones, at the loch where we’d grown up, before we’d moved to Glasgow. I was seven years old, and he was nine. I pestered him to teach me, until he finally gave in and sent me off to find the perfect stone. Each one I showed him got rejected: too bumpy, too thick, and so on. Then he found one, a flat rock the size of my hand. It was a purply-gray color with a silver vein running through it—the prettiest, smoothest stone I’d ever seen.

  “Being a nine-year-old boy, and a few inches taller than me, he held it over my head so I couldn’t reach it, and when I tried to get it, he ran off. He kept evading me, and I got so mad I started crying. He finally gave it to me, but then my father came outside. He’d been taking a nap and we woke him.”

  “Oh no,” I murmured.

  “Aye. He asked if I was hurt. I said no. ‘So why the hell are you crying?’ he asked. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that boys don’t cry?’ When I didn’t reply, he said, ‘I asked you a question! What the hell are you crying about?’ Connor stepped in front of me. ‘It’s my fault,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t give him his rock.’

  “My father reached around Connor and grabbed me by the arm. ‘You’re crying like a wee lassie over a goddamned rock?’ he asked. Of course, I started crying harder. He pried the rock out of my hand and tossed it in the loch. ‘Now you have something to cry about,’ he said.”

  “Your father is a real piece of work.” I said, my heart going out to that little boy. “I’m curious as to how this is your favorite Connor story, though.”

  “I’m getting there,” Rory said. “I ran to the house, where my mother stood in the doorway. ‘That’s it, run crying to your mum like the little girl you are,’ my father called.

  “Mum tried to hug me, but I shoved past her and ran into the room that Connor and I shared, knowing if I let her comfort me like I was a bairn, it would only make my father hate me more. A little while later, I heard my father shouting at Connor, and ran out of my room. He never yelled at Connor, only me.

  “Connor was soaking wet and shivering. My father screamed at him to go to our room and not come out till morning. “Why are you wet?” I asked him. He just reached into his shorts and handed me something.”

  Rory cleared his throat. “It was a perfect, purply-gray stone with a shiny vein of silver running through it.”

  “Connor went into the loch after your stone?” I bit my lip so I wouldn’t cry. Rory and his brother had been everything to each other, and it was just so unfair that Connor was gone.

  “Aye. I remember looking at him in shock, asking him why he’d done that. The loch wasn’t too deep over there—it was just where the sandy bottom started to drop away—but still. ‘That rock was yours. He shouldn’t have taken it away from you because I was being a jerk,’ he said with a shrug, as if diving repeatedly beneath the surface of a freezing loch to find a stupid rock was no big deal.

  “I can still smell the loch water as it dripped from his clothes and the clean scent of the blanket that he wrapped around both of us as he hugged me. The two of us, standing together against a father who loved him more than anything, but thought I was a weak, scared runt who wasn’t worth spitting on. So yeah, that’s my favorite memory of my brother.”

  I pressed my lips to his chest. “Okay, that turned into a lovely story, in spite of your father. Tell me more—what was Connor like when he was older?”

  “He couldn’t bear to be still. I could sit for hours in the same position with a book—and still do—but he would get fidgety after five minutes. The only real exception was The Lord of the Rings. We loved the movies, and I coerced him into reading the books after Mrs. Mac got me into them. He loved The Fellowship of the Ring the best.”

  That was why he carried it around with him, and that was why he was so quick to change the subject when I’d brought it up earlier.

  I’d thought it was sexy as hell that he liked to read that book, but knowing it
was Connor’s favorite changed everything. Rory read it to remember his brother, to stay close to him in any way he could. My heart just kept breaking for him.

  “Connor was really smart, but not book smart,” Rory continued. “He would remember anything you told him, even when it didn’t seem like he was listening, which drove his teachers mad.” He chuckled. “He would tell me—very proudly—that he would be horsing around in class, and the teacher would ask him to repeat what she just said to try and embarrass him, but he always knew exactly what they’d been talking about, and he always did pretty well.”

  I smiled, picturing Connor looking like a slightly younger Rory, without the grief that Rory wore like an old jacket, but with the same irreverent grin I’d seen a few times now and a devilish gleam in his eyes. His teachers had probably loved the hell out of him, no matter how exasperating he was.

  “I wish I could have met him,” I said.

  “Me, too. He would have liked you.”

  He was quiet for a moment, and then continued, “He obviously loved to be outside. It didn’t matter what time of year it was, or how bad the weather. He would bundle up if it was cold, or put on rain gear if it was wet, and he’d be off walking the hills, trail running, ice climbing, you name it. He’d just begun working on his Mountain Leader certification.”

  “Is that why you do this, because he was going to?” I asked.

  He went still, and I immediately wished I could take it back. It was too personal a question. Girl, you’re lying naked with him after just having two rounds of amazing sex. It doesn’t get much more personal than that.

  “No, I do it because…because I got into it after Connor died, and I just…” He trailed off uncertainly.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “It’s okay. It’s just…no one’s ever asked me that question before, and I’m suddenly not sure.” And now he was worried that he’d chosen this life, this career, out of guilt. Way to go, Amelia.

  “Close your eyes,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  “Now picture your three favorite things about the Skye Trail, and tell me what they are.”

  “I see myself standing beneath the rock formations of the Quiraing, on top of the Trotternish Ridge with the sun on my face and the wind whipping my hair into my eyes, and at the end of the world at Rubha Hunish, surrounded by blue sea and diving whales.”

  I laid my hand on his lips. “I can feel the smile on your face as you picture those things. And having seen them myself, I know they’re pretty freaking great.”

  He caught my hand and kissed my fingertips, one by one. My breath started to quicken as my body came alive once again. “Um, okay,” I said, trying not to squirm against him, “now tell me three not-so-great things about the Skye Trail.”

  “Having to abort the Trotternish Ridge in the middle due to gale force winds, crossing the rivers when they’re raging from the rain, dealing with a difficult group that questions me at every turn.”

  I pictured Rory confidently leading a group of wet, cold, nervous trekkers safely down the Ridge without batting an eye. “And even with the challenging parts, could you imagine yourself doing anything else?”

  “No,” he said without hesitation, but with a lot of relief. “I need to be out on the trail. I definitely feel closer to Connor out there. I can see him standing on the Ridge, with the rain soaking him and a big fuckin’ grin on his face, or running up Glamaig in the Red Cuillins.

  “But I love it, too. And when I think of how my life might have been, if Connor hadn’t…if he was still alive? I was into reading and writing. That would have probably meant a desk job somewhere. Sometimes I imagine myself in an office, with the walls and ceiling pressing in around me, breathing recycled air, listening to the buzz of fluorescent lights, staring at a computer screen all day… Amelia, I think that would kill me.”

  It absolutely would—he was meant for open spaces and fresh air, with eagles soaring overhead, not the stifling confines of a cubicle.

  “This is the life that I want, as lonely as it might sometimes be.” He tenderly cupped my cheek, his thumb stroking over my lips. “Thank you for making me think of it that way. And for asking about Connor. I used to get this clench in my gut when I thought of him, but now? I feel sad, but not that crushing, crippling grief that used to almost bring me to my knees. I wanted to tell you about him, and that means a lot to me.”

  Maybe he was finally beginning to heal. And if I was able to help him with that, then this whole trip was worth it. “Do you…ever see your parents?”

  “No. When I think of them, there’s this…emptiness, as if they’re these faceless people I knew once, long ago, in another time and place. I haven’t seen them in years. After Connor…my father…” His voice trailed off, as if he couldn’t make the words come out.

  I laid my fingers over his lips. “You don’t have to say it. I’ll just imagine it from what you’ve told me about him and then multiply that by a factor of ten. Did he hurt you?”

  “Not physically. I almost wish he had, because at least there would have been something, some kind of emotional response. But there was nothing, and that was so much worse. I told you before that I started to get in a lot of trouble at school. I just wanted them to remember I existed, you know? But they didn’t. No matter what I did. It was as if someone took away their memories of their other son. Like in the final Harry Potter book, when Hermione ‘obliviates’ her parents so they’ll forget about her and be safe.”

  “Oh, Rory.” I didn’t even know what else to say.

  “I needed them, you know? At least my mum. Connor was my brother, and it was my fault he was dead, and I was shattered. But my mum just retreated into her own grief and that was it. And my father—I was dead to him, as dead as Connor was. He just looked through me as if I wasn’t there. It was almost better when he was mocking and belittling me. I had to completely fend for myself.”

  I wanted to meet his parents, so I could tell them what I thought of them, so I could shake them until their teeth rattled. I already knew his father was a bully and an asshole, but his mom? How could she let go of her child—her only surviving child? And how could he blame himself for Connor’s death?

  “Rory, what happened to Connor wasn’t your fault. How can you say that?”

  “Because it’s true. He climbed up Bla Bheinn in awful conditions because I went up there on a whim, because I couldn’t just ignore my father’s taunts and be the bigger person. If I’d just stayed with them, he’d still be alive.”

  I had to make him see that it wasn’t his fault. “But it wasn’t foggy when you started climbing, was it?”

  “No, it was clear.”

  “So how could you have known? And how could you be expected to ignore your father’s bullying? You were a kid, and he was your dad. He should have been the bigger person. If it’s anyone’s fault that Connor is dead, it’s his. He drove you to go up there—even when he was calling after you to come back, he was goading you. And if they’d gone on that trip to Skye without you, who’s to say the outcome would have been different?”

  “They wouldn’t have—”

  “They wouldn’t have climbed Bla Bheinn?”

  “Oh, they would have climbed it. It’s a Munro, a mountain over three thousand feet high. My father had a running checklist of all the Munros he’d ‘bagged.’”

  “So they would have gone up there anyway, since the weather was good. And the fog would have rolled in, and the same thing might have happened. You can’t blame yourself, Rory.”

  His eyes widened in surprise, as if he’d never even thought of it that way. He took a shuddering breath. I touched his cheek, brushing away the wetness there. He caught my hand and pressed it to his lips.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, as if I’d given him a precious gift.

  My heart broke for him all over again.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Rory

  Tommy had been telling me for years
that Connor’s death wasn’t my fault. I never believed him. Yet somehow, after knowing me for less than a week, Amelia had me thinking that maybe, just maybe, it was true. Another weight seemed to lift from my shoulders. I held her hand to my lips, unable to say more than “thank you” for fear I’d just lose it completely.

  “Did you go to live with Tommy?” she asked after a moment.

  “Not right away. A few months later, after Mrs. Mac stood up for me at school, I went to live with the MacDougalls. It wasn’t really anything official, it just kind of happened. The captain showed up at my doorstep one day and told me to pack a bag.”

  I smiled, recalling that first bright moment in an endless cycle of darkness. “I remember every detail of that day: the rain pouring down outside, the deafening silence inside the house. I remember his confident knock on the door, the way he strode inside like he owned the place, his long coat flapping around him. He was like an avenging angel, rescuing me from hell. He wrote his phone number and address on a piece of paper and left it on the kitchen table, and he told my parents they could come get me when they were ready to be parents again. They never did.”

  Amelia gasped. “Oh my God, Rory, how can you be so matter-of-fact about this?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve had almost seven years to come to terms with it. I stayed with the MacDougalls for almost six months, and then I went to live with Tommy when I was sixteen or so. He was eighteen, and by then I was working as an apprentice guide on weekends, earning money doing that and working in a bookstore after school. The place was a dump, and we didn’t eat the healthiest food, but Tommy looked out for me.”

  “He still does,” said Amelia.

  “Aye. I love him like a brother. It feels…disloyal to Connor to say that, but it’s true.”

  She shook her head. “Connor wouldn’t think it was disloyal, Rory. He’d be so glad that his best friend was looking out for his little brother.”

  “Maybe. Anyway, when I was eighteen, I saw my parents once, in the market. They looked at me, and their eyes widened as if they’d seen a ghost. I guess I look like Connor. It’s strange to think that I’m older now than he’ll ever be.”