Under a Storm-Swept Sky

by Beth Anne Miller

  He cupped my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away my tears, and stared down at me with gray-green, shimmery eyes. “And thank you for helping me face those demons, for making me feel alive for the first time in so long. I…”

  He started to say something else, then shook his head and kissed me instead, sweetly, tenderly, as if this was a first kiss and not a last one. I kissed him back the same way, but just when my fingers started to creep up into his hair, he pulled back and took my hand.

  “Fly safe. And get your knee checked out as soon as you can.” I nodded. “And will you let me know how Carrie’s doing?”

  “I will. Goodbye, Rory.”

  “Goodbye, Amelia. Mar sin leat, a ghaoil.”

  He pressed his lips to my hand one last time, and then I turned and walked away, our fingers touching until they couldn’t touch anymore.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Rory

  I watched as Amelia’s blurry form drew away from me and disappeared up the escalator, and then I sank down on the bench and dropped my head into my hands. Had I really just said goodbye to her?

  Why hadn’t I been strong enough to stay away from her? I could have gotten Amelia through the damned hike without getting involved with her, and then neither of us would be in agony now. But I’d let myself be selfish, let myself fall for her, so tired of being alone.

  And now I was alone again. And it was so much worse than before.

  A leg brushed mine as Tommy sat beside me on the bench. “You okay?”

  He was unsmiling, his face grimly sympathetic. “I’m really not.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here. Unless you want to catch her before she gets through security? Last chance.”

  “I can’t.”

  He nodded. “Come on, then.” He pulled me to my feet, and we left the terminal.

  Left Amelia.

  When we reached the car, he went right for the driver’s seat, not grumbling at all about having to turn right around and drive the two hundred miles back to Skye.

  I let my head fall back against the headrest and closed my eyes. I could still smell her scent. Could still feel the touch of her body against mine when we were wrapped around each other that morning. Could still taste her kiss on my tongue, could still hear my name as a sigh from her lips. Could still see the sadness in her eyes when we parted.

  “Did you tell her you love her?”

  “No. Not so she’d understand it, anyway.” Mar sin leat, a ghaoil. Goodbye, my love.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “How could I, Tommy? She had to leave. If I’d said the words, it would only have made things worse.”

  “But you didn’t give her a chance. If she loves you, too—no, not ‘if,’ I know she loves you—but if she heard you say it, maybe she would have stayed.”

  “She has a friend lying in a coma back home. And a new job in a new city to look forward to.”

  “You should have tried.”

  Anger crawled up my spine. “What I should have done is stayed away from her, kept my hands off her. Then our goodbye would have consisted of a friendly hug and an exchange of email addresses, instead of this,” I said bitterly.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  I sighed, the anger dropping away as fast as it had arrived. “No, I don’t. What we had together, for the few short days we had it, was better than not having it. But now…now it just fucking hurts.”

  The rest of the drive back was mostly silent, other than the radio Tommy finally turned on. We stopped for a quick burger in Fort William, which I barely ate, and when we got back to Skye at nearly midnight, we went right to the Slig, where Tommy and Gav proceeded to get me drunk.

  …

  I woke up the next morning on Gav’s ancient sofa, my head pounding, my mouth parched. I rolled to my feet, cursing at the pain in my back from the sofa, and staggered to the sink for some water.

  I wondered what Amelia was doing, if she’d gone to see Carrie straightaway, or if she would go today. I wondered if she’d slept okay, alone in her bed. If she was going to the doctor to get her knee checked out. If she was missing me as much as I missed her.

  I wondered how I was going to get through the day without her. Or the next few days, until my next group arrived for their West Highland Way trek, and I’d at least have some distraction during the day.

  The door to Gav’s flat opened, and he and Tommy walked in, bringing with them the smell of coffee and greasy food. Thank God.

  Gav handed me a coffee. “How do you feel today?”

  “Like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.”

  “Not surprising, considering you drank half your body weight in beer last night,” said Tommy.

  After breakfast, I felt slightly more human. Tommy and I said goodbye to Gav and then headed out. As we approached the Sligachan Hotel, I gazed out the window at the Red Cuillins, clearly outlined against the brilliant blue sky. Glamaig, Marsco, and in the distance, Bla Bheinn.

  Hard to believe that just a few days earlier, I’d walked through the glen with Amelia, passing all those peaks, climbing Bla Bheinn. Would I ever have that opportunity again with her?

  I glanced at Tommy, whose eyes were thankfully on the road ahead and not the view.

  I didn’t know what the future held for Amelia and me, and there was nothing I could do about that now. But in the meantime, there was something I could do—something that should have been done years ago.

  “Tommy, we need to make a stop.”

  …

  Two days later, I summited Bla Bheinn for the second time in two weeks. Unlike the last time, the sky was a cloudless blue the whole way. Unlike the last time, there was no Amelia, giving me the strength to face the monster that had haunted me for so long.

  But I did have Tommy. We traveled light, each of us with only a rucksack instead of a heavy pack, and it didn’t take much time to reach the top. I stood back while Tommy went to the wee cairn I’d built when I was with Amelia, bowed his head, and stood in silence for a long moment.

  When he raised his head, I stepped forward. The purple-gray stone with the silver vein was right where I’d left it, shining in the sunlight. “I’m back, brother. Just as I promised. Tommy’s with me. And I—we—have something for you.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Amelia

  My first week home from Scotland was awful, starting with the flight home.

  I’d started going through my pictures, but seeing the beautiful scenery once more—and then the photos of Rory and me—was like a knife in my belly, so I gave up, not wanting to sob in front of the entire plane. I’d just stared out the window, occasionally falling into a fitful doze that left me feeling disoriented and even more heartsick when I woke.

  Finally, the plane dipped, and I’d looked out the window to see the sprawl of Manhattan below. That sight always made my heart swell with pride that I lived just outside that iconic metropolis. Even though I’d never really loved the city, I always liked to look at it from the outside, whether I was above it in a plane or seeing it from a bridge.

  Now it just looked discordant and gray and wrong. I should have been looking at castle ruins and mountains, not glass-encased skyscrapers and thousands of buildings packed in like sardines on the smallish island; lochs and glens, not hundreds of miles of traffic-jammed, potholed roads.

  Carrie was here. My family was here. My life was here, if not in New York, then twelve hundred or so miles south in Florida.

  But Rory wasn’t here.

  Three days after I left him in the Glasgow Airport terminal, I’d received an email with no text, just a few photo attachments. The first was a selfie of him and Tommy, their hair tousled by the wind, with a familiar view behind them. He’d gone back to Bla Bheinn, and had brought Tommy with him.

  That photo had brought tears to my eyes. The second was harder to interpret—it was of a gray rock next to the cairn he’d built for Connor, shot from a few yards away to show the locat
ion and context. Okay, it was a rock…so? Then I’d opened the third photo. And I’d understood.

  It was a close-up of that rock, and it wasn’t just any rock, but one that had been placed there with as much care as the skipping stone. And it was engraved.

  In memory of Connor Andrew Sutherland, 1994-2011.

  Beloved son, brother, friend.

  He will be remembered as long as this mountain stands.

  I’d completely lost it, my tears at seeing the guys together on the mountain turning into outright sobs. God, I wished I had been there with them.

  After that, there were no more emails. The clean break I’d wanted. The clean break I hated.

  And Carrie still hadn’t woken up. I grew more and more despondent each day that she never would. I wanted to share my fears with Rory, but I couldn’t. He had his life, and I had no right to drag him into the pit of despair with me.

  I spent hours at her bedside, giving her parents some reprieve. I told her bits and pieces about the hike, but only the positive things, so as not to stress her out. No mention of my knee, or of Rory’s trauma. Instead, I described the scenery, the wildlife, the group, Tommy, Rory. I discovered pretty quickly that it was really hard to have a completely one-sided conversation with someone, so then I just read to her from her favorite books or played her favorite movies on my computer. But not The Lord of the Rings, which she loved, too. I tried, but when I started crying five minutes in, I had to shut it off.

  The only time I left her side was when the nursing staff chased me out at the end of the day and when I had my orthopedist appointments.

  An MRI showed that I had sprained my ACL. The orthopedist was pretty surprised that I’d been able to complete the hike, and he clearly thought I was an idiot for doing so.

  I probably was. I could have made it worse—could have torn the ligament completely, and that would have required surgery and months of rehab.

  But I had no regrets. Not one. Some soreness in my knee that would go away with, you know, not hiking up a mountain, but it was worth every minute of the time I spent with Rory.

  When I got the report from the doctor, I opened an email to tell Rory the news. But after a few false starts, I deleted the draft. It would only make things worse.

  As the days went by following my return to New York, as Carrie’s condition remained the same, as I missed Rory more and more, I fell deeper and deeper into despair. I went out with friends and gave them the highlights of the trek, but that only made it harder. My parents talked endlessly of my upcoming move to Miami, but I couldn’t summon the enthusiasm they expected.

  I thought about emailing Tommy. He would make me laugh, give me some strangely wise words of comfort and hope. But I knew if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from asking about Rory. And then if he told me that Rory was doing great, it would make me feel even worse.

  …

  It was the ninth day following my return to New York. I plunked down in the chair next to Carrie’s bed and took her hand in mine. For the first time, I couldn’t bring myself to be upbeat and cheerful.

  “What am I going to do, Carrie? I tried to be bold like you, and just went for it. I knew it couldn’t go anywhere, and I didn’t care. I thought I could handle it, that a few days with him would be enough. I’d come home and be ready to go to Miami and move on to the next stage of my life, with a memory of this hot fling.

  “But I was wrong, Carrie. It wasn’t enough. I am so in love with him, and I’m so fucking miserable without him. Whenever I look at a clock, I imagine what he might be doing. In the afternoons, I picture him striding up a mountain with a group of tired but eager trekkers behind him on that last hill of the day—which is never the last hill of the day. If it’s evening, I picture him swimming in a freezing bay, or having a pint with Tommy.

  “And I want to be there with him, for all of it. But I can’t.” I buried my face in my hands, unable to stop the tears.

  “Why…can’t you?” came a husky whisper, as if from someone who hadn’t spoken in a month.

  I froze. Hope swelling inside me, I slowly lifted my face from my hands and turned toward the bed. Carrie’s eyes were closed, but I swore I’d heard her voice. No, it was just a hallucination brought on by too little sleep. Still…

  “Carrie?” I leaned over her, trying to see if she looked any more responsive than she had before. “Carrie, can you hear me?”

  “’Course I can. You’re…shouting in my ear.” Her eyes fluttered—as they had so many times during the week I’d been by her bedside—only this time, they opened. Slowly, hesitantly, blinking against the sudden onslaught of light after so many days in the dark.

  “Oh my God, Carrie! You’re awake!” Through the haze of tears—of joy this time—I slapped at the call button. “Say something else…anything!”

  “Your hair…is tickling my neck.”

  What? I looked down. Sure enough, my braid was dangling over her, the ends grazing her neck. I flung it over my shoulder. “I can’t believe that you’ve been in a coma for a month, and that’s the first thing you say?”

  Just then, a nurse came in. “What’s wrong­—oh!” She turned and ran from the room.

  Carrie licked her lips. I poured some water from the pitcher on the nightstand into a cup with a straw, then held it to her mouth. “Just a little. I don’t want the nurses to yell at me if you’re not supposed to have it.”

  She obediently took a few small sips, then nodded slightly to indicate she was done. I set down the cup and turned back to her.

  “I’ve been…in a coma…for a month?”

  “Do you remember what happened?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, her brow furrowing. Then they shot open again. “We were in the car…fighting…about a hike?”

  I nodded miserably. Such a stupid thing to argue about, especially since the guy I’d wanted to hike with meant nothing, and I’d pulled the plug on that relationship the minute Carrie was stabilized in the hospital. “What else do you remember?”

  “You didn’t see…a stop sign. And then a truck—”

  The door opened again, and I was banished from the room as the doctors and nurses rushed in and started shouting commands.

  I stepped into the hallway and dialed Helen. “Amelia? Is everything all right?”

  “She’s awake,” was all I managed to get out before I broke down.

  …

  It was several hours before the flurry of activity died down enough for me to return to Carrie’s bedside. The doctors had whisked her away for various tests, and now she was sleeping—but just normal sleep, I’d been assured. Her parents left to get some dinner—at a restaurant, this time, because she was out of the woods.

  While she slept peacefully, I typed out a text to Rory. I knew he’d probably be at the end of the day’s trek—if my memory of the mileage breakdown on the West Highland Way was correct, they were on their twenty-mile day—and I wasn’t sure whether he’d even respond. But I needed him to know.

  She’s awake.

  Within seconds, my phone vibrated in my hand. Not a text, a call.

  I hurried into the hallway and answered. “Rory?”

  “She’s really awake?”

  I smiled. “She’s really awake.”

  “That’s…fantastic news,” he said after a moment.

  It took a moment for me to realize that it wasn’t the connection that was shaky—it was his voice. “Is everything okay? You sound a little off.”

  “I’m just so relieved for her—and for you.” He cleared his throat. “How is she?”

  Had he been choked up? Because of Carrie? I swallowed the lump in my own throat.

  “She’s resting now. The doctors ran a bunch of tests, and other than the broken bones, which are still healing, she’s basically okay. She remembers the accident, and her short- and long-term memory both seem fine, which is amazing.”

  “I’m so happy to hear this. And your knee? Did you get it checked?”
r />   “Yeah, it’s a sprained ACL. No permanent damage, and I’ve been mostly sitting here with Carrie, so I’ve been staying off it.”

  “That’s great. I’d say that you’ll be scaling mountains before you know it, but you’ve already done that.”

  He went abruptly silent, as if the memory of us scaling those mountains affected him as much as it did me. I cleared my throat. “So, where are you now? I didn’t think you’d be done yet for the day.”

  “I’m not. We’re on the last bit of the twenty-mile day, coming down through Rannoch Moor. I wish you could see the sky—actually, hang on a sec.”

  A moment later, the phone buzzed with an incoming text. It was a photo of the iconic Buachaille Etive Mor, the often-photographed triangular mountain in Glencoe, under a gloomy sky.

  “Wow, that’s pretty epic,” I said. “So, it’s okay for you to talk on the phone right now?”

  “We’re on a straightaway, and Tommy’s here, too. I can talk for a few minutes. So, when did she wake up?”

  “A few hours ago. I was talking to her, and she just answered me. Out of the blue. We only had about two seconds before it was all doctors and nurses and tests, so I’m hoping she’ll wake up again soon.”

  “That’s amazing. What was it that finally got her to wake up?”

  “I, um, was pouring my heart out to her about…things.” About you. “Until then, I’d kept it pretty light, but stuff just kind of came out, and I was crying a little, and then I heard her voice in response to something I’d said. It was like she’d been listening all along, and me being sad was what finally got her to clear that final hurdle. I don’t really understand.”

  “I do,” he said. “She loves you just as much as you love her. And she couldn’t bear to hear you cry.”

  And I couldn’t bear to hear his voice anymore, knowing that I’d likely never see him again. “Anyway, I’d better go. I want to be there when she wakes up again. Thank you for calling. It means a lot.”

  “Amelia, I…” He hesitated, then said, “I’m glad she’ll be okay.”

  I love you. I miss you. I wish I was there with you. “’Bye.” I ended the call and dissolved into sobs.