In the Stillness(79)

“There was pure horror in your voice, Ryker. I’d never heard anything like it in my life, and never want to again. You kept putting your cheek near her mouth, checking to see if she was breathing.” I’ve never seen Tosha this shaken up before, and it’s hard to watch. “The campus police and the fire department were already there, but the ambulance was just pulling up when you got over to the grass. “

Ryker takes a long drag. He looks a little uncomfortable about it, which tells me he doesn’t usually smoke. “Then what’d I do?” he asks on his exhale.

“By then I could tell you were out of it. You looked awful. I knew from what Natalie had been telling me that you weren’t doing well. You laid her on the grass as the EMTs were running over, and just kept screaming, Nat, wake up, please, please wake up. Jesus.” Tosha wipes more tears away and leans back. “As soon as you set her down, I saw blood all over your arm from where her head had been resting. You saw it, too . . . You just started screaming, No! No! over and over again until they got her loaded in the ambulance. You were banging on the door of the ambulance, begging to be let in and saying how sorry you were. I assumed you’d pushed her because you kept saying sorry.”

Locked on Tosha’s face, I’m startled to feel Ryker’s hand on mine. Looking at my hand, I see it’s in a tight fist, and I finally feel my nails digging into my palm. As I open it, Ryker interlaces his fingers with mine and rubs his thumb along my knuckles.

“You fought with the cops for a long time—you were screaming that you tried, and you were sorry . . . I have no idea what the hell you were talking about . . . it took three of them to wrestle you to the ground. When they tried to usher the students away, I told them I was your friend and Natalie’s roommate and I needed to get to the hospital. I rode in the cruiser that followed your ambulance. They called it once they got you to the ground and you started throwing up . . .” Tosha sits back and lights another cigarette, signaling the end of her story.

Ryker releases my hand and runs his over his head a few times before standing up. He walks over to the edge of the patio and stands, silently. Liz wraps her arm around Tosha, kissing her softly on the forehead before taking her hand.

“Thank you, Tosha,” Ryker says, without turning around.

“Yeah,” I clear my throat to stop the ever-present tears, “thanks.”

A minute of heavy silence later, I know what I need to do. I look to Tosha and Liz.

“Can you guys, um . . . I want to talk to Ryker for a while.”

Tosha stands. “Will you guys be okay?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ryker nod once—his back still to us—as I reply, “Yes.”

We make our way inside, leaving Ryker to think, or breathe, or whatever it is he’s doing.

“Thanks for telling us, Tosh.” I pull her into a hug.

“Of course. You sure you’re okay?” She’s still wiping tears from her eyes, concerned for me.

“I am.”

Ryker walks through the sliding door and right over to Tosha, where he hugs her tightly. She’s so petite, and he’s so tall and broad, the sight makes me grin. Liz grins, too.

“Thank you, Tosha. It helped hearing it. I never knew more than what the cops told me, and they just said I ran out with her and yelled at everyone.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, thank you.”

Closing the door once they leave, I turn to find Ryker standing right behind me, with his hands in his pockets. Without thinking, I wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face into his chest, and begin to cry a little. A second later, I feel his chest shaking under his own cries as he squeezes me back.

“Did she fill in the blanks for you?” I pull away and walk to the couch. I still don’t know why he needed the details.

He nods, sitting next to me.

“You said you know it wasn’t just because of the drugs that you didn’t remember,” I prompt.

“After our session with your therapist, I called mine. For ten years I’ve been trying to remember, on my own, what happened that night and . . . I just can’t. My shrink said, based on parts of the story I knew from the reports, that it was likely a casualty of my PTSD. It was a high-risk, high-intensity situation and I just reacted, and my brain flushed the memory away.”

It dawns on me ten years too late.

“Is this about Lucas?” My blink is a beat longer than usual, as I take a nervous breath.

“I tried, Natalie. I tried to save him, and I couldn’t,” Ryker begins without preparation. He sounds shocked, like it’s just happened. I guess it must feel like that most days.

I don’t know if I’m prepared for this. Ten years ago, all I wanted was for Ryker to talk to me about Lucas, and he never would. Now, it’s clear I won’t be able to stop him even if I wanted to.

“What happened?”

He turns toward me, barely able to look me in the eyes. “What do you know?”

“Just what your mom told me over the phone.” I shrug. “That his Humvee was blown up, you pulled him out, then got shot.”

Ryker nods for a second. “His vehicle was right in front of mine. I didn’t know at the time if it was shot at, or if it was a roadside bomb . . . but it was in flames in a second. I was in the second of four Humvees. It was so loud, Natalie . . . all the guys started hollering, and shooting, and all I could think of was shooting my way to Lucas. That was my first thought— get us out of here. I thought about his family, my mom, my dad, and you. Jesus, I was so scared.”