Page 45 of A Little More Forgiveness

“Thank you,” I mumbled into his shoulder.

“Thank me once we’re at the top,” he groused and continued his journey. We crawled at a snail’s pace up the mountainside, and by the time we got level with the path, he grunted at the effort for each and every step. But he never faltered, and when we eventually reached the ridgeline, I caught sight of Gabe and the dogs waiting anxiously for us both.

I felt so relieved I almost cried all over again as Gabe rushed to detach me from Mitch and help me onto level ground. Once uncoupled, Mitch fell to the ground, his body heaving, his face bright red and covered in sweat, the dogs whining and snuffling. Amazingly, after only a few minutes of recovery, he was up and moving around like he’d been on a Sunday afternoon stroll, instead of having hauled a grown-ass man up over fifty feet of snowy mountainside.

“We need to get you to the cabin,” Gabe said.

“Give me a minute to catch my breath, and he can climb back onto me.”

“No fucking way,” Gabe declared fiercely while helping to remove my harness. “You’ll never be able to carry him all that way on your own.” He turned to me. “You okay to walk if we both support you between us?”

Probably not, but I’d never dare say so. “Yeah, I should be able to manage that.”

“Good.”

Mitch seemed about to argue but, likely too worn out from the climb, gave in to Gabe’s solution. “Fine,” he replied to Gabe. “But if you get tired, you tell me. I don’t want to have to worry about you collapsing enroute.”

Gabe flashed him a grin. “I didn’t know you cared.”

For a split second, my anger at their easy and familiar camaraderie bit like a rattlesnake, and the reasons why I’d left swiftly flooded into my mind, making my head spin for a different reason, and expelling all my air.

The conversation pretty much died after that, and we fell into an awkward and tense silence, making me feel extremely self-conscious at being the cause of the unease. I should speak, try to explain my behavior, but watching them work in harmony, coiling the ropes and storing them away along with all the other tools they’d used, I had no clue where to begin.

To leave the way I had was beyond reckless and so damn dangerous I found my actions hard to believe. The reasons why were obvious, but the actuality of leaving the cabin and trudging through the wilderness in deep snow, to what—get as far away as possible from a situation I had no control over to begin with?—was irresponsible to say the least.

“We were so worried about you and what might have happened.” Mitch’s gentle voice broke the silence between us, making me flinch. Lifting my head to meet his eyes, I could see he clearly meant the words, and once again I had to look away and stare blankly out into the forest. “Why, Leo?”

Two simple words encompassing a whole world of hurt I wanted to soothe, but somehow the explanation wouldn’t come because once I opened my mouth and announced out loud why I’d tried to leave the floodgates would open. “I didn’t want to be in the way,” I muttered in the end, which was true…well, partly true. The other part, the one that’d hurt so deep, was knowing he wanted me out of the way so he and Gabe could get intimate? Yeah, that part I wouldn’t be telling him about.

“In the way of what?”

My gaze traveled between him and Gabe, eyebrows raised. Did he truly not get it?

“No, tell me, what would you be in the way of exactly? Surely, I’m in the way, rather than you?”

What? “That’s crazy. I heard you two talking.”

“You heard me say I was jealous.”

I cautiously nodded.

“And why do you think that was?”

I took in some deep breaths as I tried to work through his question. The drowsiness enveloping me after being rescued became harder and harder to ignore, while black spots instead of the previous white stars now danced in front of my eyes, clouding my normally perfect analytical thinking. “Can we please talk about this later?” I mumbled. “I still don’t feel great, and all I wanna do is get back to your cabin, get warm, and sleep for a week.” I must be more exhausted than I realized, as even I heard the slurring in my voice.

God, I hated this and fervently wished I’d never given in to Gabe and his demand to see Mitch last Saturday. I could have been enjoying myself for the weekend at a cozy ski lodge with friends who actually liked being in my company. Instead, I’m stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere with two people who preferred to be around each other than me. Now I’d also be a huge burden on them until I finally left, when all they wanted was time alone with each other.

Christ, this day sucked and was one more classic example of me screwing things up. Story of my fucking life, again and again and again.

“Leo?” Mitch’s voice broke into my internal rant, and I blinked owlishly at him. They’d finished packing the gear away and were both crouching down in front of me, a worried expression on their faces. I hadn’t realized when they’d gotten so close. “Hey,” he continued, “you drifted off there for a second. Did you bump your head at all during the fall?”

Perhaps I had, as while I now remembered my reasons for leaving, I still didn’t have a clue what happened leading up to the fall. “I’m not sure, why?”

“Because you look awfully gray, and your teeth are chattering.”

Oh, I wondered what the clacking noise had been. Come to think of it, my vision had narrowed to a small spot in front of me, and I felt oddly detached and distant. Plus, I no longer felt so cold anymore, despite my jeans being soaked through and my body still feeling numb.

Mitch placed his hand on my forehead. “Wow, your hand’s hot,” I replied, though my voice sounded garbled like I’d drunk a whole barrel of whiskey in a hurry.

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