Page 86 of The Secrets We Left Behind
I can do this.
Cate stopped, breathing heavily, but not nearly as heavily as Jack, and she knew that if it weren’t so dark, she would have been checking his abdomen; she’d caught him groaning in pain earlier, and although he’d insisted he was fine, she hadn’t believed him.
“How are you doing?” she asked him.
“Fine,” he muttered, his pace increasing. “I’m doing just fine, don’t you worry about me.”
But when she cast her light over him, she could see that his face was wet from the exertion. Something was terribly wrong inside him, she just knew it.
“We don’t have far to go,” Cate said, feeling Elise shiver beside her, wishing she could comfort her friend but knowing that the best thing they could all do was focus on putting one foot in front of the other.
“Please,” Jack murmured. “Go on ahead if you can go faster.”
Every word sounded pained, and a piece of her heart shattered every time she looked at him. She’d wasted so much time being angry with him, when it was something that should have been forgivable, given everything else they’d been through together.
“Don’t try telling me to leave you, because it’s not happening,” she said. “I’m not getting on that boat without you, and that’s final, so we all go at this pace.”
Cate turned her attention to Elise, just as worried about her ability to keep walking as Jack’s.
“Elise,” she whispered, as her friend fell back. “We need to keep going.”
Elise hadn’t just slowed, she’d stopped entirely. She had dropped down low, her arms caught around herself in a little huddle on her haunches, and Cate stopped too, to wrap her arms around her.
“All I want to do is comfort you, but—”
“We need to move,” Elise said woodenly, as if she wasn’t really there. “I know. I just ... just needed to rest. I don’t know if I can keep going.”
Cate refused to cry, knowing she needed to stay strong. She was the trained nurse; she was the one who could lead them to safety. She was the one they were all depending on now, even though Adelaide’s death and Harry being taken hurt her almost as much as Elise. She’d grown to love Addy, and Harry was a good, kind-hearted man.
Much to her relief, Elise rose and started to move slowly.
“You might need to go on ahead,” Jack said, out of breath as he doubled over. “Something’s not right, I can tell.”
Cate didn’t dare look at his wound, not wanting to know how bad it was when they were racing against a clock and there was nothing she could do. “You’re walking whether you like it or not,” she said. “Now come on. We’ve survived the unsurvivable once,you and I, and we’re not giving up now, not with a boat waiting to take us home.”
Her words of encouragement seemed to work, because Jack suddenly made a Herculean effort to right himself and start moving again.
“I should have forgiven you, Jack,” she continued, not caring that Elise was listening. If Jack didn’t make it, she wanted him to know how she truly felt; she didn’t need to live with any more regrets. “I don’t care that you had my photo or that you didn’t tell me about Charlie.” She was panting from the exertion of helping him with every step and whispering at the same time. “Charlie was a good man. He was kind and sweet and so different to my daddy, and that’s why I said yes to marrying him,” she continued. “But when I received that telegram, it was like I’d lost one of my best friends. I didn’t love him the way ...”
She stalled, losing her nerve, not sure whether she could actually say it. But these weren’t normal times; everything was heightened, the likelihood of death so much greater than it had ever been before, and everything left unsaid could end up being left unsaid forever.
“I forgive you, Jack,” she murmured. “I forgive you, and I love you, so you’re going to make it to this boat and hang on long enough to get to a doctor, all right?”
His grunt told her that he’d heard, and tears started to stream down her cheeks as she fought for every footstep, stumbling but refusing to give in to the physical pain. She was exhausted and emotionally wrung out, her legs were burning and her feet hurting, so she could only imagine how hard it was for Jack.
“Those days in hospital, the time I spent caring for you, they were some of the best days of my life, Jack. I’ll never forget all those times you caught my eye or made me smile when everything seemed too much. I’ve always been so scared of truly falling in lovewith someone—my father scarred me for life, but you’ve shown me that I don’t have to be afraid. So believe me when I say that we need to make it to that boat, because I want the chance for us to start over.”
Jack’s fingers found hers, clutching tight as they walked, and when Elise’s hand touched her back, their arms looped around Jack as they helped to support him, she knew her words had touched her friend, too. Her poor, heartbroken friend who now had to face a life without her sister.
“We can do this.” The words hissed out of her. “It’s not so far.”
In truth they had a long way to go, but compared to how far they’d already come, it was nothing.
And she’d been telling the truth before; Charlie had been more of a friend than a lover. His kisses had been warm and reassuring, his touch had been kind, but she knew in her heart that all she’d wanted was someone to trust, someone who wouldn’t hurt her. But Jack made her feel alive, and that was more important than a hidden photo.
“We can do this,” she whispered again, as much for herself as the others.
Hundreds or maybe even thousands of steps later, Elise directed them through some dense trees, and the ground suddenly changed beneath Cate’s feet, became soft.
