Page 100 of The Thinnest Air
“I was in the twenty-eighth cabin,” she says. “He hired a driver, printed off a bunch of maps, and drove to each and every address until he found me. They’re all over the state. Took days.”
“Wow,” I say as my fondness for Harris starts to reignite. Picturing him as some kind of hipster superhero puts a dopey smile on my face. “Who’d have thought Harris could be so valiant?”
“I know, right?” Meredith’s head tilts, and she laughs through her nose. It’s good to see her like this, especially when I was expecting her to be a shell of herself after everything she’s been through. I should’ve known she was resilient. I raised her to be that way, after all. “He’s been really sweet, G. But I kind of miss the other version of him.”
“Where is he, anyway?”
“He went to grab a coffee, I think,” she says. “He’d been trying to call you since yesterday, when he finally found a cell signal.”
“Ronan threw my phone away.” I exhale.
“Did they find him yet?” Meredith reaches for a plastic cup of water on a nearby table.
Pausing, I swallow a deep breath. “They haven’t told you?”
Bringing the straw to her lips, she stops, shaking her head. “Told me what?”
“They shot him outside the house he was keeping me in,” I say carefully. She’s been through so much, and I’ve yet to determine how she feels about him at this point, if she’s resentful, confused, or illogically compassionate. “I guess you told the police he was flying back from Vermont, and they sent a couple of plainclothes agents to tail him from the airport.”
Meredith is silent, her chin tucking against her chest.
“You okay?” I place my hand over hers.
“Yeah,” she says. “Just wrapping my head around all of that.”
“He was a sick man.”
My sister nods. “I know.”
“Greer.” Harris’s voice calls my name from the doorway, where he stands with two cups of coffee. Striding across the room, he hands me one. “They said you were on your way.”
There’s a fullness in my chest, swelling as I lock eyes with him.
“Thank you.” I wrap my hands around the warm Styrofoam, stuck somewhere between wanting to run into his arms or bask in how good it feels to see him again.
“Figured you’d be tired.” Harris studies me. “You doing all right? You’ve been through ... shit, I don’t even know what you’ve been through.” He takes a step closer, reaching toward my face with gentle hesitation before cupping my cheek. “I was so worried about you, Greer. The thought of something happening to you ...”
Harris’s words fade, and his warm palm leaves my cool cheek. He doesn’t want to finish his thought.
“I’m fine,” I say. I’m not sure if I’m fine or what the lasting repercussions of the last couple of days are going to be, but for now, I’m with my sister and we’re both safe, and that means everything’s going to be okay. “Thank you for ... for what you did.” I nod toward my sister. “You saved her life.”
He shrugs, taking a sip. I love his modesty. I love that he doesn’t expect accolades or attention.
“Let’s not make it into a thing, all right? I did what anyone else would do.” Harris steps closer, releasing a hard breath through his nose as his lips press together.
“I don’t know about that,” I say, the corner of my mouth pulling up. It’s as if I’m looking at him in a whole new light. He saved my sister. He saved her because he knew how much she meant to me. He saved her because he’s a good person with a good heart and a good soul.
Ihatethat I doubted him.
And that I doubted myself.
“I meant what I said last week.” His voice is low, soft as a feather.
Resting my palm over his hand, I smile. “I know.”
“You know, do you?” He chuckles, and my gaze lands on the dimple on his left cheek, the one I used to kiss when we first started dating because I thought it was so cute. He called me a “weirdo.” I laughed and told him to get used to it. He told me he’d love my idiosyncrasies if I promised to love his.
“You never stopped,” I say, stating it as if it were an inarguable fact.
