Page 39 of My Favorite Bad Decision
I hated how upset Maren was, but I was sad too and couldn’t say it aloud.
Sad, and also...guilty.Whywas I so guilty? Did I really believe some dumb argument in the kitchen had driven Miller off? Of course not. I’d said far worse things to him early on.
No, I just let myself believe that’s what it was because the truth—oh God?—
The truth was that I’d never wanted him gone for her sake. I wanted him gone because I couldn’t stand not having him for myself.
I stumble as I realize it fully for the first time. Yes, I’d suspected pieces of this, but I’d pushed them down, further and further, whenever they threatened to make themselves known.
I was crazy about him from the moment he walked into my mother’s dining room and I went on the attack, the way I always did with my mother’s awful boyfriends, but for entirely different reasons.
I swallow hard, plowing forward in the darkness, but suddenly the steps take more effort. I’m not the savior I thought I was. I’m a selfish asshole who wanted what my sweet sister had so much that I chose to drive him away.
Gideon shouts at us to take a break. I look at the little I can find of Miller’s face beneath the balaclava he’s wearing, and he looks at me. Ten years Maren has spent quietly wanting this man, and I’ve been wanting him too. And I’d really like to go back to repressing this information, but I’m not sure I can.
He reaches into his bag and breaks off a piece of chocolate, then pulls down my balaclava and places it between my lips.
It’s hotter and more intimate than a single moment I’ve ever spent with Blake. He pulls my balaclava back up and I grin. “’Ank you,” I say, chewing. “I can offer you a grain-free, sugar-free protein bar in exchange.”
“We’re not trading, Kitten,” he says, but his smile is slight. “I brought it all for you.”
Those words could mean nothing, but they hit me hard. Blake and I trade. If one of us gets something, the other gives something. Miller is different. Miller doesn’t want to take a thing from me. He just wants to provide. He wants to comfort me when I’m sad, feed me chocolate to make me smile, share his phone so that I’m entertained, stay by my side so I don’t fall.
He’d have been the perfect husband for Maren, and I didn’t want her to have him. Now, neither of us gets him.
And what a goddamn shame that is, because men like Miller are a once in a lifetime.
Just after five, the sky finally begins to lighten. At first it’s black with just a streak of orange along the horizon and then slowly those rays spread, and I discover we are surrounded by ice: a glacier on one side, ice-encrusted trees sweeping below us to the other, and frozen peaks directly ahead.
This would be an amazing place to leave the ashes. Ishouldleave them here. I have no idea why I can’t do it.
“Wow,” I whisper, and Miller grins at me over his shoulder, reaching out for just a moment to grab my gloved hand and give it a squeeze. My heart squeezes right along with the motion. There is no one alive that I would rather be sharing this experience with than him. I take a deep breath of icy air and for a single moment I imagine going through life by Miller’s side. Going through life with someone I trust implicitly, someone I don’t want to be away from.
After another hour, the summit comes into view, marked by a wooden sign:
CONGRATULATIONS!
YOU ARE NOW AT
UHURU PEAK, TANZANIA
AFRICA’S HIGHEST POINT
WORLD’S HIGHEST FREE-STANDING MOUNTAIN
We can’t quite get up there since another group is taking pictures, but we’re cheering as if we’ve made it. I turn to Miller and he pulls me against him, his rough beard scratching my cheek as he presses a kiss there. His breath is warm against my ear; his body is solid and reassuring against mine. It’s possibly the best hug I’ve ever received. I could die happily, just like this.
“Selfie,” he says, pulling out his phone, “to mark the trip where you stopped hating me.”
I brush away tears that I can’t even explain to myself. “I’ll probably start hating you again once we reach a normal altitude.”
He laughs and presses one last kiss to my cheek. “I sort of hope not, Kitten.”
When he’s done, I rip off one of my gloves and throw it in the snow, then reach into the pocket of my pants for my phone. “Stand over there and I’ll get a picture of you,” I direct him.
His answering grin is almost bashful, the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I wish I could capture it inside me and hold it forever. I get the phone set up and fix the exposure to capture the light. He smiles, I click, and it’s absolutely perfect—a photo I’ll never show my sister and will probably never show anyone because I suspect it says too much about me that I took it and will also say too much about me that Ikeptit.
I reach for my glove…just as a gust of wind whips it hurtling over the side of the glacier.
