Page 48 of My Favorite Bad Decision
He’s joking, but there’s a pang in my chest anyway. Because...yes, I would like that. A lot.
I force a smile. “You saw how I floundered on theeasyclimb, Miller.”
We fall silent after that. We were both joking...but also not joking. This is really coming to an end and neither of us will be able to make it last.
On the drive back, we pass through Arusha. After a week in the mountains, it looks almosttoobusy, too crowded, when it’s just a tiny fraction of New York City. It’s also wildly different. Barefoot children stir up dust as they run past a gas station, kicking a can to each other. A stooped old man, the skin hanging from his bones, walks down a road that has no end in sight. A line of people—men, women, and children—stretches down a block, looking absolutely miserable in the bright sun. They’re waiting to enter a tiny medical clinic, so small I doubt that half the people here can be served in a week, much less a day.
Miller looks at me. “Don’t say it,” I warn him.
“I don’t have to say it,” he replies. “You’re already thinking it.”
He’s right. I am. I always wanted to be a doctor, and if I’d gotten my degree…I could help. Even if I messed up, wouldn’t that be better than situations like the one we’re witnessing here? Because there are children in that line suffering, children who will probably wait all day and never be seen, people who will give up on the line when they desperately need care.
How dare I claim that it’s too much responsibility when the result is unnecessary suffering? I told myself at the time that I was recognizing my own limitations, but really I was just scared and selfish.
God. How could I have been wrong about so many things? Work, Blake...if my father hadn’t sent me on this trip, I would’ve fucked it all up.
“What?” asks Miller as I shake my head.
I laugh. “I just realized I’m going to have to tell my dad he was right. Which absolutely sucks.”
Our bus slows as we enter the gates of the resort. As we climb off, a staff member hands us flutes of rum punch and cool towels. We have definitely put hardship behind us.
I’ve just finished wiping my face when Miller stiffens beside me, staring at the couple moving our way—who are beaming at him as if he’s their favorite person.
“Fuck,” Miller hisses quietly.
“We just had to thank you again for switching,” the woman says, setting her bag down on a marble bench behind her. “The Machame route was amazing, and the money is letting us stay to do a safari instead of rushing home.”
“It was nothing,” Miller says, with a tense smile. “Glad it worked out.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” she insists. “We saved for years to come on this trip, and our plan was to start saving again…now we get to do all of it.”
I wait until they’ve walked away and we’ve each grabbed a second flute of rum punch before I raise a brow at Miller. “Care to explain that?”
He sighs, looking so woefully embarrassed that I almost feel sorry for him. “I was worried about you going up alone,” he admits. “I offered to pay for their trip if they’d switch with me.”
He wanted to make sure someone had my back. He wanted to be the person who had it. And he was. It says more than a thousand of Blake’s proclamations. Because Blake would never have done what Miller did. And I wouldn’t have wanted him to.
I should totally give him shit for saying that I was stalkinghim, but tears spring to my eyes instead. “You paid them to switch, and you came on a longer, much easier route. For me.”
“I enjoyed it, Kit,” he says. “I wouldn’t give up the past eight days for anything.”
I smile at him through my tears. “Yeah, me neither.”
Maddie and Stacy walk toward us. “We’re going into town for dinner tonight. You guys in?”
I should say no. My flight leaves at the crack of dawn, but I don’t want to leave these people yet. Mostly, I don’t want to leave one person.
I look up at Miller, who shrugs as he glances down at me...the ball’s in my court. “Yeah, we’re in,” I tell them.
* * *
I’mstunned by what I see in the mirror when I finally enter my tent. I’d sort of expected to look the same, but…Jesus. My hair is greasy and wild. My face is tan despite all that careful SPF usage. I have a bruise on my forehead—I’m not even sure whatthat’sfrom—and a smear of mud going into my hairline that I hope has only been there today. Despite all the candy, I’ve definitely lost weight. My mother will applaud this, but she’s psychotic. I look skeletal.
My appearance makes it seem even less likely that Miller was about to kiss me today. Was he just stopping me to confirm I was okay? Did I stand there like an idiot, dazed by lust? How humiliating.
I step into the shower. Despite all those wet wipes I used, the water runs brown at my feet, and I canfeelit as the dirt caked on my skin begins to erode away.
