I froze.
“Kiersten?” Wes touched my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
I opened my mouth but all that came out was a gasp, and then I started running all over again.
Because the last time I’d talked to both my parents we’d gotten into a fight, an epic fight, about me wanting to go to my first party as a sophomore in high school.
“Kiersten!” Wes called after me, but I kept running focusing on the slap of my shoes against the cement. Left, right, left, right. I needed to get away.
I ran all the way up the huge concrete stairway that led to the dorms until finally I collapsed onto the ground scraping my knee in the process.
“Crap!” Blood trickled down my leg and pooled in my shoe. Tears burned at the back of my throat as I tried to keep myself from hyperventilating.
“Kiersten!” Wes was immediately by my side, must have paced along behind me. He ripped part of my shirt and blotted the scrape alternating between blowing on it and trying to stop the bleeding. “What the hell was that? You scared the shit out of me. In fact, you’re still scaring the shit out of me. What’s wrong?”
I tried to jerk free from his grip, but he was too dang strong. I refused to meet his gaze.
“Talk to me.” Wes’s voice was gentle and coaxing. “I know it was something I said.”
I nodded.
“About parents?”
I nodded again.
“What happened?”
“They’re dead.”
Chapter Seventeen
And the Mr. Insensitive award goes to… Weston Michels. I. Am. An. Ass.
Weston
What was I supposed to say to that? What could I say?
“It was an accident. You can rarely prepare for death, you know?” She shook her head.
Sadly, she wasn’t right in that regard. You could prepare and I knew from firsthand experience that it didn’t make it any easier, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. It wasn’t the time.
“You were close to your parents?”
“As close as you can be in high school.”
“What happened?”
I assumed it was a car crash or something sudden that took them.
“They drowned.”
“What?” I sat down next to her on the concrete. “How?”
“Cave diving.” She sighed. “They were risk takers, unlike me. I was afraid of my own shadow until last year.”
I chuckled and wrapped my arm around her.
“They were in Florida for another one of their diving trips. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I do know they were careful. I never thought about the risks because they were always so safe.” Her voice got really quiet. “I got in a huge fight with both of them over the phone. I wanted to go to a party and they said no. I told them I hated them and didn’t want to ever see them again.”
Shit.
“They died three hours later. Their bodies were recovered miles inside the cave they were exploring. The safety ropes were tattered as if they’d been ripped in half. The police thought that maybe the surf came in sooner than my parents expected, causing the rope to rub against the sharp rocks.”
Kiersten wiped at a few stray tears. “I can’t imagine. It kills me to know that their last moments were spent lost in a dark watery hole. It’s not as if you can go to the surface. It just seems so miserable, and I was powerless to do anything to stop them.”
Risking getting myself slapped or worse, I licked my lips and said, “Kiersten, I think you’re looking at it the wrong way.” I could feel her muscles tense beneath my touch. It was as if I’d just told her I was going to hunt her and I wanted her to run, every single part of her body pulled away, getting ready to bolt.
“Hear me out,” I whispered. “They loved cave diving, right?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was small and weak but at least she was still sitting by me, not slapping or running.
“And they knew the risks involved in it?”
“Of course!”
“Close your eyes.”