It hit me like a ton of bricks how much I’d taken the past couple of months for granted. At first, I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of failure. Then I was consumed by job hunting. Even now that I had started enjoying myself more, it still felt fake—like a summer vacation destined to end too soon. It made it difficult to be one hundred percent present.

Before I could dwell on it anymore, Mattie came flying through the entrance to the lodge. Her eyes searched the room in a panic before they landed on me.

I raced to her, dread crashing into me as I took in her rattled expression.

“Mattie? What’s wrong?”

She waved for me to follow her. “You need to come now. There’s been an accident.”

My tears had dried, leaving streaks along my cheeks by the time I was allowed to see him. They’d done an MRI and were adamant that only family could visit.

Giles had called me Oliver’s girlfriend and insisted I be let through. It made me sad to think that would be the only time I’d be called Oliver’s girlfriend by anyone.

The nurses hadn’t seemed particularly sympathetic to my situation, but they eventually ushered me out of the waiting room. The steady beeping of machines and the quiet murmur of families huddled in rooms filled the hallway as I followed her. We eventually turned right, and she gestured toward a door left slightly ajar.

I gasped when I saw him, hooked up to a few machines and a large stitched-up gash along his hairline.

He was still smiling. Of course he was. It was Oliver.

“Hey, fancy meeting you here,” he said, far too cheerily.

Which, of course, caused me to immediately burst into tears.

His smile faltered. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Come here.” He sat up and patted the hospital bed next to him.

“You really scared me,” I choked out, joining him on the cramped bed.

“I didn’t mean to.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. It wasn’t lost on me that I should be the one comforting him right now, and not the other way around.

I leaned back to examine the gnarly gash on his forehead. “Why weren’t you wearing a helmet?” I demanded, feeling irrationally irritated that he could be so irresponsible. This wasn’t like him. He might prefer his sports more on the extreme side, but I’d never known him not to take the proper precautions.

“I was,” he insisted, but looked down sheepishly when I leveled him with a glare. “I mean, I forgot to strap it, but it was technically on.”

“How could you forget to strap it? You’re always doing crazy shit like this. You know how important a helmet is.”

His grin turned goofy as he tilted his head to examine me. “You’re really lecturing me right now?”

“Yes!” I got up and circled his hospital bed, waving my arms in the air like a madwoman. “You’re about to go teach a whitewater rafting course. You can’t do shit like forget to strap a helmet. What is wrong with you? That’s so dangerous. Ugh, I’m so mad I can’t even think straight.”