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Dedication

To hope.

Something we could certainly use more of these days.

And to moments.

Let’s never forget them and cherish each one—always.

Playlist

“Babylon”—SZA, featuring Kendrick Lamar

“Sometimes”—H.E.R.

“Missing You”—Blake McGrath

“Take It out on Me”—Jesse Mann

“Leave (Get Out)”—Anne-Marie

“you were good to me”—Jeremy Zucker, Chelsea Cutler

“Runaway”—AURORA

“Alanis’ Interlude”—Halsey, Alanis Morissette

“Finally // beautiful stranger”—Halsey

“Cold”—Chris Stapleton

“August 10”—Khruangbin

Prologue

Emily

Beer, creamer, and leftover Chinese food—the fridge staples, of course.

I grabbed the vanilla-flavored creamer, shaking the plastic bottle wicked hard with both hands—the secret to making it frothy—and poured it over the top of the single cup I’d made. I took a small sip to make sure it was sweet enough for my bestie.

Approved, I thought as I swallowed.

I grabbed a beer as well, popping off the metal top with the corner of the counter, and I walked both drinks into our tiny bathroom, where Whitney was taking a shower.

“Which one?” I asked, leaning my back against the towel rack, holding both options in the air.

She stuck her head out of the curtain, her brown hair in a high knot with soap bubbles all the way up to her ears. “Hmm.”

“Hmm?” I felt my brows practically reach my hairline. “You’re honestly questioning this?”

She laughed, her teeth the same color as the bodywash. “Well, you did bring me options.”

“What kind of friend would I be if I chose for you?”

“Give me both. Your coffee is too good to waste.” She stuck out a sudsy arm, slipping her fingers through the mug’s loop, and immediately took a sip. “God, that’s good.” She placed it next to our shampoo and reached for the beer, also bringing that up to her lips. “And so is that, maybe even better.”

“That’s my girl.”

“Love you hard,” she said and disappeared behind the curtain.

I stood in front of the sink, running my fingers across the sides of my nose to catch the fallen eye shadow. “I’m proud of you for not washing your hair today. You’ve finally allowed the glorious invention of dry shampoo into your life.”

“What in the hell took me so long?”

“I’ve been asking you that same question every morning.” I took out a lip gloss from Whitney’s makeup bag and swiped it over my mouth. “I’d think my nagging would have been enough to convert you.”

As she chuckled into the water, I heard a sound come from her bedroom. “Lady, your phone’s ringing.”

“Will you please grab it for me?”

I put her gloss away and rushed the three steps to her doorway, following the noise to her bed, where her cell was lying on top. I lifted it into my hand, staring at the one word that appeared above the phone number.

I knew my best friend better than anyone in this world. If I told her who was calling, I knew what would happen, and that wasn’t something I wanted for today.

But I also knew what would happen if I sent the call to voice mail, and it would be hours before she heard the message.

It all came down to choices.

And none of them were going to be simple.

Oh, my Whitney, you never make things easy, do you?

Part One

They say every tragedy is met with pain.

But once you survive, why does it still hurt?

One

Caleb

April 15, 2013

Boston was lit in color. Balloons were floating high in the air, T-shirts imprinted with pictures of the runners, posters held by shouting spectators. And as I walked down the sidewalk with my best friend, Joe, his arms were spread wide, his face pointed toward the skyscrapers.

“Patriot’s Day,” he said. “My favorite holiday of the whole goddamn year, and I get to spend it with one of my best buds.”

Just as he finished speaking, someone bumped into him, accidentally spilling beer all over his shoes.

“Still feel the same way?”

“At least it wasn’t puke.”

I laughed. “That’s some positive thinking.”

Patriot’s Day wasn’t just a commemoration of the Battles of Lexington and Concord; it was when visitors from all over the world came to watch the Boston Marathon—an event I wasn’t supposed to attend this year. Instead, I should have been on the other side of the world with Smith, our other best friend, riding an ATV over the sand dunes of Dubai, like the photograph he’d sent yesterday. A trip I’d had to cancel when one of my top clients requested a sit-down for this morning, which they ended up postponing at the last minute.

When I’d called Joe to tell him, he’d convinced me to get drinks. I would have preferred meeting in a much quieter part of town, but he’d wanted to be in the center of the action, watching much of the race.

“Let’s stop in there.” He pointed to a bar I hadn’t been to since college. “We’ll get a beer and then head to the finish line.”

“Wouldn’t you rather find a restaurant? I’m starving.” My stomach grumbled as we passed several. I knew the wait times would be hours long.

“After a beer, we’ll grab food, deal?”

“Deal,” I replied, and I reached for the door, holding it open for him.

He paused in the entryway. “Fuck me, this place is packed.”

“This was your idea,” I reminded him and went toward the bar, finding the end of the chaos, a line that was more than twenty deep.

“You’ve got this?” When I nodded, he added, “I’m going to look for seats.”

“Good luck with that,” I said and took out my phone.

Over seventy-five work e-mails had come in since I’d last checked. I read a few, not having the necessary resources at my disposal to give the right answers, so I exited out and pulled up Instagram. The first photo I came to was of Smith driving a boat across the Arabian Sea, wearing a hat from our alma mater, the sun setting in a rich sky behind him.

“Not even a stool to be found,” Joe said as he rejoined me, still in the same place in line.

I tilted the phone to show him my screen. “Are you surprised?”

“At how busy it is in here or that our boy chartered a boat that you’d give your left nut to be on right now?”

I shook my head as I put my cell away. “I knew I should have booked a flight when my client canceled this morning.”

“Nonsense.” He grabbed my shoulder. “We’re going to turn this day into one of the best you’ve had in a while.”

“How? We can’t even get a fucking beer.”

“Follow me.” He took us back out the front and down several more blocks before bringing us inside one of our most frequented restaurants.

“All right,” I admitted, “it’s already getting better.”

“I thought you’d say that.” He slipped the hostess a hundred-dollar bill, and we were suddenly away from the commotion near the bar and seated at a quiet, private table in the back.

The waitress approached, asking if we wanted our usual drinks.

Once we confirmed, Joe’s phone started to ring. He showed me Smith’s name on the screen before he answered, “Hey, buddy. Things going good?”

While Joe spoke to him, I checked my e-mails again, the number now closer to one fifty. I shot off a text to my assistant, asking her to respond to the more important issues and to update my schedule with the meetings my clients were requesting.

Just as I glanced up, Joe was hanging up with Smith.

“Is he having the best time?” I asked.

“Do you really want to know?”

Before I could reply, the waitress was setting down our beers. “Can I get you your usual lunch order, Mr. Hunt?” she asked me, smiling.

“Please.”

Joe echoed my response, and his phone began to ring.

“Smith again?”

“No,” he said. “It’s my wife.”

“Aren’t you going to pick up?”

He clicked a button to silence the phone and put it in his pocket. “She’ll want me to come home and give her a break from the kids. I’m not looking to have that argument today.”

I took a drink of the beer. “She’s going to leave your ass.”

“You’re probably right, but, Jesus …” He drained half of his IPA. “I put in twenty-two hours at the office this weekend, and this is how I choose to spend my day off. Don’t I deserve a minute without someone needing something from me?”

“I’m the last person who should be giving you marriage advice.” I ran my thumb over the frosty glass, the smoothness like the skin on a woman’s navel. “Before I broke things off with Lisa last week, she said I needed to unplug more and suggested I buy a farmhouse in Western Mass and raise fucking goats and shit.” I held up my beer, letting the waitress know we needed another round. “They all want a slower version of me, one who doesn’t spend fourteen hours a day at the office.” I leaned back in the chair, crossing my arms over my chest. “We both know I’m married to work and wired for speed.”

That was the problem with the women I dated—every one of them had tried to switch my priorities—and that was why none of my relationships had lasted more than six months. They were all warned, going in, that work would always win, but like all the previous ones, Lisa had thought she could change me.

“The only thing you know how to do slow is ribs,” Joe joked.

I groaned as I thought about the racks I’d cooked for the boys last month. “We’re due for another cookout, aren’t we?” I took a bite of the steak sandwich the waitress had delivered with our second round of drinks. “When Smith gets back, I’ll make it happen.”

“Now, that’s something I’m really looking forward to.”

We finished our sandwiches and two more beers, and I picked up the tab before we left the restaurant.

Now that we were an hour deeper into the race, the street was even busier than it had been before, the pedestrians rowdier. With Joe wanting to be near the finish line, we headed in that direction, but within a block, he was showing me his ringing phone, a picture of his wife and kids on the screen.

“Answer it. It could be an emergency,” I told him. “I’ll go get us a spot.”

“How will I find you?”

“Text me,” I said as I left him by the crosswalk, following the crowd down Boylston Street.

The pace was slow, giving me plenty of time to check messages between steps. I responded to several from my assistant before reading the text Smith had just sent. It was a photo of Dubai at night, the lights from the skyscrapers illuminating the sea.

Motherfucker, I thought to myself.

I held my phone high above my head and took a picture of the runners and the mass of people who surrounded me. I attached it to the text and started typing.

Me: Not nearly as good as yours but still not bad.

Smith: I can feel that marathon energy from here. You know, it’s not too late to fly over.

Me: Don’t tempt me.

Smith: Go book a flight for the morning. You’ll get the best of both worlds.

Me: You might be onto something. Let me see what I can do.

As I worked my way through the congestion, I considered Smith’s idea. If I left tomorrow, I’d only lose a few days of the two-week trip we had planned. My assistant expected me to be gone and was now in the process of filling my schedule. I needed to put a stop to that before she got too far.

I pressed several buttons and held the phone to my ear, listening to my assistant say, “Good afternoon, Mr. Hunt.”

“Betsy, can you book me on the earliest flight to Dubai for tomorrow and clear my schedule?” I maneuvered my way toward the edge of the sidewalk to get the best view of the finish line, which was less than fifteen yards away.

“Of course, Mr. Hunt. Is there anything else you need?”

I was so close to the metal barriers that blocked off the street; I could feel the wind from the runners as they passed. The cheering and celebration around me, the international flags waving high in the air, created an energy, like Smith had mentioned in his text. The only time I’d ever felt something similar was when I went skydiving or parasailing.

An adrenaline I could even feel in my fingertips.

“No, Betsy, that will be all—”

My voice cut off when the loudest sound I’d ever heard exploded through my ears. A searing pain shot through my body, silence immediately following before everything turned black.

Two

“Can you tell me your name?” someone said in my ear, the voice like a blanket when I couldn’t stop shivering.

My eyes opened a crack, white flashing like a reel of film over my head.

I blinked.

Waited.

And blinked again.

“I’m Whitney,” the same voice said. “I’m going to do everything I can to help you, but you have to tell me your name.”

My name?

I held my lids open like I was putting in contacts. The white squares were gone, and in their place were the darkest eyes, the color of the afghan my mother had wrapped me in whenever I got sick as a kid.

Afghan brown.

There was more movement, the white squares now above the blanket’s head, words being shouted from both sides of me that weren’t in her voice.

I tried to lift my head, and the pain immediately hit me. A gnawing so severe, a scream came directly from my gut.

“Please listen to me,” the blanket said, silencing me. “I need you to stay still and tell me your name.”

“Caleb,” I croaked, clearing my throat, a burning coming out of nowhere. “Hunt.” I coughed, and there was fire.

The blanket’s fingers squeezed mine, that touch becoming the only thing that didn’t ache. “Caleb, I’m going to ask you some questions. Can you do your best to answer them?”

Something was around my head, stopping me from nodding.

“Yes.” I looked above the brown, realizing the white was the tiles of the ceiling. “Where am I?”

“Mass General,” the blanket said. “I don’t know how much you remember, but there was an explosion at the marathon, and you landed on top of a metal barrier.” The brown didn’t dull, nor did it look away. “I need you to tell me what part of your body hurts.”

I searched. The pain was there, constant, like a neighbor, but every time I tried to knock, I couldn’t find the door. “I don’t know.” I swallowed, and there it was—the reminder, the burning, the intolerable stabbing. “What’s wrong with me?”

“We won’t know until we take X-rays.”

As we went faster, the tiles were almost too blurry to distinguish. I knew my feet weren’t on the ground, that I wasn’t the one doing the running, but it felt like my body was back there—somewhere—and I had this urge to catch up.

Except I couldn’t.

“I can’t feel my toes,” I choked out.

“That’s okay.”

“No …” The scorching in my throat tasted like blood. “I can’t feel my fucking toes!” I went to raise my legs, and a whole new level of agony blasted through me, so strong that I gagged. I spit what was in my mouth and shouted, “Fuck!”

“Just a few more minutes, and the pain will be gone,” the blanket promised.

There was suddenly stillness, blue swishing around me, buzzing coming in and out of my ears.

“Nooo,” I howled, clamping down on her hand when she went to turn her back. “Don’t leave me.”

I needed the blanket tucked around me.

I needed more promises.

“I’m not going anywhere.” The brown looked away and then connected with my eyes again. “Caleb, I’m going to touch your legs. Tell me if you can feel anything, okay?”

I waited.

I tried taking a breath, the taste of blood even more present than before.

“Have you started?” I pleaded. “I don’t feel anything.”

“Don’t worry; you’re doing great,” she said calmly. “I have a pair of scissors in my other hand, and I’m going to release you, so I can cut off your jeans to assess the injuries on your legs.”

Her fingers were gone, and so was the brown, now just the white tiles blinking above me.

I expected the pain to take hold at any second, for a scream to fill my mouth again.

But there was nothing.

Just more blue from the corners of my eyes and coldness as shreds of clothes were taken away.

“What the fuck is happening to me?” I shouted.

The brown returned, the blanket slowly spreading across me, something gentle now pressed against my face. “We have some of the most talented doctors in the world. I promise you’re going to get the best care.”

A sharpness stuck the crook of my arm.

“And when you wake up, we’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with.” The brown came closer, tightening around me. “We couldn’t find a cell phone anywhere in your clothes. Is there someone I can call? Wife? Girlfriend? Parent?”

I reached through the fogginess, grasping at the first thing that came to me. “Hunt Financial.” I swallowed, and more than just spit went down. “Betsy.”

“I’m going to call her right now,” she said, and the brown disappeared, the blanket lifting off me, leaving me shaking.

“Come ba—” I yelled before the blackness took over once again.

“Caleb, honey, we’re here,” I heard in a voice I knew well. “Please open your eyes.”

I wasn’t sure if my mother was repeating my name over and over, but it was echoing against the walls of my head, the sound like a vibration across a still lake. Each time, it softened a little more.

Until she added, “Honey, can you try and wake up for me?”

My throat was extremely sore, my mouth so dry that I could barely part it. My tongue slid through, the weight like cement as it ran across my lips. My eyelids slowly rose, the light blinding me at first. I blinked several times as my mother’s face came into view, concern registering across it.

“Oh, thank God.” Her head dipped for just a second before she said, “Miles, he’s awake,” far too loudly.

My father appeared at my other side. “How are you feeling?” he asked as he sat. “Are you in pain? I’ll call the nurse—”

“Miles, give him a moment to respond, please.”

My mother moved her chair closer, her hand surrounding mine; my skin was uncomfortable, as though it were asleep.

“I—” The dryness was worse now, the words sticky. “I hurt like hell.”

My mother’s other hand was on my face, each stroke feeling like she was picking a scab. “The surgeon said that would happen. He has you on a pain pump.”

Several bags hung on an IV pole near my father, and the machines behind me were making a noise that was now echoing in my mind.

“What surgery?” I coughed, and the pain strangled me. “Fuck!” I froze, waiting for the waves to calm, for the stabbing to stop suffocating me.

“Honey, try to breathe.”

“Those bombing fucking bastards. Look what they did to my son!”

“Miles, this is the last thing he needs right now. You have to calm down.”

“Quiet!” I shouted at them.

When I could handle the burning, my eyes opened, connecting with hers, wishing they were brown like that afghan she’d once made. I didn’t know why that sounded so good, but I wanted it.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” I asked her.

Her chest was moving as though she’d been running. “The surgeon found several fractures in your spinal cord, honey, starting at your thoracic, going all the way to your lumbar.” She turned around, pointing from the middle to her lower back. “In that area that they call T9 to L2, multiple vertebras were crushed.”

The pain made it hard to swallow, like a fucking boulder was lodged and scraping each time I took a breath. “And what does that mean?”

“It means, your spine is being held together by a rod,” my father said. “And so help me God, if I get my hands on those motherfuckers, I’m going to kill—”

“Jesus Christ, Miles,” my mother spit.

The fog was thickening around me, the longer I stared at her. The only thing keeping me present was the fire in my body that hadn’t dulled a bit.

“The surgery was extensive, over ten hours long,” she continued, her voice not the blanket I needed. “You have an immense amount of healing to do, and some of that will take place here, at Mass General.”

I glanced at the end of the bed, my toes sticking up high against the white covering that was over me. I wiggled them the slightest amount, and an electrical current shot up my body like a fucking blowtorch was under my feet.

“Will I be able to walk again?”

Even though the cloudiness was thick, I needed that answer. I needed that word to ring in the wind and hang low across the water.

“Yes, honey, of course.”

“When?”

“Physical therapy will be by tomorrow to get you started on a program.”

I shook my head; she wasn’t hearing me. “When will my life look normal?”

“Miles,” my mom threatened when my father went to answer, her reflexes squeezing my hand even harder. “It’s going to take some time, Caleb. The doctor said every case has different circumstances. It all depends on your pain.”

Based on the amount I was feeling now, it was going to take years.

She waited until my eyes were on her. “You’re only thirty-three, you’re healthy as a horse, and you’re in excellent shape—that’s all going to benefit you.” She smiled, but it only reached her lips. “There’s no doubt in my mind you’re going to bounce back and be stronger than ever.”

She was trying to mask her fear.

Despite the weather in my head, I could see right through it.

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