Page 70 of Stay With Me

She paused to laugh quietly, feeling embarrassed though she knew he couldn’t hear her. “See, my sister is kind of a goofball. Her relationship with my brother-in-law was this quick, whirlwind, dramatic thing. Like a total love-at-first-sight, sweep-you-off-your-feet kind of situation. So, naturally, she believed the same thing was going to happen to me. And as soon as I told her about you last weekend, she started saying this was, like,itfor me. Like that you were my person.Because of the way we met and sort of hit it off immediately. And she kind of got in my head.”

She trailed off and then paused, laughing again, a bit louder.

“So I thought we were going to like—”

More laughter.

“Get married and have kids and grow old together.”

Her laughter grew hysterical and she patted his arm.

“Isn’t that ridiculous? I haven’t even known you a whole week, and I was thinking you were going to be the love of my life.”

She threw a hand over her face and cackled.

“And now look at us: we’re going to die in this desert.”

She gasped between fits of laughter and clutched her arm closer to her stomach.

“I guess Jenna was right after all. We’re going to spend the rest of our lives together. Right here at the bottom of this canyon. You fell off a cliff and I got bit by a venomous snake and now we’re dying. Isn’t that the most utterly absurd and pathetic thing you’ve ever heard?”

Her laughter subsided and she huffed indignantly.

“I think we both deserved better than this, Nick.”

She grew quiet and returned to focusing on his light breathing.

Well, he’s not dead yet. And neither am I.

Maybe they’d survive. Probably not, but maybe. She was sure crazier things had happened. Like the guy who’d fallen between two boulders in a desert like this and had to ultimately cut off his arm. He’d survived. Maybe they could too.

She interlocked her fingers with his and rested her face on his shoulder again.

“You keep hanging in there. Stay with me. Don’t give up, and I won’t give up either.”

Chapter Eighteen

Nick

The older you get, the more quickly life seems to pass you by. And once you become a parent, this sensation is increased to the nth degree. There’s an old saying, “Don’t blink or you might miss it.” And Nick noticed that he seemed to have blinked a lot.

Blink.

The first blissfully exhausting week of parenthood. He and Sammie gazing in adoration at each other and their baby girl as they spent the majority of the time in bed.

Blink.

One month old. He returned to work. The news declared that Congress had passed new health care and minimum wage regulations that would directly affect small businesses.

Sammie was crying a lot.

Blink.

Three months old. Nick arrived home from work to find Sammie and Ari missing, along with a bunch of their belongings. He tore through the house in a panic and was about to call the police when his phone rang.

“Sammie! What happened? Where are you?”

She was crying again.