foolhardy now. Ordinarily, JJ was nothing if not careful.
Unlike Max. Max was a carnival of carelessness. Suddenly the jokes Mom and her late father would make, like, “It’s a wonder Max hasn’t gotten himself killed yet,” weren’t so funny. A wave of concern for her younger brother waged war with anger over having to deal with another Max-induced calamity. She leaned her head against the aircraft’s cool glass in an effort to calm her roiling stomach.
“Are you going to be okay?” Everything about Alex had shifted in the past hour. He’d lost the casual air, that look of having all the time in the world that had first drawn her to his silhouette as he sat on the dock in the moonlight. Now, even over the chopping of the helicopter blades, his voice was clipped and tight. The unmistakable tone of someone trying to manage a crisis.
“I doubt it.” She wasn’t going to give Mr. Adventure Gear the satisfaction of an “I’ll be fine.” Nothing about this was going to be fine, at least not anytime soon. A man’s mother isn’t hauled in from out of state for small injuries. Damaged spinal cords didn’t heal completely, if ever. She looked at him and leaned in. “Tell me what you know.”
“There’s not much to know just yet.”
Standard first-responder jargon. “Tell me all the stuff you haven’t told me yet. I’m not going to go to pieces.” Alex’s eyes told her he feared just that. Other people probably would in this situation. Only she wasn’t other people. “Look,” she tried again, although shouting over the helicopter noise didn’t exactly make for easy chatting. “I’d feel better with more facts.” And less coddling, she added silently.
Alex raked his fingers through his hair. “They were rappelling down the side of a cliff. Darkness, bats, all kinds of good television. Evidently you earned bonus points if you went first because no one knew what was at the bottom, and Max jumped at the chance to increase his lead. He’d been the clear front-runner all week.”
“I had no idea, but then again, how could I? You don’t allow me any communication with Max.” Technically, it was the show that didn’t allow communication—Max had shown her the pile of “do not disclose” statements he’d had to sign before the car had come to pick him up. She knew it wasn’t fair to blame Alex for what WWW had done, but the panic was yelling accusations in the back of her brain she didn’t have the energy to fight. “I didn’t even know he was in the state park...so close.”
“You weren’t supposed to know. The only reason I knew was because it was my job to make sure equipment got there. I’m not even sure Max knew he was only an hour from home. They do a good job of isolating the set.”
He was skirting the issue. “So what happened?”
“He fell. We think he may have swatted a bat and taken his hand off the break strand—I don’t know the details yet, really—but he swung far to one side and hit the platform where the camera crew was.” She watched Alex pause for a moment, crafting his next words. “His back struck the metal scaffolding.”
“Was he wearing safety gear?” Max was in the habit of skipping such equipment. In the week before he left, as he was teaching her how to rent the kayaks and canoes he offered alongside cabin and motorboat rentals, she watched him give a safety lesson five times a day to customers, then completely disregard all of it when he went out himself.
“Yes, he was. The show required it. I don’t think I’ve heard mention of any head injuries, although he wasn’t conscious when they lifted him. I do know he...hit...pretty hard. I’ll check my phone again when we land but I don’t think they really have a lot of information. I don’t want to tell you something I can’t be sure is true.”
“Yeah.” JJ fought the gruesome image of Max’s limp body being pulled from the rigging. She kept reminding herself he was still alive. But how close to death and for how long?
“Hey.” Alex’s hand landed softly on her shoulder. “I’m really sorry this happened. I’m praying for Max.”
“Sure.” The past hour’s revelations were ambushing her composure, stealing her sense of control when she needed it most. She had been just as guilty of not divulging personal information during their long dock conversations as Alex had been, but somehow it all felt like hiding to her now. Her head knew Alex hadn’t deliberately hidden his connection with WWW any more than she’d deliberately hidden her combat tour, but her gut felt cheated. Lied to, deceived, blindsided.
“They texted me just before we took off to say Max was going into surgery. You won’t be able to see him when we get there, but you should be able to when he wakes up.” He pulled out his phone to scroll down and reread the message, then looked up at her, his face cast in orange by the sunrise in front of them. “Although they are going to keep him under heavy sedation for the next twenty-four hours.”
“A medically induced coma.” JJ wasn’t a doctor, but she’d been near enough medic units to know that didn’t call for a lot of optimism.
“They didn’t use those words, but I’d guess yes.” She watched him choose to share the next fact, able to read the reluctance on his face. “The spinal cord injury is far enough up that they are worried about the use of his arms. I want you to believe me, JJ, when I say we are working with the studio to bring the very best people in on this. He’ll have the best care available—I promise you that.”
She couldn’t find much comfort in that. In Afghanistan, she’d seen burn victims given “the very best care available.” It only meant their lives were ten percent less excruciating. That didn’t seem like much of an advantage.
Alex checked his watch. “We should be there in twenty minutes.”
Her mind turned back to the secrets he had kept from her. Now all of his upscale toys made sense. His shoes were top of the line; his leather bag looked like it had cost more than her first car. It was logical that he’d own the best of his store’s merchandise, but it suddenly filled her with resentment. She was finding out something new about Alex Cushman every minute, and that didn’t feel good at all. “But you don’t work for WWW. Why are you here and not them?”
That seemed to catch him off guard. He thought for a moment before answering. “Because it was the right thing to do. I was nearby and I knew you. I didn’t think you should hear this news from a stranger.”
The irony of his words struck them both at the same time. He was a stranger. She knew Alex—she’d been startled, almost frightened by how familiar he felt out there on the dock—but she didn’t know him.
“I’m not a stranger, JJ.” He’d sensed what she was thinking. “I’m so, so sorry this happened but I’m glad I have the chance to be here to help you and your family.”
Corporate sorry—the “don’t sue me” kind of sorry—wasn’t anything close to the kind of sorry that would make up for the impact this would have on Max’s life. Even if he survived his injuries, he’d be dealing with the consequences for months. Maybe even years. People didn’t just get up and walk away from spinal cord injuries. Max’s life as he knew it might very well be over. “Sorry” didn’t come close to covering that.
Alex grabbed her hand. “Hey, I know you’re upset. You have every right to be. But please don’t cast me as the enemy right now. I’m here and I want to help and I’m going to help. I’ll make sure Adventure Gear and WWW take responsibility for whatever happened and make it right. I want you to believe that I’m not just spouting some company line here. I truly do care about what happens to you and your
