He still wasn’t conscious when everyone else made it. Five hours after that, he was still out. The doctor said we just had to wait. Landry had sustained a blow to the head that had caused a minor concussion. He was also banged up and bruised and suffering from mild hypothermia and dehydration. His physical injuries, all in all, were not bad; they would heal. What had gone on in the cabin, the psychological trauma, was harder to gauge. “He’s going to hate me,” I told Conrad. “He’s going to think I should have fought him and made him go home with me. He’ll never forgive me.” Conrad looked at me like I was insane. “There’s no way.” But he didn’t know Landry. The nurse told me that he had been yelling and screaming at me, not for me. He had been enraged that I was not the one to find him. It confirmed my very worst fears. My life, on the cusp of beginning, had just ended, because the man I loved hated me. As I stood outside his room, I let my head hit the wall hard.
