“Was? Did she dump you or something?”
Max shook his head. “I killed her.” Another really long pause from Max and my heart sunk. The guilt my mother told me about was not at all embellished. I could see that Max really believed he had a hand in what had happened to me. Max cleared his throat and in a near monotone voice he finally continued, “Not on purpose, and not by my own hand, but if it weren’t for me she would still be alive and I would still be following her around like a love-struck puppy.” Max’s voice was so full of sorrow I wrapped my arms around him, willing him to feel me touch him, wanting more than anything for him to know that I was right here, I was with him, that I was fine.
Ski could tell he needed to tread lightly. He propped his head up off of the dirt, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” He paused and it was obvious that he wanted to know more, but argued with himself on how he should ask. Finally in a quiet voice, not making eye contact with Max, he asked, “What happened?”
Max shook his head and he hesitated, weighing how much to share with this near stranger. I guess extreme measures offer some form of closeness, or camaraderie, where it’s okay to completely open yourself up. Max looked at Ski and saw that he was waiting for some sort of an answer. I could see Max was reluctant to say anything, but finally broke the silence with, “I’ve never really talked to anyone about it before. I’m not sure if I can…describe it.”
Ski silently encouraged Max to go on – it didn’t look like morbid curiosity. I think Ski truly wanted to help Max, to relieve some of the burden he’d been carrying around. Max finally continued with, “She had just lost a friend of hers. I didn’t like the guy, but that was how Lauren was – always fighting for the underdog, you know? He was murdered right there in front of her. She took it really hard, so I thought if I could get her away from everything, it would do her some good, get her mind off the loss. We decided to go camping for a couple weeks in the mountains. The first day we’d been riding horses up the mountain all day; we were both pretty stiff. We found a campsite and I secured the horses, at least I thought I did. We were setting up the camp and something spooked the horses. One of them broke loose and took off down the mountain. I went after it and left Lauren alone. I was gone maybe twenty minutes. I had just caught the stupid horse and was headed back up the mountain when I heard the most horrific scream. It was Lauren.” He went silent for a minute. “When I close my eyes, I can still hear her screams. I’ll never forget that sound. I let the stupid horse that I had chased down the mountain go and galloped back up. When I got there…”
Max went silent. For at least five minutes he said nothing. Tears were flowing down his face, staining his cheeks and his neck. I tried to comfort him, but he still couldn’t feel my arms around him. I began whispering to him, “I’m okay, I’m really okay.” But just like before no sound came out. I knelt there on the ground wishing there was some way for him to feel me.
Max found his voice again, “I got there and she’d been attacked by a bear. She was…” this time he didn’t finish.
Ski must have sensed that Max couldn’t say anymore, so he prodded, “I’m sorry, man. So she just died right there?”
Max nodded. After a pause he followed, “Technically she didn’t die there, she was ripped to shreds but she was a fighter, her body wouldn’t give up. I check in with her mom every now and again, but there hasn’t been a change in nearly three years – she’s still comatose. Her doctor even told me it was time to move on with my life, that there was no chance she’d ever recover; he was just waiting for her body to shut down.”
Max finally looked at Ski, and the pain looked to be subsiding a little. “I was with her after she got shot and it really didn’t even phase her. She was so close to death one minute and three days later she was fine. I was with her right after her friend was killed – all she wanted to do was catch the murderer – none of that ‘poor little me crap.’ I figured there was no way that some stupid bear could do her in. The screwy part of the whole situation was that there wasn’t any reason for the coma, not medically at least. But I couldn’t watch her waste away anymore. That’s how I ended up here.
Everywhere I looked, all I saw was Lauren. When I closed my eyes, I couldn’t escape her screams. I couldn’t go to work. I just sort of lost a year waiting for her to wake up. After her doctor told me that he was just waiting for her to die, I knew I needed to get away. I couldn’t watch her…I wasn’t able to protect her, and it was my fault it happened in the first place.”
I couldn’t believe Max had carried all this with him. His conversation with Ski gave me a whole new perspective. Max’s voice was much calmer, less emotional when he continued, “I was an inactive reservist in the Navy, had been since my summer after high school. One day I couldn’t take it anymore - I told her goodbye and walked into a Navy recruiting office. I pleaded with the guy to activate me, and get me anywhere away from there. How I got attached to
