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They thought they were going to die up there together.
Try as she might, Hunter's persevering optimism could only hold up for so long. Their collective strength could only hold up for so long, dwindling down by the hour like a dying flame. As energy faded from their overexerted limbs and their eyes drooped lower and lower in their starving, dehydrated hazes, they had silently felt their hopes run dry, stranded two thousand feet in the air surrounded by vultures waiting to make them their prey.
The tables had eventually turned on the vultures. The two women were desperate and hungry, sharing with each other what food they could catch. So long as the birds' thrashing didn't knock them off, then it was fine.
They tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about how desperate they had become to be forced to do such a thing.
It was hard to anyway, with how good the meat tasted on empty stomachs.
At least neither had to go out alone.
Until a miracle happened.
It came in the form of distant police sirens, almost too far down to even meet the ear, especially in the dazed state they were in. Then the blessed sound of helicopter choppers came. Too loud, too much, too overwhelming after nothing but wind and caws, but the greatest noise Hunter and Becky had ever heard.
They clung to each other on the way off the tower, guided by people neither woman recognized, but didn't care to so long as it meant touching another surface. One that was safe, one that would bring them down.
They were too dehydrated to cry, but buried themselves in each others' arms nonetheless like they could wail their mixed relief and sorrows despite that. Becky was careful not to irritate Hunter's injured hand, and Hunter did the same for Becky's leg.
They were off.
They were safe.
They were going down.
It didn't feel real. No, it didn't feel real at all.
---
It's odd, how one traumatic event drifted them apart for a whole year, while another made them inseparable. It makes sense though, taking everything into account. When Becky used to wake up in the night screaming and crying for Dan, there was no way for her to have him at her side. There were no taps of one, four, three on her hip, no warm hands to wipe the tears blurring her vision.
Only a phone call that was never going to connect and the same voicemail as always.
The following events would always include a trip to the liqour cabinet or bar. Anything that would take her mind off of the memories, and the fact that he wasn't even there.
So it came as an instinct after Becky woke up tangled in her bedsheets soaked through with sweat to call the number of whose blood stained that nightmare.
Except, something new happened.
There was a click.
And it picked up.
"Becks?" A shaken, quiet but almost frantic voice came from the speaker, and Becky could finally breathe. Could finally process that the sound of her skin brushing against the bedsheets wasn't the deafening roar of wind thousands of the feet in the air. Could finally realize that the pounding heart in her ears wasn't terrifyingly faint. Could finally understand that her trembling hands didn't shake with hunger.
Her mouth felt dry. Not as dry as it had been, but enough so that her tongue felt like sandpaper. She swallowed.
"Becky, are you okay? Please answer me."
Becky sucked in a breath, and finally slipped from her haze, realizing whose number she had dialled. Who was speaking to her on the line.
"Hunter," Becky exhaled, and felt some of the tension melt from her shoulders with it. "I, uh... I'm... sorry, I-"
"Are you okay?" Hunter firmly repeated, seeming to want nothing more than an answer, and Becky could understand that need. Could understand it in the way her hands clutched the phone to herself in a near desperate manner. Becky's breath hitched, trying not to break down right then and there.
"I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay..." she repeated it again and again, more for her own sake than Hunter's. "I- I'm just, uh. I guess I kinda woke up not knowing where I was, is all. Sorry to bother you, I'll get back to-"
"Wait."
Becky paused.
"I... haven't been able to sleep too well since you-know-what. Didn't even try tonight. It's just too..." Hunter trailed off quietly, uncharacteristically hesitant for the bravest girl Becky had ever met. That bravery had gotten them far, and Becky is a thousand times grateful for it.
She knows she probably should feel bitter that Hunter had been the one to lead them into that situation to begin with, but she can't find it in herself to, when they had both survived the unforgettable consequences of it side by side.
Side by side.
Becky understood.
"Unsafe. Alone," she muttered, finishing Hunter's sentence. Hunter responded with a sad, quiet hum of her own.
"You know, I uh. I rolled off my bed one night I was sleeping. It must've only taken half a second for me to hit the floor, but it felt like my heart had just stopped. I went cold all over. All I could think was that we must've both fallen asleep by accident and I had rolled off the edge." While Hunter spoke in that painfully unsure voice of hers, Becky quietly rose from her bed and started slowly walking out the bedroom without even thinking about it. "It took me a minute to realize I had even landed once I was on the floor. Took me even longer to realize I was alone, at home."
"Doesn't feel real, does it?" Becky asked, shuffling over to the living room. She walked straight past the liqour, not even glancing at it in her beeline to the front door.
"No, it doesn't. It was, ah, probably the worst panic attack I've had since..." Hunter stuttered to a stop, but Becky already knew what she was gonna say, slowly placing her phone down on the little table next to the door.
Since Dan died.
That was another odd thing. It was yet to click in Becky's mind what she had learned up on that tower, Hunter's past betrayal and her Dan's crushing infidelity. The information was yet to settle, blocked by all the trauma surrounding it.
It hurt knowing that Hunter was the one to end it. It hurt knowing that Dan proposed to Becky, knowing full well that he'd still end up finding himself in Hunter's bed.
She was angry.
She was upset.
She wanted to see Hunter and understand that they were both truly alive.
It was a complicated mess of boiled over emotions, with nothing to latch onto but that desperate need to be in Hunter's immediate vicinity. Becky chuckled weakly.
"This is all kinds of fucked up, isn't it? Everything. All of it. It's all bullshit," she ranted with a shaky voice that spoke of unshed tears. "We need therapists. Right?"
"I- I have one actually," Hunter stammered out in surprise. "Do you not? Have you not gotten any therapy after what happened? Not even since Nick died?"
Becky paused while trying to jam her socked foot into a boot at the doorway. "Uh."
She had been given options.
She hadn't chosen any of them.
"Becky, you have got to see someone-"
"I'll get one, I'll get one. Don't worry about it." Becky interrupted, finally getting both boots on past her incessant trembles. "I'm the one who brought it up anyway, God knows I need something at this point."
"Good," Hunter spoke firmly. There was a moment where neither woman said anything, unsure of what to say now that emotions were starting to settle. Becky reached back for her phone but stopped when Hunter started speaking again.
"Becks, I... I can barely sleep anymore. And I get the impression you can't either, so why don't you come here? Sleep in my bed? Or I can head to your place if that's easier for you. I don't want to be overstepping here, but I think we might both need this and I'm not gonna hang up knowing I didn't at least ask."
Becky's hand twitched above the phone, her brows furrowed in confusion. Go to Hunter's place? Was she not already doing that? The realization that no plan of the sort had been made prior hit her like a ton of bricks, and her eyes widened, mouth opening and closing for a second. "Oh. Oh, I... gonna be honest here, I was already getting ready to go there. I forgot to ask you, kinda just felt like... um... um, yeah. Yeah, I think we both need this too."
Hunter abruptly started laughing, a bright, relieved sound on the other end. Becky cracked a smile, maybe just a little happy to hear her laugh again. "You're really wasting no time! Come on, come on. Hurry up, I want to see you," the woman eagerly spoke.
Becky picked the phone back up with one hand and placed her other on the lock, making quick work to twist it into the unlocked position and drop her hand down onto the doorknob. With another twist, she pulled the knob back to open the door wide and was met with a gust of cold wind from the late night outside.
She shivered for more reasons than one, but quickly recovered with a dry swallow and stepped out onto the doormat outside.
"I'll be there soon."
The words love you almost slipped out alongside it, as natural as it could come to her own friend.
But they didn't.
It made her chest hurt.
---
When the helicopter had landed that day, bringing both of their feet to the ground, they couldn't let go of each other. It wasn't until Becky caught sight of her horrified father running towards them that she found the will to separate from Hunter's side, likely to the relief of the paramedics trying to treat their injuries at the time.
She learned later that Hunter had broken the bones in her hand very badly. She had been brave enough to let on like it was nothing, and Becky had almost forgotten about it towards the end of things.
Had Hunter even made a sound of pain? How bad must it have hurt while she spouted hope and confidence that it would be okay, whatever kept Becky calm and distracted? How did she not even notice how bad it was?
They had drifted apart again. While Hunter spent a little longer at the hospital, and Becky briefly spent the following restless nights at her dad's house before returning home, they hardly spoke a word to each other. Sometimes, they called. But it was always barely for long, and the gaps between talking felt like years.
Really though, it must've only been a few weeks.
But it was different this time. The last time they drifted apart, it was through their own griefs and sorrows for a man they'd never have back. There was no need for each other. Not a desperate one, at least. Not like the one they both held for Dan, one grief bottled up in secret while the other found refuge in bottles.
This time, things were different. All they could think of was each other in their time apart. In the nights neither could sleep, stiff and still as a statue with the fear of moving off that edge without the other there to watch them even more so. It didn't feel safe to sleep.
It didn't feel real.
It was too hard to be alone when it didn't feel real.
After Becky had climbed into Hunter's bed and drifted off beside her, it was like a weight had been lifted off each of their shoulders. The constant blaring alarm in their minds screaming of danger had gone blissfully quiet, appeased by the company.
Becky tried not to think about how this was her first time sleeping in bed with someone since her husband died.
She tried not to think about how Hunter might even be able to say the same. It probably wasn't even true, what with how many men have likely thrown themselves at Hunter's feet in the time since Becky asked her to be her bridesmaid.
She was beautiful, after all.
Becky's eyes opened halfway in the barely lit room to lazily study Hunter's features and the long blonde hair that spilled out onto the pillow.
Beautiful.
And then the bitter thought slipped through, Dan must've thought so too.
Becky involuntarily scowled and closed her eyes once more.
She inched herself even closer.
---
After the first night, they didn't stop.
That sense of peace was all they could've hoped for. There was no reason to let go of that, not yet at least.
Every night, Becky would crawl into Hunter's bed even closer than the night before. And every morning, they would wake up tangled together moments before Becky took her leave.
There was always something lonely in Hunter's eyes when Becky said her last goodbyes at the door. They kept that up until one day, there was a storm. Droplets of rain poured down onto the window relentlessly while harsh winds bellowed through the streets outside.
"Don't be stubborn, just stay. I'm not letting you catch a cold out there," Hunter had said, leaned against the wall with her arms crossed and a raised brow.
Please don't go. The winds remind me of the tower, and I don't want to be alone. I know you hear it too, she had meant.
"Fine. Just this once, okay?" Becky had responded, slowly turning away from the front door.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, she had meant.
When the storm finally passed and the winds outside eased down into nothing, neither spoke a word of leaving.
---
"I'm gonna go climbing again."
It was so unexpected in the peaceful silence of the living room that Becky had to take a moment to process Hunter's words. But when they finally clicked, she froze.
"What?" Becky breathed, turning around in the armchair she had been sat reading in and furrowing her brows in confusion like she had somehow misunderstood. She had been staying at Hunter's house long enough for the other's once broken hand to make a full recovery, but she had never expected her to bounce back so soon after. Hadn't expected her to bounce back ever.
Heaven knows Becky wasn't going to.
"Nothing big, it's rather small actually. There's gonna be a lot of people there climbing as well. Kids even. It's a group climb with supervision. Baby steps, you know?" Hunter said with an unreadable expression, eyes seemingly searching Becky's own. Slowly, Beckly lowered her book onto the table. Hunter's voice turned more unsure as she continued on, yet there was a determined spark in her eyes that Becky had always known her for, "I was terrified to climb again after what happened to Dan, but I took baby steps, and eventually I felt alright again."
Hunter broke eye contact for a moment, glancing away before looking back to Becky with a certain unspeakable sorrow in her gaze.
"I want to feel alright again, Becks. This is what I'm meant for. You know this."
Becky, in a moment of frustration brought on by her intense concern, almost responded with, and look where those baby steps got you. She didn't though. It felt wrong. Out of all people, Hunter would've understood where that got her. She wasn't stupid. Crazy, sure. But not stupid. She was never going to put herself in that situation ever again.
When Becky next spoke, it felt almost like a defeat, despite there being no battle to begin with. "When are you leaving?" Hunter was right. Becky knew of her incessant longing for the things that got her heart pumping. She wouldn't fight her on this, but she could make things easier on the both of them.
"In a couple minutes."
That caught Becky by surprise. "N... now?" She stammered.
"Yeah."
And there it is again, that searching look and a little frown. It's silent for a moment, neither of the two speaking. And it was then that Becky realized what was happening. Hunter was silently asking her if she wanted to go with her. She had left an opening for Becky to make that request, not wanting to directly ask it herself after what happened last time.
What happened. What an underwhelming way to describe the worst days of their lives.
Becky's hands twitched around the book.
She didn't want to. The thought of even the smallest cliffside made her stomach churn. She really didn't want to, and she knew Hunter wouldn't push this one on her.
Instead of getting up to join her, she quietly asked in an unspoken refusal, "when should I expect you home by?"
She didn't point out how a little bit of tension bled out from Hunter's shoulders at that. Becky frowned, then realized that a part of Hunter must've wanted to do this alone. She was a reminder, and it was likely a comfort for Hunter knowing someone knew where she was going and could call for help if something went awry. If Hunter was gone for just a little too long.
Maybe this was how it was meant to be now.
Hunter could be the daring YouTube and Instagram star DangerD she was meant to be, while Becky happily played safety net back at home.
Housewife, Becky joked to herself. It was dry, what with the humourless discussion she was in.
"By 6pm," Hunter swiftly answered, all uncertainty lost.
"Alright. You'll... you'll call me when you get there?"
"Right away."
"And when you're done?"
"You won't be able to stop me from calling you, I'll be gushing over how much fun I had."
She doesn't realize until Hunter's already walked out the door that she had called Hunter's house home.
She doesn't realize until even later that Hunter hadn't bothered correcting her. Hadn't even acted like anything was out of the ordinary. And perhaps, nothing was.
Perhaps, this was how it was meant to be now.
---
Hunter called back once the climb had ended and she was back on stable ground. To anyone else, she would've sounded fine. Maybe a little breathless, but overall fine.
"Yeah! It was great. A little spooky, but it's nice to be back, you know?"
Becky knew better.
Becky could hear the faint wobble in her voice, the barely-there stuffiness that Hunter tried to hide, and almost succeeded in. Hunter was so, so brave, and Becky fiercely admired that. But there was no bravery in the world strong enough to prevent a devestating panic attack after climbing for the first time since their shared disaster. Becky's heart ached the longer Hunter rambled on, putting effort into concealing the stress and horror that edged her words.
The fact that Hunter hadn't even backed out though, had gone through with the climb all because she wanted to relearn what it meant to feel alright again...
She was truly incredible.
"Come home. You sound tired, and I miss you," she softly told, the tight-knit threads of her heart unravelling right then and there to reveal the warm, golden glow of pride and deep affection within.
I love you, she didn't.