as he did most mornings, he stopped to watch the wonder of the earth waking up. He laughed and drank the rest of his first bottle of water. Pure joy radiated through his every being, and he raised his arms to the sky as if he was conducting the most magnificent symphony in the universe.
And when the moment passed—at least until he could experience it again the following morning—he hunkered down over the bike and let out a whoop as he rocketed down the hill. This was his favorite part of the ride, a series of rolling hills for miles. He pushed himself hard to climb the next hill, noting the fog that had started to creep in with the morning. It wasn’t unusual, but he needed to be more aware of his surroundings. There were blind spots, and the drivers of cars were rarely as attentive as they should be.
He flew down the next hill, and started his next climb back up, noting his heart rate on his Garmin screen. It was higher than normal, but he’d been struggling on the climbs more than usual. He hadn’t thought the ride from the night before had been too strenuous, but he could feel the strain in his muscles as they started to tighten.
He pushed himself harder. Weakness wasn’t acceptable. Life was stressful—the audit and a new baby on the way—but he wouldn’t have it any other way. What was the point of living if you didn’t push everything you did to the limits?
He let his body rest on the way down the next hill, the fog thickening and leaving a layer of moisture on his clothes. He tried to breathe in, to fill his lungs, but his heart was pounding too heavily in his chest. His body ached. The rushing in his ears was so loud he wouldn’t have heard a car if it was right on top of him.
Maybe he was getting sick. Several people in the office had gone home with the flu the week before, and a couple of the riders in his group were no-shows the night before because they’d come down with it as well. It was that time of year.
He decided to reach the peak of the next hill and call Marla to come get him. If he had the flu, pushing his body to exhaustion and dehydrating wasn’t the smart thing to do. He’d go home, get a couple of days’ rest and rehydrate, and then he’d be back to his normal routine feeling better than ever. It was nothing but a little setback. Life couldn’t be all highs without any lows. Just like the hills that were currently kicking his ass.
His feet and legs felt like lead, and he knew he wasn’t going to have the strength to pedal up the next hill. But he tried anyway. The fog was thickening, and the loss of his hearing made him disoriented.
He kept pedaling.
His Garmin screen was fogged over, or maybe his vision was blurry, but he knew his heart was pounding too fast—too hard—and then he felt the pop in his chest. Pain like nothing he’d ever experienced exploded through his body and then everything went numb and cold.
Brett got a quick glimpse of the truck coming up behind him in his mirror, but he didn’t feel the impact as metal met flesh and carbon fiber. He was already dead.
1
There was the kind of cold that had nothing to do with the weather—the kind that seeped into the soul and bones and rested there. A cold that began from the inside and penetrated places that might never be warm again.
My name is J.J. Graves, and I was no stranger to the cold. As a doctor, I knew that shivering was the body’s attempt to try to stay warm. But I’d stopped shivering hours ago and lethargy had set in. I’d thought the lethargy would mean sleep, but I’d only been able to stare at the clock on the bedside table, the red numbers clicking the minutes, and then eventually, hours.
I tried to focus on my body. It was a good way to pass the time and think about things other than the reality that was suffocating me. I knew what depression felt like—I’d been there before—and it was all about pushing through from one moment and into the next. I’d thought those days were long past, but boy, had I been wrong.
It had been almost forty-eight hours since the life I thought Jack