Kason returned to work this past week, leaving me with too much time to spare. Days are long and filled with agonizing dilemma. I try so hard to not get weighed down in the stress, but I can’t deny the direction in which my heart is swaying.
I’ve been trying to keep myself occupied, but no matter how many runs I go on or how many movies I watch, it’s always there in the back of my mind—the unyielding question of what am I going to do.
Although, I feel a need to slow everything down, with Kason, it’s near impossible. There hasn’t been an evening that we haven’t seen each other after he gets off work. And at the end of the night, when we’re alone in our separate beds, we find ourselves texting and eventually calling each other just to stretch the hours so we can stay connected a little longer.
No matter how good and alive I feel, guilt is continually brewing beneath the surface, spilling over every time I talk to Micah. Perfect, loving, unfailing Micah. I feel like a wretch no matter how many times I tell myself I’m not. Truth is the truth, and I can’t talk myself out of that fact. The fact that I’m doing this all wrong.
I need this time, though. Time to examine my heart and to figure out what the right thing to do is. To explore if there is something greater and deeper with Kason. Am I making the right decision by marrying Micah? Which path am I meant to follow? Or is there a third path? One I’ve yet to navigate? Should I step out and be on my own to truly know what it is I want?
There are a million questions and a million reasons why, storming through me day in and day out. I haven’t mentioned any of this to my mom since our last conversation, but she knows how much time Kason and I have been spending together lately. She doesn’t say a word of opinion to me. So, when I toss my sunscreen into my bag and head downstairs, she doesn’t bat an eye when she asks where I’m going and I tell her, “Kason and I are going kayaking at Weedon Island.”
“That sounds fun. Whose idea was that?”
I set my backpack onto the kitchen counter and open the fridge to grab a couple of bottles of water. “His.” I toss the waters into my bag. “The past couple of days have been hard on him with losing his mom and everything, so I suggested getting out and doing something fun this weekend. This is what he came up with.”
“I really wish he would take a little more time off from work, but he insisted he was ready to come back,” she tells me as she flips through a magazine. “He’s been very quiet around the office, but maybe getting out and having a little fun will help.”
The front door opens, and Kason comes walking in, wearing board shorts and a tank. “You ready?”
I zip my bag and let him grab it for me. “I think so.”
He slings it over his shoulder, and I give my mother a hug before we head out.
“You know I’ve never done this before, right?” I tell him as we pull onto Bayshore Boulevard to make our way over to the Gandy Bridge.
“Seriously? You’ve lived in Florida how many years and you’ve never kayaked?”
“I mean, I’ve gone kayaking, just never through mangroves.”
He reaches up and hits the button to open the sunroof before turning up the music, telling me, “You’re going to love it.”
I smile, so relieved to no longer see the broodiness he’s been carrying around the past couple of days. When we hit the bridge, I fill my lungs with the salt from the water and drop my sunglasses over my eyes. The sun coats my shoulders in its heat through the open roof, igniting embers of happiness. I can’t help myself from staring at Kason as I slyly peer his way behind my dark lenses. He grips the wheel with one hand, and my eyes trail up the length of his defined arm to the knotted muscle of his broad shoulder. I feel like a schoolgirl spying on her crush, admiring the set of his jaw and the scruff that covers it. A smile threatens to expose me, and I quickly bite my cheek.
Then, out of nowhere, a smirk appears on his lips when he teases, “You like what you see?”
I’m totally busted but unwilling to give in to his cockiness. “What are you talking about?”
“Your eyes are burning holes in me.”
I reach out and push against his shoulder. “No they aren’t.”
He chuckles.
“You’re so full of yourself.”
He shakes his head. “Whatever you say, but you’re the one with a history of spying on me.”
“I should’ve never told you that.”
Before I know it, we’re pulling in and parking the car. We hop out of the SUV and with our backpacks on our shoulders, we head over to the launch pad where our tandem kayak is waiting on us. Kason helps me in, and I situate myself in the front seat while he settles into the back. One of the guys that works here hands over a trail map, and once we’re ready, we grab our paddles and head out.
The water is smooth and glassy as we make our way over to the preserve. Kason steers us as I keep an even paddle.
“Have you kayaked here before?”
“A couple of times, but it’s been a while,” he says from behind me before adding with humor, “Never with this impressive view, though.”
I shoot him a look from over my shoulder, and he winks.
Rolling my eyes, I turn back around and continue paddling, purposely taking one dig too deep and splashing him with water. Next thing I know, his wet tank comes flying over my head and lands on my legs.
“Dig left,” he says. “You see that opening in the bushes?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s where we’re going.”
Looking around, there’s no one else but us out here in this area. Aside from a few seagulls squawking and the splashing of water from our paddles, the air is silent and peaceful, but heavy with humidity. A bead of sweat trickles from my scalp and down my neck, but as soon as we glide under the canopy of the mangroves, the sun no longer beats down on me.
“This is amazing,” I say in awe as I tuck the paddle along the side of the kayak and let him take over.
He steers us slowly through the dense thickets of tangled roots. It surrounds, closing around us like a tunnel.
“Relaxing, isn’t it?”
“It really is,” I tell him, but then I make the mistake of tilting my head back and looking at the branches that hang only a few feet above my head. My eyes widen in sheer horror, and I swear to god, every bone in my body locks in place when I see hundreds of tiny black crabs crawling everywhere!
“Oh my god!” I screech in utter terror as I scramble in my seat to get as low as possible, rocking the kayak with my clumsy movements.
“What happened?”
“Kason, paddle fast! I want out of here!” My words come at rapid-fire pace as I freak out.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“There are crabs all over the place!” I almost jump out of my skin when we pass under a low-hanging branch covered in these frightening critters. I throw the kayak off balance, and it splashes in the water, getting my legs wet. I panic, swatting at myself, thinking there are crabs on me.
“You’ve got to calm down, babe. They won’t hurt you.”
“I’m not kidding, Kason,” I snap, my piercing voice echoing from all around. “Get us out of here as fast as you can!”
“We’ve got four miles of this shit.”
“Oh my god,” I shriek as my heart pounds wildly in my chest. “I’m going to die.” I cover my face with my hands as I continue to thrash around and shrill out in terror, but I grow agitated when Kason’s laughter pierces through my fear. “Are you laughing at me?”
“You’re freaking out over nothing.”
“It isn’t nothing! This is a death chamber!”
“They’re tiny little crabs,” he says, as if he were talking about lollipops.
“Millions of them!” Every drop of water on my skin, every hair on my body, I swear it’s a crab, and I can’t stop lurching around and frantically brushing my hands all over myself. “I’m not kidding, Kason! Go faster!”
He continues to laugh. “You look crazy right now.”
“I don’t care! This is not fun.”
“Just close your eyes, there’s an opening right ahead,” he tells me through his hysterical laughter, and when we make it out alive and into a small open space of water, my eyes dart around to find we’re trapped.
“There’s no opening.”
“I told you, we’ve got four miles of this,” he says, and I feel like crying. “We either keep going or turn back around.”
“And go back through?” I wail. “No way!”
“Look around. You got a better option.”
I scoot up in my seat and drop my head into my hands with a heavy sigh.
“They’re just mangrove crabs. They won’t hurt you,” he says gently in an attempt to calm me down, but this is my biggest fear. I’m deathly afraid of spiders, and that’s exactly what these things look like—ginormous spiders with claws.
Dropping my hands, I pivot in my seat and sit sideways so I can look at him. “This is all your fault, you know?”
“I had no idea you were going to freak out like this.”
My jaw drops. “You know I’m scared of spiders.”
“These aren’t spiders.”
“No. They’re so much worse!”
I glare daggers at him when he shakes his head, smiling as if I’m being ridiculous, and when I feel something poke the outside of my thigh, I look down to see a crab crawling on the seat. A blood-curdling scream rips out of me, and I jump to my feet, rocking the kayak, causing me to lose balance and topple over into the water. Fear of this water being filled with these monsters, I kick like a maniac, yelping when I take in a mouthful of water.
“Go to the back so you don’t tip us,” Kason instructs as he reaches his arm out for me.
Desperate to get out of the water, I swim as fast as I can and grab on to him. He pulls me out and into the back seat as he steps over to the front seat so the tail end doesn’t go under.
He turns the front seat around so that he’s facing me as I try to catch my breath.
“I swear to god, Kason,” I tell him in unfathomable seriousness. “This is my worst nightmare come to life.”
His face holds structure for only a handful of seconds before he cracks a smile and barrels into another fit of laughter.
I slap his arm, but he doesn’t even flinch. Instead, he reaches down and pulls my foot into his lap. He continues to chuckle as he unlaces my wet shoes and pulls them off my feet. They drop like heavy weights before he leans over and hugs me.
“This is the worst idea you’ve ever had,” I grumble.
After a few calming moments, he draws back and helps me into the front seat after ensuring there are no more crabs in the kayak.
“We have to go back through to get out of here,” he says. “Just put your head in your lap and close your eyes.”
“You have to go fast.”
“I’ll go as fast as I can, babe, but you can’t be acting all psycho. You’re scaring all the wildlife away,” he jokes.
“Fine.” I shift the seat back to forward-facing, and bend over, using his shirt to muffle my shrieking. “Just hurry.”
When we make it back through and over to the dock, I can’t get out fast enough. The same attendant that was here earlier helps me out, taking in my soaking wet clothes. “What happened? You guys weren’t out very long.”
Kason grabs our two bags in his one hand and wraps his other arm around my shoulders, telling him, “I guess she’s more of an indoor girl.”
I scowl, and he kisses my forehead, still finding humor in my misery.
We head over to his SUV, and when he pops open the hatch, he tosses our backpacks in before unzipping a small duffle. “I have some clean clothes in my gym bag.”
He pulls out a T-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts and hands them to me.
“Stay out here,” I tell him as I open the backseat door and crawl in. I peel off my wet clothes, and toss them out the window for Kason and then slip on his clothes, which are way too big for me. They’re dry and don’t smell like swamp water, so I don’t complain.
As we’re on our way back to our side of town, Kason reaches over and gives my knee a small squeeze.
“I’m never going to forgive you for this,” I tell him with the smallest hint of a smile, finally calming down.
“My ears are still ringing from all your screaming.”
I slide my hand over the top of his, which is still on my leg, and slip my fingers between his. The smiling sun flashes billions of rays against his beautiful face, and it’s in this very moment that something takes a shift, gathering all of my torn roots and securing them back together with his. And for the first time, I quietly surrender to the fact that, perhaps, this is exactly where I’m meant to be.
Thirty minutes later, Kason turns up the driveway and stops to drop me off. I don’t open the car door, though. Nor do I move. A voice inside me is telling me not to go just yet, and I decide to listen.
“Are you okay?”
A powerful something entangles my heart, tugging it toward him, and I make my request, “Can we go back to your place?”
The corner of his lips curve, and without another word, he shifts the car back into drive.