Chapter 66: Mitch

Skylar and I were both in shock but we managed to drive home, arriving safely at the condo with Bijou in tow. With everything that there was to talk about, we stayed remarkably silent. But hours later, after Bijou was down for the night, Skylar found me outside, sitting in the hot tub where I’d almost drowned.

“I’m surprised you want to be out here,” she said, “considering recent events.”

“Yeah. I don’t know.” The water bubbled around me, creating steam and loosening my tense muscles. I stretched and let my head lean back, so I could stare at the sky. “It’s like, ‘What the hell? I have nothing left to be afraid of.’ You know?”

Skylar removed her long t-shirt to reveal a bikini underneath. She climbed in and sat across from me so that we weren’t even close to touching. “I guess you had a lot to be afraid of, before?”

I wanted to reach for her but instinct told me not to. “I have a feeling that’s over.”

“You think Jo Beth is gone now?”

“I do. But it wasn’t her that I needed to be afraid of. It was myself.”

She thought for a moment, the crease between her eyebrows prominent, but then her face relaxed into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “And Gavin,” she said. “I guess we both needed to be afraid of him.”

“Yeah.”

We stayed silent; the gurgling bubbles the only sound between us. “Do you think he’s dead?” Skylar’s whisper was barely perceptible over the hot tub’s noise, but I heard her just enough.

“Yeah…” I sighed, grabbing the tub’s edges as if to steady me, though my vertigo was gone. “Today, with the avalanche, that wasn’t the first time something like that had happened to me. I sort of have a history…”

Another deep breath, and I launched in, telling Skylar everything: Amanda Butler and the tidal wave, Magda and her blood red cloud, Jo Beth’s earthquakes, Jo Beth’s ghost. I finished with today’s events, telling the avalanche story as if Skylar hadn’t seen it with her very own eyes.

“But for some reason,” I said, “I have a feeling that today was a culmination, and now all the weird stuff is going to go away.” I looked past Skylar’s unblinking eyes, up towards the sky. “Or maybe I’m just crazy. If you think so, and if you don’t want me around Bijou, then I’ll leave. Your mom can raise her if that’s what you believe is best.”

“You’d be okay with letting Bijou go?”

“No. Letting her go would be awful, but hurting her would be even worse.”

Skylar sounded choked up. “I know you’d never hurt Bijou. You’re not capable of it.” I let my eyes find Skylar’s face once again. Her lips were parted, already forming thoughts she’d yet to speak. “I think you should raise your daughter. But what about Florida? What about Magda?”

“I don’t need Magda anymore,” I said.

“Why not?”

“She’s always been the one who knew how crazy I am and she at least pretended to understand. But now, with you…” I let my words hang, momentarily resting, because they were too big to be rushed. “…with you, I’m cured.” I couldn’t help it; my hands reached for her and my body bent forward, desperate to touch Skylar. She got up, quickly travelled the short distance of the hot tub, and settled into my arms.

“I don’t want you to change, Mitch,” she murmured between kisses.

I promised that I wouldn’t.

I never heard from Gavin again; nobody did. Skylar and I believed that the avalanche had swallowed him whole, that it made him disappear. But we couldn’t tell his parents that. We just said he’d been alive and well when we’d gone to get Bijou, and after that, we had no idea what had happened. His parents conducted a search for a while, but eventually they began to believe that he’d simply run off, and he didn’t want to be found. Meanwhile, Elizabeth was happy that I’d agreed to stay in Black Diamond so that she and Joseph could help raise Bijou. Skylar’s knee never healed enough for her to be competitive in skiing, though she kept skiing for fun. More importantly, she finished her novel and was accepted into Oxford University, to study both literature and creative writing. I dreaded having to say goodbye.

After all, I was terrible at goodbyes, what with my penchant for natural disasters.

But eventually we stood at the curb, her father’s car idling while he waited for Skylar to climb in so he could drive her to the airport. At that moment, I found I could focus on the beginning and not on the end. “Go knock ‘em dead,” I said, hugging her and speaking into her hair.

“Not literally, right?” She laughed as she pulled away, so I laughed back. But then her face turned serious. “Take good care of Bijou,” she said. “And remember, no matter how far apart we are, and no matter what else happens, a part of me will be with you.”

“I’ll always love you, Skylar.”

“Me too, Mitch.”

She sniffed back tears and I wiped mine away. I knew this was goodbye.

And I knew that was okay.