Chapter Four

 

* TRENT *

 

I woke up before the sun the next morning. I should have been exhausted, between the recent traveling, the difference in time zones, and a night of tossing and turning after screwing up my date with Megan. But I had a strange rush of energy, and I bounced out of bed fueled by some sort of adrenaline that being attracted to a woman you couldn’t have seemed to give me.

I grabbed a protein bar, banana, and coffee from the resort’s café kiosk in the lobby, and then rushed out to the parking garage to slip behind the wheel of my rental car. I rolled down the windows and let the fresh island air fill my lungs as I pulled onto the coastal road that ran the entire circumference of the island. After taking one sip of my coffee, I nearly gagged, and slowed down so I could dump the rest of it out the window. Had I ordered coffee or swamp water? Because whatever the brown liquid in my cup had been, it certainly tasted more like the latter.

I bit into my protein bar in an effort to get the awful taste of the coffee out of my mouth. I was now driving into Driftwood Island’s small downtown area, and I wondered where Julia’s café was located. I should stop in and get a coffee there instead. I would be supporting the local economy, and I bet the coffee would be about one thousand times better than the muddy water the resort had given me.

I scanned the businesses as I passed them. Not much had changed in the eight years since I’d left, and I shook my head a little at the lack of progress. The locals could be making a killing off the tourist crowd if they did a little bit of marketing. It sounded like Logan, Julia’s fiancé, was trying to help them do that, which made me glad. Perhaps Megan was right, and I had become too much of an outsider, but I did still care about the people here.

As I passed through the main intersection in downtown—the only place on the island with a traffic light, I glanced down the side street and saw a bright aqua sign that read “The Conch Shell Café.” That had to be Julia’s place. It hadn’t been here before, and it looked like a coffee shop. I put on my turn signal and began to turn, but before I fully started down the road, I saw Megan coming out of the café’s front door, laughing at something someone behind her had said.

I hit the brakes and froze in the middle of the intersection. Admittedly not the safest of places to stop, but at least it was early in the morning and there wasn’t any traffic. Not that there was usually a ton of traffic here anyway.

Julia stepped out behind Megan, pointing at something inside of the small van parked in front of the café. I realized that this must be the delivery van for the café. Megan nodded, and then turned to head back into the café with Julia. I hadn’t seen Julia in ages, but she looked the same as before and was easy to recognize.

I sat there in the middle of the intersection, still staring. Part of me was tempted to go to the café right now so that I would have a chance to see Megan. But part of me knew that was a bad idea. I didn’t claim to be an expert on women, but I was pretty sure Megan didn’t want to see me right now. I should keep driving, but for some reason I couldn’t. I was drawn like a magnet toward Megan, and I didn’t want to leave without another glimpse of her.

I got that glimpse a few moments later when she stepped back out of the café. This time, she was holding a tiny baby in her arms, cooing and smiling down at it with the biggest smile I’d ever seen on her face. Julia followed behind her and I realized that the baby must have been Julia’s newborn that Megan had mentioned.

It didn’t matter whose baby it was. My heart skipped a beat seeing Megan with a baby in her arms. I knew better than to think this way, but I couldn’t stop the thoughts of Megan holding our baby from rising up unbidden. My chest literally hurt as I watched her. I couldn’t have Megan. I knew she wouldn’t move to California, and I couldn’t stay here. So why did the idea of her, laughing with a baby of her own in her arms, fill me with so much longing?

My brain screamed at me to keep driving before she saw me, but still, I sat there in the intersection, staring at the perfect picture in front of me. After a few more seconds of cuddling the baby, Megan handed her over to Julia, and Julia handed Megan a cupcake. Even from this distance, I could see how pink it was, and I chuckled to myself. It must be another one of those strawberry champagne cupcakes, which I had to admit were pretty good.

“Breakfast of champions, huh Meg?” I said aloud to the empty car. I watched in amusement as Megan gleefully take a bite of the cupcake.

A horn honking behind me brought me back to reality. Apparently I was blocking the way for the one other car that was out on the island this early. Just as well. If Megan noticed me in the middle of the intersection, things could get quite awkward. I pulled forward back onto the coastal road, and away from the side street the café was on. I’d have to sample Julia’s coffee another day.

For now, I continued driving until I had completely passed all of the downtown businesses, and all of the little cottages of the local folks who lived downtown. The cottages slowly gave way to beachfront houses that got further and further apart. Eventually, there were no more beach houses. Or at least it looked that way. I knew there was one more coming up, and that beach house was where I was heading. I passed several of the public beaches the locals all loved, and followed the curve of the road around to a dirt driveway so hidden by palm trees that you would probably miss it if you didn’t know it was there.

This had been my home for the first eighteen years of my life. With a sense of dread, I turned the rental car down the road and drove down what for me was memory lane. And not necessarily good memories. My mom had died giving birth to me, after which my father had fallen into a pit of alcoholism and never come back out. The older locals told me that he had been a great guy, funny and kind, before my mom died. But to me, he’d always been a monster. His funeral was tomorrow morning, and I had no plans to go. Perhaps I was a horrible son for that, but, oh well. He’d been a horrible father.

The familiar, bright yellow beach house came into view, and I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat. I could not go into that house. I would not. I’d have to hire someone to come in and clean out all my dad’s stuff before I sold the place, and I didn’t care how much it cost me to do that. I didn’t want to see any of his stuff. I didn’t care how valuable any of it might be. I just wanted it all gone, and I didn’t want to be the one to remove it.

I parked the car as close to the beach as I could and got out. I wasn’t sure exactly why I’d come here. I’d told myself that it was probably a good idea to inspect the property myself before selling it, but that wasn’t my real motivation. I could have hired someone to do that. I guess I wanted just one more chance to look at the beach where I’d grown up, and where I’d spent hundreds of afternoons swimming with friends.

Swimming with Megan.

I could still see her in my mind’s eye, first as a spindly ten year old, then an awkward preteen, and finally as a blossoming teenager. She’d always been beautiful, in her own way, running and laughing toward the water, her blonde hair flying behind her as she dared me to catch her. She’d never made me feel awkward about my dad’s angry outbursts. Eventually, my dad was drunk so often and became so embarrassing that I stopped inviting friends over to this beach. But Megan invited herself, and always told me not to apologize for my dad. I don’t think I realized back then what a steadying force she’d been in a wildly unsteady childhood.

And then, I’d left her without a single glance back. She’d tried to keep in touch, and I’d shut her out. Now, I’d come back and tried to act like nothing had changed. But she was right. I had changed. Driftwood Island wasn’t home anymore. I was used to the fast-paced, expensive life I’d been living in Silicon Valley. Maybe that old saying was true, and you can’t come home again. Or was the saying supposed to be that you can always come home again?

I couldn’t remember. All I knew was that right now, I didn’t feel like I had a home. Seeing this island again had reminded me of how much good there had been in the middle of all the pain. The local people here were good people. The natural beauty was unparalleled. The air was fresh and salty, making you feel like your lungs were new again. And, let’s be honest, if I wanted something fast-paced then Miami was only a short charter flight away.

But maybe “fast-paced” was overrated anyway. I couldn’t help but feeling a bit jealous of the way everyone here took their time and was so at ease with the world. Sure, at the resort, where the wealthy tourists congregated, you got the sense that life was still moving one hundred miles per hour on a hamster wheel. But at Joe’s Sandbar and at the local beaches, things were calmer. Life was sweeter. People took time to relax. Even Megan, who was going through so much stress with her grandmother, seemed a lot less stressed than anyone I knew back in Silicon Valley.

Perhaps it was time to go back to my roots. Perhaps I could come back here for good. I’d always thought this island was too small to share with my dad, but my dad was gone now.

He was gone, and Megan was still here. Was it too late for me to prove to Megan that I hadn’t just become another outsider? I stared out at the ocean, brilliant in the pink-orange light of dawn, and thought that my heart had never ached so badly. I’d been missing Megan like crazy, and I hadn’t even known it.

I pulled a quarter out of my pocket and rubbed it between my thumb and pointer finger. I stared down at it, wondering if I was a madman to be entrusting such a big decision to chance.

Not chance. Fate.

I don’t know why, but I had a feeling that fate was going to make sure the right decision was made. I didn’t know whether I had a chance with Megan, but a big part of me wanted to try again. I wanted to find a way to show her that I hadn’t changed beyond reason. That I could still be part of the community here. That I could figure out something to do with this land that I’d inherited other than selling it to Zach Evans.

I looked down at the quarter in my hand. “Should I stay, or should I go?” I whispered. I tossed the coin as high into the air as I could, and as it came down I said, “Heads I go back to Cali. Tails, I stay here.”

The quarter landed softly on the sand and shimmered in the rising sun. I walked toward it with a pounding heart, almost not wanting to look.

Tails.

I felt a fresh rush of both adrenaline and relief. Fate had spoken.

I was staying on Driftwood Island.