CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Addison
A Black Cloud Tonight Over Charleston.
—Southern Insider News
It’s hard to remember when it all goes to shit.
I make it to the island in record time, my arms straining from the effort of paddling without a breather. Making ornaments did not prepare me for this kind of exertion. I climb out of the kayak and drag it to shore just as the sky opens overhead. At first, the rain falls in giant, gloppy drops, so heavy it hits the river like small stones. There’s a nervous turn in my stomach. Other stall owners in the market are always talking about the unpredictable nature of southern storms. How it can be sunny one minute and thundering the next. But I always assumed they were exaggerating since they embellish just about everything else.
Turns out, they haven’t been embellishing about storms.
I barely have Mrs. Claus out of my backpack when the rain turns sharp. It stings the skin of my arms, neck, face. Little stingers that try to distract me from my task. But I don’t let them. No, the distraction comes in the form of the rising tide. I’m standing on the edge of the island among the reeds, my rain boots sunk a few inches into the mud…and within a minute, the water goes from my ankles to halfway up my boots. I look around the island and realize it’s slowly being swallowed from all sides.
“That’s not good,” I whisper.
Above my head, lightning streaks across the sky in a jagged line, as if to say, no shit.
While uncapping the makeshift urn, I look out across the river. Okay. It’s not treacherous. A little choppier than usual, but no waves or anything that could capsize me on the way back. I can power through before the storm gets worse. I’m not usually outside during a thunderstorm, so of course it seems worse up close. I’m out of my element, but I have some practice under my belt and I know the direction to take back to the launch site. It’s all good.
Focus on why you came here.
With a deep breath, I shove Mrs. Claus’s head into the backpack and hug the bottom half of the porcelain figure to my chest. “It’s time to say goodbye, Grandma. I’m sending you off in pretty dramatic fashion, right? I hope you approve.” Rain is getting in my eyes, so I close them. “Mom let this place beat her. I didn’t. It hurt me. H-he hurt me. But I put things back where they belonged and now I’m walking away knowing I did the right thing. When they think of our side of the family, it will be with respect. Grudging, but so what, right? So what. We’re not less than. We’re more than they expected. I hope. I hope.”
The water has risen to the top of my boots now, so I take two giant steps back, water splashing up and drenching my jeans, along with the rain.
“I want to be selfish and keep you with me, but you would want to be free, wouldn’t you? Thank you for loving me. Thank you for everything. I’ll think of you all the time.” I tip over the urn and watch the building storm carry away my grandmother, my breath catching in my throat at the swirl of gray in the wind. “Goodbye. I love you.”
There’s a part of me that just wants to sit down and let the storm wail on me. I’m caught in the grip of loneliness and wouldn’t the howling wind be the perfect distraction? But I can’t deny the water in front of me is growing rougher with each passing second. It’s manageable now, but if I don’t get my ass to the other side of this river in fifteen minutes, I’m not sure what it’ll look like. And the island is shrinking more and more the longer I wait, so staying and hoping for the weather to pass isn’t an option. My only option is to get back in the kayak and move.
Elijah would be having a fit.
I’m not sure where the thought comes from, but it’s not welcome. It makes me clutch my stomach on a childish sob. His reaction when I told him I went kayaking in the sunshine springs to mind. He didn’t even like that. If he knew I was about to paddle across the Cooper River during a thunderstorm, he would…throw another mattress out the window.
Stop. I have to stop thinking about the one thing making it hardest to leave. Elijah genuinely cares about me. Enough to care for me when I’m sick. Enough to introduce me to his friends, his parents. Enough to split open a headboard with an axe.
If only it was enough.
He’s probably with Naomi right now, I remind myself. I brought them back together. And it’s that horrible mental jolt that has me climbing into the kayak.
The tide has risen so high that it takes almost no effort to push back from shore with my paddle. I’m on the river and turning, turning, heading in the right direction. Yes, the water is a lot bumpier than usual, but I’m not thinking about that. I can’t think about it, because the rain turns violent. It slashes horizontal, pummeled by the wind, hurting my eyes and making it impossible to see in more than a squint. But I have to get across the river, there’s no choice, so I aim my kayak toward the outcropping where the launch is located and I paddle with everything I’m worth. Every few seconds a thick swell pushes me off course, but I work double time to get back on the watery path and I push. I push.
Until the lights across the river blink—and they go out. They go out.
Did they lose power? I can’t see the distant, reassuring glow of the rental hut anymore.
Far off to my right, the white lights of the bridge are nothing more than a blur. Maybe I can judge my location based on the landmark, though? Yes, I know the correct distance and as long as I keep the bridge to my right, I’m bound to hit land—
A wave slams into the kayak and I gasp.
Just like that the bridge is behind me. Which way was forward?
My legs turn freezing and I realize the wave has filled the kayak with water.
“No, no, no.” My words come out in a chatter of teeth. “Keep paddling.”
It takes me some time, but I manage to get the bridge back on the correct side of me and begin paddling again, harder than before. I’m going to make it. I will make it.
I don’t expect a second, bigger wave.
*
Elijah
I make it to the police docks just in time, which is a relief and a curse, because I want them out on the river finding Addison. Now. I want her safe now. My mind is caving in on itself, rejecting any kind of hope, projecting worst-case scenarios instead. I’ve never been swimming with her, so I have no idea how well she’d handle rough water. In this petrified state in which I’m currently living, all I can do is berate myself for never taking her swimming. All that wasted time, blind to the fact that I loved her, I could have been taking her to Isle of Palms to swim in the ocean. Could have taken her on vacations or hell, just gone kayaking with her, like I said I would. What have I been doing? Everything is a fucking blur, except for her face. I have failed. I have failed at the only thing that matters. Her.
We’re in the police watercraft, speeding toward the section of the river where Addison should be. We’re not the only ones, either. It’s possible I threatened the chief of police’s job if he didn’t get every available unit on the goddamn river. Despite the storm, there’s a police chopper bringing up the rear of our search party, his spotlight moving in patterns on the water. There’s a second helicopter, too, belonging to a news station, but I’m willing to take all the help we can get.
God, it’s so damn dark. I hate knowing she could be out here alone.
“This is it.” Chris turns and nods to me from his position at the wheel and I grab hold of a metal overhead bar and lunge to my feet, looking out over the water, praying like a madman for some sign of her. Please. Please. She’s such a fierce, beautiful girl and I wish like hell I could muster some faith in her ability to survive this, but I’m too terrified. I’m too aware that I’ve fucked up so badly that the universe might just deal me this final blow out of sheer disgust.
“Addison!”
Rain lashes my face in razor-sharp sheets, the boat lifting and falling beneath me in angry swells. I can’t see. How can I find her if I can’t see?
“Come on, Goose,” I rasp. “Come on, please. Where are you?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch the chopper searchlight graze the very edge of something red and my heart lurches.
“Chris.” I shove past two other officers, pointing in the direction I saw something. “There. Go back.”
As soon as he turns around, the light on the front of the boat lands on what I saw.
It’s a red kayak. And it’s flipped over.
“No. No.” I don’t even give myself time to process that numbing fact before I shoot forward, attempting to dive out of the boat and into the water. Something holds me back, though. Chris. The other officers with us. They wrestle me back, but I fight them like an animal. I have to get to her. She’s not gone. She can’t be gone. I could have told her I loved her. We would be home right now cooking in the kitchen. She loves that kitchen and we haven’t had enough time to use it yet. What the hell have I done? I lost her. I killed her.
“Hey.” Chris’s fist belts me across the face and sound rushes back in with a vengeance, attacking my ears. “Stay with us, man.”
I’m just coherent enough to notice someone has taken the wheel from Chris. Turning my attention back to the water, I see we’re circling the capsized kayak from a distance, rain splattering off the hull like crazy. Thousands of droplets being sprayed in every direction are why I don’t see her at first. She’s blocked by the darkness, the fall of rain and splash of the river. And I don’t believe my eyes at first, because my heart has splintered with loss. But when I see an oar lift out of the water and wave up and down, I come back to life.
I try to shout her name, but it comes out in nothing but a choked whisper. Once again, I’m held back from jumping into the water. I allow it this time, though, because everything moves at once where before there was just fear and darkness. Radios crackle, cheers go up around us, even the rain seems to let up. Most importantly, the boat is moving in her direction and she’s alive. She’s alive and I’m falling to the side of the boat on my knees, leaning over to scoop her up into my arms.
“Come here. Come here, sugar. I’ve got you.” Her waterlogged clothes weigh her down, but nothing can keep me from her. As soon as I’ve got my arms wrapped around her shivering body, she’s up into the boat, clinging to me in a way that makes me want to yell and rage and thank God. I want to go on holding her forever, but the tremors wracking her are so intense, I can hear her teeth chattering at my neck. Alarm gets me by the jugular. She’s safe right now, but she might not be out of the woods and I’m not losing her again, so I move. I move, stripping the wet clothes off her and getting rid of my own, until we’re left in nothing but our pants and her bra, modesty be damned when she needs me. “You’re cold. Jesus, you’re so cold. You shouldn’t have done this. Why did you do this?”
Chris puts a blanket around Addison, and I yank her into me, closing my eyes when she moans over my body heat and struggles closer. “Elijah.”
My heart twists. “I’m here. I’m never going anywhere.” I can’t get her near enough, but I try, her trembling like an ice pick to my chest. “I thought I’d already lost you. I thought you were gone.”
She shakes her head back and forth in the crook of my neck. “You shouldn’t be holding me like this anymore.”
“I’ll hold you every day for the rest of my life,” I say, my voice hoarse. “Or it won’t be worth living, Addison. Don’t tell me I shouldn’t hold you.”
I’m so caught up in the horror of the last hour, it takes me a few beats to realize what’s going on here. She thinks I can’t hold her because she believes I’m back with my ex-fiancée. That I still love Naomi. A truth she’s been holding for months and I let it happen. The utter horror of this woman who makes my world turn thinking I love someone else is too outrageous to believe—and I won’t allow another minute to pass with her under this misconception. With her not knowing she’s the one who gives my life worth—always has been and always will be.
“Look at me.”
She stays close, but lifts her chin and I see she still isn’t hopeful. Still. And even though I’m the idiot who landed us in this mess, I can’t tone down my outrage. Not when the woman I intend to spend my life with has doubts about me.
“Goddammit, Addison, think. It has been months since the wedding. Have I made even one attempt to go find her? No. No, I’ve been with you. Right where I was always meant to be.” I jerk my chin toward the sky where two helicopters circle over our heads. “This is what happens when you leave me for two hours. You know why that is? If you think—and if you look at me dying over here—you’ll know why. I love you. I’m in love with you. I’m sorry I almost didn’t realize it in time, but the love has always been there.”
I struggle for the right words, but it’s hard when she’s shaking so bad and I want her in our home, warm in bed with me wrapped around her. But she hasn’t breathed since I told her I love her and I know she needs to hear more. All of it. Everything I’ve got.
“You have my heart. You have my soul. And you’re the first and last person to ever have either one. I loved you first. And last. I’ve only got this feeling for you. No one else. Never. Do you hear me?” I press a hard kiss to her forehead, then meet her eyes again. Eyes that are finally beginning to show hope. “I was a fool. I thought being your man and everything that came with it…meant I could lose you someday. Love meant loss, right? So I held one part of me back. But it was the most important part. I didn’t recognize what it was, because I’d never actually felt it before. And I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I love you, Addison.”
I’m not expecting it when she bursts into tears, because it’s not an Addison response. But finally, there’s not just hope. There’s belief. She believes me. More than that, there’s happiness and love and trust. As I hold her tight and whisper those three words, over and over again, into her hair…I realize there’s even more of Addison that I’ve just unlocked.
I bring our mouths together and walk right through her door.