The train moved and Sage stumbled, falling against the plastic partition, just inside the door. Her hip smarted, funny bone tingling, but she barely registered any of it. No. No, that hadn’t just happened. She was still asleep in the passenger side seat of the Suburban, her feet propped up on the dusty dashboard. Right? Right?
She winced at the screeching in her head, pinching two fingers around the bridge of her nose to deaden the pressure. The pain proved one thing. This moment was real. Her lips were still wet from Belmont’s kiss and he was walking away, his tall, dark form moving down the platform, steam rising off the concrete to swirl around his ankles. She refused to blink because something told her he would vanish into that mist if she did.
“Belmont,” she croaked, rapping the heels of her hands against the window, slapping her palms there until the glass rattled. “Wait. Waitwaitwait.”
Please. Why wouldn’t he turn around? He always knew when something was wrong with her. When she was sick, hungry, tired. She never even had to say a word. He wouldn’t just keep walking when she was drowning on the inside. Belmont.
Mistake. She’d made a mistake. They weren’t supposed to be apart. The train was picking up speed and already she could feel her fabric ripping at the seams. Her right hand flew to her throat, clutching at the skin, scratching it, and begging entrance for oxygen. She was losing sight of him now. He’d reached the end of the platform and was turning the corner, scaling the stairs for the aboveground walkway. If he simply turned his head, he would be able to see her beating the glass, but he didn’t. He didn’t even look.
She’d built up just enough of a reserve of courage to break away from the one person that helped drown the guilt she’d been living with. He saw her as sweet, faultless Sage and the temptation to pretend that was true, pretend the past wasn’t real, was so inviting. Even though it was an illusion. Her habit’s name was Belmont and it never stopped buzzing inside her like a colony of bees. That kiss had just kicked the hive.
“No,” Sage heaved, turning and running for the back of the train. “No, stop the train.” She whirled in a circle mid-aisle, faces and colors and cell phone screens blending together. “Can they stop it? Please, I need to get off. I have to go to him.”
Silence. They were all looking at her like she was insane. She must be insane, right? A man more incredible and powerful than the sun had just kissed her as if his very existence depended on it…and she’d let herself get swept away by this cursed metal machine. She’d been so desperate for proof that she wasn’t merely a crutch for Belmont, that he saw her as a desirable woman, but in a way, she’d also been dreading it. Fearing that confirmation. Because it would draw her back, make it excruciating to leave him. And it was. Time was passing. Precious seconds. Minutes? How long had she been standing in the aisle, remembering Belmont’s hands, his mouth, the words he’d said in parting?
My heartbeat. He’d never called her that before. Had he always wanted to?
Turning on a heel, she sprinted farther into the back of the train, finally reaching the back window, pressing every inch of her body against it, eyes searching frantically for Belmont back at the train station. But it was too far away now. A dot. And even if she could find the train operator and convince him to go back, Belmont would be gone by the time she got there. In his Suburban and back on the road, all alone.
Sage’s knees hit the cold train floor. With the shock of pain came a reminder of where she was going. Why she’d been forced to leave Belmont in the first place. This morning, she’d only had one option, but now…now she wondered if she’d made a grave mistake in underestimating Belmont’s ability to cope with the situation she would face down in Louisiana. She’d given him her insecurities about not being treated like a woman and he’d barreled right through them, hadn’t he? That man who’d stormed toward her on the platform and blown her every perception of love, life, and need out of the water? That man could take on anything.
She closed her eyes and thought of Belmont walking into the sealed-off, airless darkness. A nightmare that had recurred so many times, she’d refused to let it happen in real life. No. She’d made the only decision her love allowed. She had.
Sending one final look down the endless tracks, Sage stood on lifeless legs, retrieved her suitcase, and took her seat.
* * *
Belmont stared through bloodshot eyes at the man behind the counter. The motel clerk was wearing a Santa hat and smoking a cigarette. If Belmont grabbed the lit object and applied the red, glowing end to his arm, it would allow him to feel pain somewhere other than the decaying center of his chest, but it wouldn’t solve anything. It had been a long time since he’d engaged in that kind of destructive behavior. Drugs, fistfights. Long before he’d discovered the serenity of water, he’d turned to those things to distract him from the memories of being trapped inside the ground. Everything that had come with it. Betrayal. Cold that had never fully fled his bones.
The water had given him purpose. A way to resume his role as the oldest brother and make his siblings confident in him again. Working with his hands on top of a rhythm that never ended kept him centered. When he met Sage, though, “centered” took on a new meaning. One boat and a handful of salvage contracts to meet his most basic needs was no longer sufficient. No, he’d felt a new drive to earn. To make expansion plans and hire more crew members. He’d been in the middle of purchasing another vessel when the road trip put everything on pause. But since the day they met, his motivation had been a dream that one day he could provide for Sage.
Resuming those plans without her? His mind couldn’t make sense of it.
Gritting his teeth against the agony of not knowing her whereabouts, Belmont silently begged for the man to hurry up and find an available room. Somewhere he could stash himself while he figured out how to move forward. There was no thinking beyond that. He just needed a place where he could exist awhile.
Blinking red and green lights snagged his attention. They were wrapped around the man’s computer screen. Christmas. It was almost Christmas. How would Sage spend the holiday with her family? Decorating a tree, drinking egg nog. Normal things. Good things.
Discomfort seared his throat as the clerk handed over a room key. “You’re in one-oh-nine, buddy. Ice is two doors past that. Pool’s closed.”
He started to turn away, but the prospect of a bleak, empty room made him pause. “And if I wanted to party?”
Silence stretched. “You a cop?”
“Cops don’t give a shit about places like this.”
“True enough.”
A drawer slid open and Belmont turned back toward the front desk, watching as the man drew out a variety of baggies, laying them on the computer keyboard. “What’s your poison, big man?”
All of them. That’s what he wanted to say. He wanted to hand over every green bill inside his wallet and fill his pockets with methods of dropping out, numbing himself. It would have been so easy. Too easy. Nothing would be able to reach him. That’s what stopped the idea in its tracks. Hadn’t he told Sage that if she needed him, he would be there before she knew it? He wouldn’t be able to keep his promise if he were high or passed out. And the world would have to end before he broke his word to that woman.
“Well?” The clerk picked up a bag of pills and shook it. “What’ll it be?”
Belmont was already halfway out the door before the man finished posing the question. He moved without feeling anything, a swirl of leaves slithering around his boots. The air was frigid, but he only knew that because ice patches dotted his path as he walked toward his assigned room. The pool caught his attention just up ahead. No lock. Just a sign that said, No Swimming. Unnecessary, he decided absently. What would anyone want with a pool in the middle of December anyway? Unless they wanted to freeze themselves to death.
His booted feet carried him closer. He stripped off his shirt and shouldered open the flimsy gate, tossing the garment onto what looked like a covered barbeque pit. With methodical movements, he lost his boots and jeans, making sure the cell phone was secure inside the pocket.
Then he dropped in and let the blistering cold suck the air out of his lungs.
Opening his mouth, he released a strangled shout unsuitable for the surface, bubbles rioting around his face and obscuring his vision. It seemed to go on forever, the cold snapping at his Adam’s apple, the sound growing less and less natural. By the time he’d finished, his muscles almost ached too much from the strain to swim upward, but he managed it through sheer force of will, remembering his cell phone was above. In the real world. Not down in the depths that threatened to pull him farther and farther into their murk.
When he breached the surface and heard his cell phone ringing, Belmont almost swallowed half the pool trying to drag in lungfuls of air and swim for the edge at the same time. Rigor mortis setting in on a corpse. That’s how his body felt as he propelled himself up and over the concrete lip of the pool, dragging himself on elbows toward the barbeque pit. He shook, head to toe, the cold burning like a flame, sending pain screaming through his system.
Commanding his fingers to function, it took an iron will to dig through his pocket and extricate the cell phone, answering it without looking at the screen. “Hello?” he shouted through chattering teeth into the receiver. “Sage?”
When a handful of quiet seconds passed, Belmont was horrified he might have missed the call, but a familiar voice filled his ear. A welcome one, but not the one he craved with his very soul. “Bel?” Aaron. His brother. “What’s wrong?”
He fell forward onto the icy concrete, laying his cheek against it. “She’s gone.”
“Sage?” More silence. “Christ. Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.” He recalled the way he’d stormed the ticket counter after her train departed, grabbing the man by his collar and demanding information. “The train she took was headed south, but it was stopping at a hub in Charleston. From there, she could have gone anywhere. She’s gone.”
Aaron’s voice grew louder, more forceful. “Bel, where are you?”
He wanted to answer. Wanted, as always, for the only family he knew to be near. Even if they weren’t communicating, they were a comfort. His people. But he couldn’t allow them to see him like this. It was too reminiscent of the first time. Their shocked horror as he was dragged out of the well, soaked in piss and unable to explain how he’d gotten down there.
Never. He would never tell them.
“I don’t know.” His words were distorted because he could barely move his lips. “My heart, Aaron. I don’t think I can keep it beating without her.”
A sound left his brother. It was fear. He didn’t like hearing it and had no way to fix it. Not when he was letting the cold take him. “Belmont,” Aaron shouted. “You listen to me, asshole. You listen. Get the fuck up from whatever ditch you fell into and go find Sage.” Labored breaths. “I know how you’re feeling right now. Like you have no direction or purpose. But you do. She’s your purpose. Whatever happened, there’s nothing that can shake that. We all know it. It seems like we’ve all known it forever.”
“I smothered her. She told me.”
“She was lying.” In his mind’s eye, he could see Aaron yanking at his tie, turning in circles. “I know you’ve never told a lie, so it’s hard to understand, but take it from a reformed master. It’s easy when you have a good reason. Or what you think is a good reason.”
“Sage wouldn’t lie. She’s so good.” Was he starting to fall asleep? The sky was darkening. How long had they been on the phone? “I have no way to find—”
It hit him like a bolt of electricity. Her scrapbook. She’d left her scrapbook in the foot well of the passenger seat. He could see it. The clean silver edges of it, the burgundy lettering. Classy, just like her. Maybe…maybe she’d meant to leave it for him? It was too much to hope for, but in a world where her light had been stolen away, he would grab on to any sliver of illumination he could find. Purpose. Sage. Without them, he might as well lie there forever. So he would take hold of this chance. Hold on for dear life.
“Bel?” Aaron shouted. “Tell me where you are. Me and Grace will come meet you.”
Belmont slapped his free hand down on the concrete and pushed to his knees, shaking so violently, his head ached from his teeth grinding together. “I’m glad you called, Aaron. I’m always glad. I love you. I’ll be fine.”
Before his brother could answer, Belmont hung up the phone and stumbled for the parking lot, wearing nothing but underwear and socks. Absently he registered the motel clerk emerging from the front office and gaping at him, along with two rooms full of guests.
“Damn, bro. What did you sell him?” one of them said. “I’ll take some of that.”
Belmont ignored them all, prying open the Suburban’s passenger door. Whatever breath remained in his body whooshed out at the proof that Sage had once sat there, beside him. Back straight, hands folded in her lap, legs crossed. God, he missed her so bad. Everything felt wrong and incomplete. How was the world still turning?
Clutching the scrapbook to his chest, Belmont passed the crowd of onlookers, let himself into his motel room, and cranked up the heat. Holding Sage’s handiwork close, he collapsed on the bed, vowing to scour it cover to cover, as soon as he woke up.