[Beachwood Bay 02.0] Unbroken

by Melody Grace

  We collapse together, limbs tangled, sweaty and clinging on for dear life. And as I drift in the breathless afterglow of the best fucking orgasm of my life, one thought forms from the mindless pleasure, and wraps me in its undeniable truth.

  I’m home.

  When I wake the next morning, he’s gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  I wake to an unfamiliar rocking sensation, the steady roll of the waves outside the cabin. I lie confused for a moment, my eyes still shut. Then the ache of my body comes into focus, and everything that happened last night comes flooding back to me in a rush of exhilaration and sweaty, gasping sex.

  Emerson.

  Emerson and me. Together. Fucking like our very lives depended on it.

  I sit bolt-upright with a gasp and look around. I’m alone on the narrow bunk in the tiny cabin, the sheets twisted around my naked body. I told Emerson there was no way we’d both fit to sleep here, but he just smiled a heart-stopping, exhausted smile and scooped me tight on top of his body. I drifted off with his arms locked around me, my head resting on his chest, lulled to sleep by the steady drum of his heartbeat and the slow roll of the boat on the waves.

  The cabin is empty.

  “Emerson?” I call out. He must be up on deck, doing boat things. I scooch back down on the bunk and let out a satisfied yawn. I can feel every muscle and tendon in my body, an ache low between my thighs reminding me all over again of the things we did up there on deck—and then again, here on the bunk, just as ravenous, until sleep finally took over us.

  I drift there a while, sleepy, still wrapped in the lazy, delicious afterglow. When I surface again, there’s still no sign of Emerson in the cabin. I check my phone. It’s almost ten.

  “Hello?” I call again. I find my sundress in a heap on the floor and pull it over my head, venturing up the ladder and emerging into the bright sunshine up on deck. “Emerson?”

  I look around. He must have sailed us to Beachwood Bay sometime in the early morning, because we’re tethered up back by a dock at the harbor. But the boat is empty.

  I feel a cold stab of fear.

  No, I tell myself quickly. He wouldn’t have left you. He’s probably just off getting breakfast somewhere, or picking us up some coffee.

  That must be it. I send him a quick text. Where r u? Hope u bring back donuts. Then I go back below deck and tidy up the cabin, making the bed and retrieving my underwear from the corner of the room. When I can’t distract myself any more, I climb back up and take a seat behind the wheel, watching the distant stream of cars in town, and the slow bustle of life along the shore—and trying like hell to ignore the flutter of anxiety rising in my chest.

  The minutes tick past. With every glance at my phone, my fear grows. I try calling him, but it just switches straight to voicemail. I open my mouth to leave a message, but my words freeze in my throat. What can I say?

  Where the hell are you? Why did you leave me naked and alone?

  What did I do wrong?

  I hang up without speaking. My happy afterglow is gone. Now, there’s nothing but frozen panic seeping through my body, and a dark whirlwind of insecurity boiling in my chest. I fight to keep it at bay and not jump to conclusions, but still, I can’t stop the cruel whispers taunting in my ear.

  He’s left you. He’s left you all over again. Just like the last time.

  My phone buzzes with a new message, and I snatch it up, eagerly clicking through to find a text from him.

  bar emergency. c u later.

  I stop, waiting for another message, some note of apology, but nothing else comes. This is it.

  OK, I try to tell myself. This isn’t so bad. If something happened with the bar, he’d have to go—he’s the boss. He probably didn’t want to wake me, after our marathon sex session last night, so left me to sleep on. That’s sweet, right? Considerate.

  I try to ignore my creeping fears, and I fetch my sandals and purse and carefully head back across the gangplank to the docks. It’s a short walk to Jimmy’s, just a few blocks, but still, I’m glad I wore flats. I stop by the coffee place and pick up a couple of lattes, then head into the daytime gloom of the empty bar.

  “Hello?” I call out, edging further inside. It doesn’t look like there’s any crisis. It’s empty at this time of the morning, with delivery crates stacked up against the bar. “Emerson?”

  The back door swings open and I turn with a jolt, but it’s Garrett who backs through, hoisting a box of beers. “Hey, kid.” He puts the box down with a grunt. “You looking for the boss man? He’s not in yet.”

  I stop, my heart falling. “But what about the emergency?” I ask faintly, just to check. Maybe he’s wrong, maybe he just got in and doesn’t know…

  “No emergency.” Garrett frowns.

  “Are you sure?” I ask, a note of desperation creeping into my voice.

  Garrett shrugs. “Sorry, kid, I’ve been here since seven, so if there was something going on, I’d know…”

  I must look devastated, because he trails off, and a sheepish look comes over his face. “Shit, did I just put my foot in it?”

  “No, it’s fine,” I say quickly. “It’s my fault. I got…confused. Sorry!” I babble, then turn and flee, back out the doors into the harsh morning sunshine.

  My skin flushes hot and I feel like a total idiot. Of course there’s no emergency, it was just a lame excuse he used to blow me off.

  I stare at the extra coffee in my hand for a long moment, then hurl it angrily in the trash. Tears sting the corners of my eyes, and I try my best to blink them back, even though I want nothing more than to burst into tears right here outside the bar.

  He lied to me.

  Emerson lied to me.

  After everything that happened last night, he bailed and left me alone, and he lied. Now he’s God knows where, doing who the hell knows what.

  I stand there a moment, frozen, then pull out my phone to read the short message again. My eyes devour it, looking for anything I missed before, but the words stay the same. Short. Harsh. Uncaring. There’s nothing personal, no affection. It reads like something you’d send a distant acquaintance, not the girl whose name you were crying out in desperate ecstasy just a few short hours ago.

  What the hell am I supposed to do now?

  As if the universe is listening, my cellphone lights up suddenly and starts to ring.

  I snatch it to look at the screen. It’s a private number, but still, my heart leaps as I lift it to my ear. “Hello?” I demand hopefully.

  “Hi, Juliet?”

  It’s a woman’s voice.

  All my nervous expectation shatters to pieces, leaving a cold heavy weight in my stomach. I swallow back a sob. “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Hiya! It’s Hallie? From Kingston Realty?” Her chirpy tone is dripping with enthusiasm. “How are you?!”

  I stand there. What can I say? Well, I don’t know, Hallie. I just spent a mind-blowing night with the love of my life, only to wake up and find he’s run out and left me here, and now it feels like my whole world is falling in on me.

  I bite my reply, and manage a vague, “Fine, thanks.”

  “Awesome!” Hallie chirps. “I just wanted to call and let you know the good news: we’ve had an offer on the beach house!”

  I hear blood rushing in my ears. “What?” I stutter as her words crash through me.

  The house, gone, just like that?

  “Isn’t that great?” Hallie coos, completely oblivious to my distress. “Now, it’s quite a bit under the asking price, and I told your dad to hold out for more, but he wants to get this done ASAP. We’ll be rushing the deal through, and should have it all settled in a couple of weeks!”

  I start to feel dizzy and nauseous. I stand there, listening to Hallie babble about closing dates and surveys, and how great this all is to be off my plate. “You’ll be able to get back to school!” she says. “The buyer says not even to worry about getting everything cleared out. I think they’re planning to raze the whole
thing, you know, and just build something new on the land.”

  “They want to tear it down?!” My voice rises in horror.

  “Well, it’s such an old place, but the view is worth it,” Hallie continues. “Anyway, sweetie, you think you can be out by the end of the week? I don’t want to give them time to change their minds now!”

  “Sure,” I whisper faintly. “Whatever you need.”

  “Fab—”

  I hang up, stunned.

  Sure, I’ve known for weeks that the house was going to be sold. Dad and Carina outvoted me. But all this time, I’ve pictured some other family getting to enjoy it: kids playing in the front yard, tracking sand up from the beach. It took the sting away, imagining the new happy memories that were going to be created under that shingled roof.

  But torn down?

  The thought makes me sick to my stomach. Coming after Emerson abandoned me this morning, it feels like everything I love is getting ripped away from me, and I’m powerless to do anything to stop it.

  With a start, I realize I’ve been standing here, frozen outside Jimmy’s for ages. I hitch my purse over my shoulder and start walking down the street towards home. It’s a lovely morning: blue-skied, with a fresh breeze dancing in from the ocean, but inside, I feel like I’m trying to walk through a hurricane. I take deep breaths, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other along the side of the dusty road, but with every step, my strength falters, and I feel my determination start to unravel.

  A car passes me on the road, honking the horn. The driver whoops out the window. “Lookin’ good, darling!”

  I flinch, realizing with a blush that I’m doing a walk of shame here, early in the morning in a flimsy dress. A wash of embarrassment rolls through me, and I hug my arms around myself and keep my head down until the car is gone.

  I keep walking, tears stinging in the back of my throat. I don’t understand why Emerson would just up and bail like this, after everything we shared last night. Held tight in his arms, feeling him surge up, hard inside me, I felt whole again, like every missing piece and broken part of me was mended, safe and complete.

  I was home.

  I thought he felt it too: how his eyes blazed into mine, full of fierce emotion, as if I was all he’d ever wanted in the world. The tenderness in his expression as he tucked my body against his took my breath away; the dazed wonder he gasped as he plunged into me, over and over again…

  But as I think back over everything, I realize with a shiver that for all the laughing, and talking, and mind-blowing, gasping sex last night, we never actually talked about anything real. The future. What the hell this is between us now. What he wants from me. Why the hell he broke my heart and walked away from me all those years ago.

  My stomach twists as my mind races back, even further, over the past few days since I came to town. I pore over every encounter, every word, with new anxiety rising. What I remember robs the breath from my chest. He’s never said anything about feelings—just desire. He never said he cared about me, just that he wanted to rip my clothes off—against all his better judgment.

  Maybe this is all he ever wanted from me.

  My questions whirl through my head, a deafening chorus, and soon I can’t help it: I find myself slipping back, to the one memory I’ve forced myself never to revisit. That day. The one that took everything I love and tore it away from me, and I never knew why.

  4 years ago…

  It was after the funeral, already officially the worst day of my entire life. First the service, full of empty platitudes, then the slow procession to the cloudy clifftop. Emerson is silent the whole way through, but I couldn’t speak, even if I tried. We open the urn, and I watch her ashes mingle with the wind: my lovely, warm mother dissolving into nothingness right in front of my very eyes.

  There’s a reception after, back at the house, but I can’t deal with it. My dad is playing the heartbroken widow, as if it wasn’t his fault, every minute of it. So I take Emerson and we drive for hours, heading nowhere, until we wind up parked under a grove of trees down a dirt road somewhere, just watching the rain splatter against the windscreen.

  And then I reach for him.

  I’m numb with grief. All I want is to bury myself in his body again, block out the tragedy of my life with the one person I know can make everything better. The only good thing I have left.

  But he pushes me away. And when he turns to face me, his eyes are blank, like a stranger’s.

  “I can’t deal with this shit, Jules.”

  His words cut through me, every syllable like a fresh blade in my heart. I gape at him, dazed. I don’t know where this is coming from. And today of all days?

  “It’s all…this is way too heavy.” Emerson looks away. He drags his hand through his hair, then slams it against the wheel. “Fuck. I don’t know how to do this!”

  “Do what?” I whisper, terrified. Emerson is the last solid ground I have left to cling to, and I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

  “This. You, all this emotional crap,” Emerson gestures, still not meeting my eyes. “I thought this was just a summer thing. I didn’t sign up for this.”

  I gasp in shock. “You didn’t sign up for this? Fuck you!” I scream. “You think I did? My mom is dead now. Dead! You think I wanted any of this?” My yell turns to a sob, wretched in my throat.

  Emerson keeps his gaze fixed outside the truck. “I’m just saying…Summer’s done now.”

  “But…we made plans.” I feel the world slide out of focus. I’m falling, dizzy, and there’s nothing here to hold me up anymore. “You said I would stay here in town with you. I’d work, and apply to art schools next year. We’d be together. You promised!”

  Emerson jerks his shoulders in a shrug. “So maybe I changed my mind.”

  I’m reeling when he finally turns to me again. His eyes are dead, no sign of the fierce devotion I usually see there.

  “I don’t understand,” I whisper. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I told you.” Emerson’s jaw is clenched. “We’ve been kidding ourselves, thinking this can last. You don’t belong here.”

  “I belong with you!” My voice catches on another sob. “Emerson, please!” I beg him, desperate. “I need you!”

  I reach for his arm, clinging on to the solid stretch of muscle I’ve felt pressed against me all summer long, but he shakes me off. “Don’t!” Emerson’s voice is harsh, and it ricochets through me like a blow.

  I cringe back. “I don’t understand,” I whisper again. “You love me. I know you do!”

  Emerson’s eyes flash black. “Love isn’t enough,” he tells me with an angry sneer. “Maybe when you’re older, you’ll understand.”

  Tears flow down my cheeks. “You don’t mean it,” I insist. “I don’t know why you’re saying these things, but it’s not true! We’re meant to be together, you told me so!”

  “I lied.” Emerson grips the steering wheel with both hands, so hard his knuckles turn white.

  Suddenly, I have to get out of here. I feel the panic sweep through me, the iron bands clenching tighter around my chest. I grapple with the truck handle, then swing the door open and scramble down from the cab, gasping for air. I trip, falling to the ground, but I don’t stop; I scramble to my feet and stumble blindly into the rain.

  “Jules!” I hear Emerson call after me. I fight for air, but it doesn’t come. My whole world is gone; nothing makes sense. I fall to my knees, my whole body wracked with desperate sobs.

  “Jules!” I feel Emerson’s hand yank on my arm, and then he’s on his knees in front of me, holding me up. “Breathe,” he orders me. I gasp, but it doesn’t stop. The ache in my chest is all-consuming, a dark wave of pain crashing over me again and again. Emerson shakes me, determination clear on his face. “Breathe!” he says again, cupping my face in his hands. “You can do it. Come on, baby!”

  I sob, drowning in the panic.

  “I’ve got you,” Emerson promises. “Please, Jules. Just
breathe with me. You can do it!”

  I gasp one ragged breath deep into my lungs, and then another. I stare into Emerson’s eyes. The distance is gone, replaced with the fierce tenderness I know so well. He does love me, I tell myself. He has to. He wouldn’t be holding me like this if he didn’t. This is all a big mistake, he’ll see that now. We’re going to be OK.

  Slowly, the panic ebbs away.

  Emerson breathes with me, one sweet gasp of air after another. I crumple into his arms, weeping, clinging to him with everything I am. He strokes my hair gently, cradling me against him, until, finally, my breathing returns to normal.

  I can feel his heartbeat thundering through the damp fabric of his shirt. If I hold him hard enough, maybe I can pretend the last ten minutes never happened. We can wipe them from history and never say a word about it again.

  Then Emerson slowly detaches my arms from around his torso and firmly pushes me away from him.

  I look up at his beautiful face. Water runs in rivulets down from his wet hair, dripping from his thick eyelashes and flowing down his jaw. My dark, damaged angel. My forever.

  “It’s over.”

  His eyes close off again, a barrier crashing down between us.

  “No!” I scream. “I don’t believe you!”

  “I’m sorry.” Emerson’s face flashes with something tragic, an ache that has no words. He gets to his feet. I grab for him, but he steps back. “I’ll take you home,” he says blankly, holding out his hand to me.

  I ignore it, scrambling to my feet all on my own. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Not until you tell me why you’re doing this to us.”

  “You want a reason?” Emerson flares with anger. “Hell, try a hundred! We wouldn’t make it, Jules, any fucking fool could see that. We were crazy to think we could even try!”