Love Always,

by Sonya Loveday

  I ignored Ed’s taunt and asked, “If you didn’t want to marry me, you sure went to every level possible to wreck my life. I want to know why!”

  She tried to shove past me, but I caught her by the elbow and jerked her back in front of me.

  “Get your hands off me.”

  “Answer me!”

  She’d forgotten about everyone around us as she pummeled my chest, screeching and sobbing with her tirade. “I had plans too, Phillip! Plans that had nothing to do with you until your mother and my father decided to interfere. Daddy said I had to marry you. And if I didn’t marry you, I wouldn’t get my inheritance! We were both played. Only I found out about it and made my own stipulations. If I had to tie myself with you, I was going to get something from it too. So I settled for the yacht. And like the bastard you are, you sold it!”

  I let her go and took a step back as I dragged my hand down my face. Hearing that our parents were the reason for the destruction of our lives didn’t sway me to feel bad for her. If anything, it pissed me off even more. She could have come to me at any point and told me what was going on. All of it could have been avoided.

  Every. Damn. Bit of it.

  I wouldn’t have had to hurt Maggie and, in turn, rip my own heart out because of her greedy little lies. I needed her to tell me the truth for once. I needed to hear it fully so I could walk away from her with a clear conscience and what was left of my pride.

  “I need you to be honest for once in your life. I want the truth from you right now… Did we have sex? The morning I woke up with you in my bed… and you told me what we’d supposedly done… that was nothing more than a lie, right?”

  She rolled her eyes at me.

  “Did you drug me?”

  Her nostrils flared as the color seeped out of her face, and a hush fell over the crowd. “You can’t prove anything.”

  I had her where I wanted her, so I went in all or nothing as I said, “I don’t think it would be in your best interest to lie to me now. I can see it in your face. You know your lies are catching up to you. I can prove you’re not pregnant. Care to call my bluff?”

  She side-stepped me, looking for a spot where she could make her retreat.

  I wasn’t having it. “I will make your life a living hell. The same way you’ve made mine.”

  Those around us tittered and gawked with the show we were putting on for them, and I didn’t care a bit. She wasn’t going to lie to me anymore.

  She drew in a hissed breath and leaned in close as she whispered, “A friend of Father’s drugged you and I crawled into your bed, rolled myself up in the covers, and put on the best performance of my damn life. Is that what you want to hear? I fucking hate you, and if you even think about saying anything whatsoever about this, I will make sure Daddy’s lawyer takes your family to the cleaners.”

  “Well… can’t say I didn’t see that coming,” Ed said. “I think we got what we came for. Let’s go, Phil.”

  He tugged my arm, walking me backward as Sophia’s eyes tuned to slits.

  She charged at me. “You will not leave me! I don’t care what you say… you are marrying me. I will not be cut off from my money!”

  My jaw clenched as Ed pulled me further away and said, “Enjoy the life of a pauper.”

  Twice, I tried to pull away and go back to give her a piece of my mind. And twice, Ed swung me back toward the car until he had me stuffed into the passenger seat. Tearing out of the driveway and across the well-manicured lawn, he left a trail of rooster-tail ruts of grass in our wake.

  “Fucking bloody twat. Didn’t I tell you she was a lying bitch?” Ed asked as the car fishtailed out onto the road.

  My head fell back against the headrest and all I could do was sit in a stunned-like silence, trying to figure out what the hell had happened.

  Ed elbowed me. “Phillip, snap out of it! Now’s not the time to go all dark and shit. What are we gonna do about Maggie?”

  Maggie!

  I had to tell Maggie. Beg for her forgiveness and set right all the lies that had torn us apart.

  I didn’t even know where to start. I knew she was in the Bahamas, but where in the Bahamas?

  Panic crept in as black dots danced in front of my eyes, and my heart squeezed in the restraint of my chest. I couldn’t catch my breath. My left arm tingled, warning me I was about to be thrown into the mother of all panic attacks. And damned if I had time for that!

  “Get me to the executive airport, Ed,” I told him, doing my best to keep myself conscious with long, deep breaths.

  Ed punched the gas with a booming laugh. “Now do you see why I had ye pack all your shite? Bloody American arsehole. You’d still be mooning away in your room if not for me. Don’t worry; you can thank me later.”

  Ed had been one step ahead of me the whole time, looking out for me like only a best friend would do.

  “Shut up and drive, Jeeves. I can’t think when you’re shouting insults at me all the damn time,” I answered, letting my head fall back against the headrest, pinching my eyes closed.

  Maggie’s father would know where she was. She’d said she talked to him nearly every day. I just hoped he’d hear me out without kicking my ass and cutting me up for fishing bait.

  What father would be able to look at the one who’d crushed his little girl’s heart into a million pieces and not want to do the same to him?

  I closed my eyes and prayed he’d listen to me.

  “ARE YA SURE YA WANNA do dis, Maggie?” Andre asked me as he helped me load and secure the last of my supplies. “Da storm tracka’s still showing dat hurricane blowing in da direction ya headed. Dos waves can get frightenen out dere. One wrong move, and ya ovaboard.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment, and then looked over my shoulder at him. “I need to do this, Andre,” I said, closing the hatch. “And besides, we’ve watched the last two storms sizzle out. I don’t want to wait any longer. It’s nothing I haven’t handled before.”

  He gave me a look.

  I laughed. “I’m serious, Andre. Believe it or not, this girl is an excellent sailor.”

  “Whateva ya say, Maggie,” he said, handing me another box filled with gallons of water.

  It had been two days since I had read Phillip’s letter. In that timeframe, I think I went through every one of the five stages of grief… at least twice… until I finally landed on acceptance.

  Well, except for the momentary lapses of anger where I’d curse Phillip and Sophia, and I envisioned myself keying their cars and taking a bat to the windshields. That happened every few hours or so, but, considering it had only just happened, I felt like I was doing pretty well.

  I turned back around to Andre and gave my best smile.

  He saw right through it.

  “I undastand, but the offa’s still der when ya ready. Louis knows ya takin’ da long way round da islands. If ya get ta where ya goin’ and decide ya ready for dat job I off’ed, it will be waitin’ for ya.”

  I reached out and squeezed his arm. “Thank you, Andre. For everything. You’ve made this an amazing experience when I could have been wandering aimlessly. And I’m going to take you up on that offer… I just—” I looked out over the ocean, watching the golden rays beginning to spread over the horizon. “I just need to say goodbye to a dream of mine first.”

  Andre hugged me, and then stepped off the boat, waiting as I made my way to the stern, untying the dock lines. Once I pushed the boat away from the dock, I turned and waved at him, and then took to steering my way out of the port.

  The wind blew in hard from the southeast, moving me further out to sea. Closer to my goodbye. I felt a small pang leaving Andre and the Berry Islands behind. A pang I hadn’t felt before in any of my travels. Not since I had left the resort.

  Since I had left Phillip.

  I spent the first half of the day losing myself in the mindless tasks of sailing that had become second nature to me. I knew it would take me close to forty-eight hours to get where I was going at a
leisurely pace, but I decided to go slower. Enjoy the waters a little bit. Take my time so I could gather my thoughts.

  I thought a part of me was stalling.

  I knew I needed to let go of Phillip the only way I knew how if I was to ever have a chance at moving on. He had become a huge part of my life, a huge part of my future, but it was time for me to carve a new future for myself.

  I picked up the phone and dialed Hannah’s number. “Hannah?” I said as soon as she picked up.

  “Maggie? Is that you?”

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling a real smile for the first time in days.

  “You’re so lucky you’re on the other end of a phone and not standing in front of me right now, because I swear I’d choke the shit out of you for not calling before now. How the hell have you been?”

  “Good. Just busy with traveling and getting my shit together, you know?”

  “Tell me about it. These classes have been the death of me, but I ended my Freshman year with a 3.8 GPA. How’s that for a white-trash girl rising above?”

  “You were never white trash,” I said seriously. Glad that we could pick back up right where we’d left off. True friends were like that. Always a phone call away, no matter the distance in time.

  “Yeah, well. Anyway… what’s up? How’s lover boy? Still writing like little school kids?”

  I knew it would only be a matter of time until she asked me about him. She knew we were going to write to each other.

  “We were,” I said before dying off.

  “Uh-oh. What happened?”

  I told her everything starting from the beginning. About every letter. About my feelings and the way Phillip had grown. The romantic things he used to say to me. A good thirty minutes worth of a romance that would surely have a happy ending.

  I even told her about Ed and the silly things he did that I knew had helped Phillip come out of his shell.

  “Ed sounds interesting,” Hannah cut in, in a wistful-sounding voice.

  “No. He’s definitely off-limits,” I said, laughing with her.

  “Why? This is a free country, in case you forgot.”

  My heart snapped right in half. “Because… because he’s Phillip’s friend, and Phillip got Sophia pregnant,” I blurted out. “And now, it’s all over. Every bit of it. We’re done, so there’s no chance of meeting up with Ed.”

  “Oh,” Hannah deadpanned.

  “Yeah.”

  “That son of a bitch,” she said as what I had admitted finally started to take root in her mind. “Are you fucking kidding me? Sophia? Hoebag Sophia? He knocked her up? What the fu—?”

  “I know, I know,” I said, gripping the helm as I squeezed my eyes shut and inhaled. “Been there, thought that.”

  “Sorry. My fists are shaking right now. You set me up for that fall, didn’t you? After all that mushy, gushy awesome stuff… I just don’t get how he could have slept with her. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t. And I’m sure it was more her than him… but that doesn’t excuse it, Hannah. The one thing I always worried the most about Phillip was his gullibility. I tried so hard to wake him up to it without cramming my opinions down his throat, but, in the end… she won.”

  “Fuck that. She didn’t win shit. Even if he did get her pregnant and does the right thing, you know damn well that he loves you, Maggie. You know he’s not happy. He won’t ever be with that whore.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” I said, feeling that awful lump forming in my throat again.

  She paused for a moment. “Sorry,” she said, backtracking. “I get carried away.”

  “It’s all good. If the roles were reversed, I’d already be over with a shovel, ready to bury the bitch.”

  Hannah laughed at me. “It’s been hell not seeing you. When you coming home?”

  Here was the hard part.

  “I don’t know if I am coming back, Hannah.”

  Hannah snorted through the phone. “Sure you are. You’re just being melodramatic right now. You know your dad would flip if you didn’t come home to see him. Probably beat you with some dead fish or something.”

  I chewed my lip, smiling to myself. Damn her for always being right about me.

  “Maggie,” she said tauntingly into the phone. “I know you’re there, and you know I’m right.”

  I sighed out a breath I’d been holding since the night I read Phillip’s letter, and it felt good to let it out. To finally catch my breath again.

  “Probably late this summer. I have to make a stop first, and then I planned on heading to Cat Island. A friend of mine I met at Berry Island got me a job there… something that’s nearly impossible to do here without bookoos of money. I don’t want to lose that opportunity by not showing up. So once I get settled in, then I’ll come back.”

  “Well, I’m holding you to it then,” she said. Someone shouted her name in the background. “Listen,” she said after she told the other person to hang on, “I have to go meet up with the girls on my roller-derby team.”

  “Roller derby?” I said, choking out in laughter.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Long story, but yeah. I’m actually really good at it. Who knew knocking bitches over would be my forte?”

  I laughed so hard my abs felt like a punching bag. “Oh my, Hannah,” I said, imagining her with a mouth guard in and a scowl on her face, knocking girls to the ground.

  “Good times,” she said, laughing a little with me. “Anyway, I have to go, but you better call me more often! Once a year isn’t going to cut it, and we have a lot of catching up to do.”

  “Got it,” I said, feeling a little better already.

  “All right, girl. I’ll catch you later.”

  “Bye,” I said, and then hung up.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, I WENT down into the cabin to grab a bite to eat and call my dad. It was a call I was dreading. A call I knew would solidify what I was about to do.

  My hand shook as I picked up my phone. As I typed in the numbers.

  It rang once.

  “Hello?”

  I forced a smile on my face, hoping it would come through my voice. “Hey, Dad.”

  “Maggie girl! How are ya?”

  “Good. Sailing at the moment.”

  “Oh, yeah? Heading to Cat Island now? I bet you’re ready to get your hands dirty.”

  I leaned my head back against the couch and closed my eyes. “About that,” I said, inhaling to try and steady my rapidly beating heart. “I’m making a pit stop somewhere else before I head to Cat Island.”

  “Oh, yeah?” he said, still chipper. “Where to?”

  I swallowed thickly. “Rum Cay. I uh… I have some unfinished business I need to handle before I can settle down in Cat Island.”

  My dad took a pause. If he hadn’t heard it in my voice before, he did then. “Everything okay, Maggie girl?”

  Why did my eyes have to burn so badly? Why did my chest feel like rocks were being stacked, one on top of the other? And why did I wish more than ever that my dad was with me so I could cry on his shoulder?

  Because my heart was broken.

  It took me a moment to gather enough strength to swallow past the lump blocking my throat so I could find the words to explain what had happened. My dad was patient though, allowing us to sit in silence for as long as I needed until I could finally speak, and I loved him even more for it.

  “I have to let him go, Dad,” I whispered through the pain, my voice cracking in spots.

  I heard my dad shuffling in his seat. Heard him clear his throat as it set in who I was speaking about.

  “What happened?”

  I looked up to the ceiling, blinking through the tears staining my vision. “You know… slept with someone. Got her pregnant. Told me he loved me and that he always would. That kind of stuff—”

  “Oh, Maggie,” he said, the sorrow already in his voice.

  “Please, Dad. Don’t feel bad for me. I did it to myself.”

 
; “Bad for you?” he said, and I could just see the anger brewing in his eyes. “I don’t feel bad at all for you, Maggie girl. I feel bad for that Phillip boy, because as soon as I get my hands on him, he’s going to wish he never laid eyes on you.”

  My eyes went wide. “That really isn’t necessary, Dad. It’s done. Over. That’s why I’m going to Rum Cay—to get the goodbye I need, without having to see his face.”

  “I’m sorry this happened, Maggie girl. You of all people didn’t deserve it.”

  “It’s life, Dad. What’s a life worth living without a little heartbreak in it?” I joked, but the humor was devoid from my voice.

  He cleared his throat again. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Dad, and I’ll call you as soon as I make it in.”

  “How soon will that be?”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I’m taking the long route, and I might stop at a few ports before the actual port to rest, so I’d say in a week or so.”

  “Call me if you need an ear, Maggie girl.”

  “I will.”

  After we hung up, I grabbed the letter from Phillip off the desk where I had left it the night I read it and headed out of the cabin. The stars weren’t as bright, dulled by the smoky clouds brightened momentarily by streaks of lavender-colored heat lightning.

  I lifted my hand into the air, the paper flapping wildly against the wind. With my heart lodged in my throat, I let go, watching the paper disappear into the darkness.

  “Goodbye, Phillip.”

  I’D NEVER REALLY UNDERSTOOD THE expression ‘hat in hand’. But standing at the end of the dock with the ball cap Ed had given me twisted between my hands as I waited for Maggie’s father to sail in gave me the real-life scenario of what it meant as I anxiously awaited his arrival.

  My heart felt like it was lodged in my throat, beating harder than it ever had before when Sean Fairchild floated in on the afternoon tide, tossing a rope through the air as he shouted, “Tie me off, would ya?”

  I caught the rope and willed my heart to slow. At least he hadn’t started cursing me out when he’d laid eyes on me. But, then again, maybe he was waiting until he was docked and could get out onto equal ground.