by Kaia Knight
Coach Chantall beamed and waved her hand as the team looked at her, but her eyes flashed as she said, “Don’t worry, I have plenty left.”
Kailani raised her eyebrows and suppressed a smile as she looked back at Coach Steve. Can’t wait to break them all.
Steve clapped his hands together before continuing, “Bus leaves in twenty minutes, dinner and after-party at our place per tradition, it’s about an hour drive from here. Team cheer, here we go!”
They all put their hands in a circle and got ready to break before filing out towards the locker room. Kailani was lost in her thoughts in the back of the gaggle of girls when a hand suddenly grabbed her shoulder. She yelped in surprise.
“Woah, it’s just me!” Alyssa cried. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to ask— why did you do that for me earlier?”
Kailani shrugged. “Because I’ve been there before, and it sucks. When you’re all panicked seconds before your race, it can really blow your whole swim.”
“I guess what I meant was, why would you do that for me, when none of us would have done the same for you?” Her tone was frank, and, for the first time, she looked at Kailani with more than a dismissive glance.
“To be honest, I almost didn’t. But you’re a senior, this was your last shot at regionals. I still have another year.”
“Then why did you tell Coach Steve that your goggles broke? You know he would’ve gone on about what a hero you are.” The bitterness in her tone was amplified as her voice echoed down the empty hall.
“I think you just answered that question for yourself.” Kailani crossed her arms, looking squarely at Alyssa. Was this supposed to be a reconciliation? Because it sure doesn’t feel like it. “Can I go change now, or is there more to this interrogation?” Kailani turned and headed towards the locker rooms once more.
“Kailani, wait… Thank you.”
Kailani regarded her earnest expression. There were no promises of change, new beginnings, or friendship. Just a simple thanks. Kailani gave her a half smile, respecting the fact that she wasn’t being falsely sweet. “Anytime. You’re going to crush regionals. Just bring spare goggles, okay?”
“I don’t know, maybe Coach was right about it making you faster. Should we make this a regular thing?”
They walked towards the locker room together, the lingering echo of their laughter intertwining into a single note as the door shut behind them.
Chapter 26
Gabriel
Gabriel lifted his head from the cold window as the school bus shuddered to a stop with a mechanical wheeze. He rubbed his aching neck and peered through the smudged pane at the small cottage perched on a hilltop. Home.
Apprehension crept through him as nostalgic memories of his childhood twisted into images of black suits and somber faces, staining the fondness of the years he had grown up there. It will never be the same.
Gabriel looked around and saw the team rising from their seats, chattering excitedly. With a steadying breath, he stepped into the aisle and descended the steps onto the cracked pavement leading to the cottage. Eli’s truck was already parked next to his dad’s in the driveway, and a wave of relief surged through him. Eli was always a stabilizing presence, a neutral force that kept him and his dad from tearing each other apart.
Gabriel followed the stone walkway to the covered front porch where ferns and flowers spilled from hanging planters. The navy siding and crisp, white shutters looked like they had a fresh coat of paint. He opened the screen door, stepping into the spacious foyer with wide eyes.
Steve appeared from the hallway and grinned at Gabriel, whose jaw hung open as he gazed around. “What do you think?”
“I hardly recognize the place, Dad. You’ve done a lot of work in here.” He strolled into the main room, still in a daze. The bright, white kitchen led onto an enormous back deck with an uninterrupted view of the ocean beneath them.
He looked around the room, trying to grasp onto something familiar as the team filed in behind him, the energy of the room lifting with their laughter.
The French doors that led onto the back deck flew open, and Eli strode in wearing an apron adorned with sailboats and whales. His eyes immediately locked on the gaggle of girls that walked in and he grinned wolfishly.
“Congrats on your win, ladies!” he called above the chatter, clacking tongs together in the air. “Who’s hungry? If you bring the buns, I’ve got a lot of meat…big hotdogs, brats, just look at that girth …” He wagged his eyebrows at Gabriel, and their dad shook his head in disbelief.
Steve muttered darkly to Gabriel as they followed Eli outside, “Not sure why you insisted on him coming, I can’t serve up all this food and watch where he keeps his hands.”
Gabriel fought a smile and said loudly enough for Eli to hear, “Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll be his chaperone, keep him on a tight leash. Eli, why don’t you help me get the drinks, and Dad can take over here?” He aimed a punch at Eli’s abs and dragged him into the kitchen. “You’re such an ass.” Rummaging through the refrigerator, he passed liters of lemonade and soda to Eli and grabbed the ice bin from the freezer.
They set the drinks on the dining table and Eli said loudly, “So, it’s cool if I spiked the lemonade with some vodka, right? This is a celebration, after all!”
A few of the girls giggled. Gabriel rolled his eyes and headed for the speaker in the corner of the room, plugging his phone in and choosing a playlist. Soon everyone was swaying to the infectious beat as they talked and picked at appetizers. The smell of smoky barbecue filled the cottage as the team spread out in the great room.
Steve came back inside with a tray full of sizzling meat and vegetable-laden skewers, and the team flocked towards him in excitement. Gabriel strolled towards the windows, peering out as he waited for the line to die down. When someone brushed up against his elbow, Gabriel glanced down, and his stomach fluttered when he realized it was Kailani. Her hair was in thick French braids, and she had on a flannel and dark, skinny jeans. She licked her lips when their eyes met, then quickly looked out the window, gesturing at the skyline. The sun was setting over the water in the distance, the shimmer of waves scattering light in every direction.
“This is absolutely stunning. I can’t believe you grew up here.”
Gabriel smiled. “It was incredible…it feels weird to be back.” He instinctively looked north, where a path led through a thicket of trees towards a higher bluff.
Kailani’s head cocked to the side as she followed his glance. “Has it been a while?”
“About a year. Dad’s been renting the place out to tourists on the weekends since the renovation, so I haven’t had a good chance to come back.”
She looked at him with a question in her eyes, but Gabriel turned, nodding towards the dining table. “Looks like the feeding frenzy is over. Shall we?”
They grabbed paper plates and loaded them up, working their way down the assembly line of food. When someone called Kailani over to join them, Gabriel slipped onto the deck unnoticed. He sat on the steps that led down onto the sloping lawn, looking out across the water.
He chewed mechanically on his burger but could not taste it. Once again, he felt a gravitating pull beckoning him towards the trail in the distance. The words he had uttered with conviction days ago in the therapist’s office had been ringing in his head ever since. There’s something I need to do. Something I should have done a long time ago.
Setting his plate aside, he stood and zipped his jacket against the unforgiving coastal breeze. He hiked the steep hill through the trees until they thinned, revealing a cliffside overlooking the ocean. The wind tugged at his clothes, an invisible force pushing him forward. He edged forward, fighting for balance as he looked over the lip where the meadow tumbled into the sea below.
Gabriel licked his chapped lips and tried to swallow. Come on. You have to do this. He took a deep breath and slowly stepped forward until he was above the white marble marker in the ground. He shoved his hands in h
is pockets to quell their shaking.
“Hey, Nate, I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.” The trembling words were snatched by the frigid wind as they passed over his numb lips. He cleared his throat, shivering but determined to continue.
“Today’s your birthday…” A memory popped unbidden into his head, and he choked out a laugh that sounded more like a manic giggle as it left his taut throat. “Remember last year? After you opened presents, we went out in the canoe because you lost a bet. I don’t even remember what it was. But Eli made you dip your junk in the ocean, and next thing we knew, you were screaming with a fish hanging off your goods—” Gabriel laughed again and dragged a hand down his face, holding it over his mouth to suppress the confusing emotions bubbling inside him, threatening to erupt..
Through the fingers pressed against his lips, he began to sing tentatively. “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,” was all he could manage before his voice twisted into an involuntary moan. “Oh, God, what am I doing? I don’t know how to do this.” He crossed his arms tightly across his chest, holding back the quaking force he had locked inside of him, now trembling to be released.
“Gabe?”
Gabriel whirled around and Kalani took a step back when she saw his face. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you. What are you looking at?”
Gabriel didn’t answer. Instead, he looked down at the grave once more.
Nathaniel McEwen. A beloved brother, son, and Coast Guardsman. He heard Kailani’s quiet gasp.
“I had no idea.”
He did not look away from the marker at his feet. “It would have been his birthday today.” His voice was flat, his thoughts viscous and garbled with the numbness that coursed through him.
“Gabe, I’m so sorry,” she said gently, barely audible above the wind. “Was this what kept you from coming home—it happened last year?”
He nodded.
They stood in silence for what could have been seconds or hours, the only indication of time passing was the chill seeping further into their bones. Gabriel closed his eyes, his body trembling with more than just cold. He didn’t know how long she stood there with him before she broke the silence.
“You know, when my mom died, I didn’t go to her funeral. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t visit her grave for months…because that would mean I accepted she was gone, that it was final. But when I finally did, I just sat down and talked to her and it felt like she was right there beside me. It felt better. It didn’t make it okay, but more bearable.” She reached out and gently touched Gabriel’s hand that was still wrapped tight around his ribcage, like it was the only thing holding him together. “I’ll give you some space…”
Gabriel’s stomach plummeted when the warmth of her touch slipped away. Like a shipwreck survivor watching his rescue pass over him unnoticed, a helpless panic seized him.
“Wait! Please stay? I don’t…I don’t know how to do this.”
Kailani stepped closer, wrapping her arms around him. Her embrace shielded him from the sting of the wind, her heartbeat against his numb fingers urged him to let go. His arms wove around her, holding on for all he was worth. She stroked his back and she murmured, “It’s okay. Just let it out, don’t be afraid.”
He couldn’t hold on any longer, and a sob burst from him, cracking open the wall that he had built around himself. “It was my fault!” he groaned, clutching the back of Kailani’s flannel in his fists. “He shouldn’t have died—it was all my fault…”
He trailed off and was silent, his anguish welling up as the nightmares that haunted him every night surged through his mind, taunting him.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He took a breath and pulled back from her embrace, letting his hand slip down to weave between her fingers. Facing his brother’s grave once more, he began speaking in a flat, controlled voice. Just get it over with. Say it out loud.
“He was my baby brother. We were closest, more similar than me and Eli. We were always competing against each other. In school, football, swimming, then scuba diving. We did everything together and always tried to one-up each other. Dad always encouraged it, pitting us against one another. But more than anything, he wanted us both to join the Navy and be like him…but it wasn’t for me. Eli didn’t care of course, but for Nate, that was the one thing that he and Dad shared that I didn’t. And Dad reminded me about it constantly.” He shook his head, bitterness twisting his voice.
He nodded towards the cliff in front of him as he continued, “We always went cliff diving here for fun, tossing buoys or fake dummies off the edge and retrieving them. Or we would race to that rock half a mile out, and whoever touched it first won.”
Kailani craned her neck, peering over the cliff where the water churned, slamming against the granite walls sixty feet below.
“Not the safest hobby, I know. But that’s just how it went—we would egg each other on to do the next craziest thing to see who had the balls to do it.” Gabriel ran his hand down his face, his stubble scratching audibly as he struggled to continue.
“Anyways, just before Nate had a weekend off training, Dad and I got in a huge fight. It was the usual: how I should be more like Nathaniel, defending our country instead of just wasting my time, how I’m a ‘has-been’...Dad was going on about what a hero Nate was, and I was fed up. I yelled at him because…I know something that Dad did. Something bad that he hid for years, and I called him out on his secret. He didn’t say anything, just stormed off to the dock to go fishing, even though the weather was horrible.”
Gabriel’s voice trailed off when his throat tightened once more. Kailani gave his hand a reassuring squeeze and he squared his shoulders, summoning strength from her grasp to continue. “I wanted to get out of here, needed to just swim through my emotions, you know? I challenged Nate to our usual race to the rock and back. He didn’t want to do it because it was storming out; so, I taunted him, took hits at his pride to get him to cave, which of course he did. But the worst thing I did was when we were walking up here, to this cliffside. When I told him that Dad and I got in another fight, Nate defended him as usual. So I told him Dad’s secret.”
He grew quiet, shame creeping into his voice. “I don’t know why I did it. I guess I was mad…and maybe I didn’t want to carry the burden of being the only one who saw our dad for the person he really is. He didn’t believe me at first... but when I suggested heading back to the house to talk to Dad, he told me he didn’t want to see him. So we dove.”
Gabriel took a shaking breath. “I heard him laughing the whole way down. Nate always loved the thrill. He couldn’t help it, even though he was angry. That was the last time I heard his voice. As soon as I hit the water, I knew something was wrong. It was the undertow that did it. It pulled me under and twisted me around…I couldn’t tell which direction the surface was, everything was dark and shifting. I tried to stay calm, but the waves tossed me against the rocks and I must have hit my head. Everything went black for a while, but then I thought I saw something.”
He looked down at his trembling hands. “I don’t know if I imagined it, but I tried to find him. I thought I saw him slipping away, going deeper.” His voice broke and he fought back a sob. “He was sinking below me, his hand outstretched towards mine, his mouth opened in a scream that I couldn’t hear. I kicked harder and tried to reach him, but the last thing I remember is his cold, white hand slipping away from me.”
Gabriel collapsed to his knees, dragging his hands through his hair as tears flowed freely down his face. “That’s what I see in my nightmares every night. It haunts me. Was that really him, or my imagination? Was I that close to saving him, and I let him go?”
“Oh, Gabriel,” Kailani whispered, her voice thick with emotion as she knelt beside him. “How did you even survive that, after hitting your head?”
His head hung even lower, falling to his chest. “Dad saved me. He saw us from the dock and paddled out when he saw me struggling. I was underwater and unconscious when
he found me. He told me later that he dove down, over and over, but couldn’t find Nathaniel…”
A wounded cry tore from him, and his sobs intensified. “I did it. My pride killed him. I carry that every day. I see the look in my dad’s eyes, the disappointment. He said I should have tried harder to save him. And I should have. It should have been me!”
Kailani hugged him tighter, pulling his face into her chest as she stroked his hair. Hot tears trailed down his forehead, falling from her cheek.
When his sobs began to slow, she asked, “Did you ever—”
“Find his body? Yes. For the next three days, I went diving with a rescue team, hanging onto the hope that he had made it by some miracle, that I would find him stumbling along a beach with a wild story, like always. But we finally found him, four miles away. I towed him in. And just like that, he was gone forever.”
His grief coursed through him in waves and Kailani was his anchor, tethering him to the cliffside. His tears seemed to rise up from the depths of his soul, leaving the bitterness of his grief dried to his cheek when they evaporated in the wind. He was not sure how long he knelt there in her embrace, but the sun slowly slipped into the grey shadow of clouds as he matched his breaths to the steady rhythm he felt in the rise and fall of her chest.
Finally, Kailani cleared her throat and said hoarsely, “Thank you for telling me…I know that wasn’t easy. I just want you to know that I don’t think it was your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It was a horrible accident that almost took your life, too. And it doesn’t matter what you said beforehand. What matters is what you say now, and that you keep his memory alive by honoring his life…even if it hurts to remember.”
Gabriel nodded slowly, pulling his head up to look at the grave once more. His tears had run dry, and a hollow ache had replaced the heavy, churning guilt that he had carried for so long. He placed his hand over his brother’s name carved in the stone. “Nathaniel. I’m sorry for what I said to you. I’m sorry I let my troubles with Dad come between us. I love you…and I miss you. And I won’t hide you anymore, okay? Please forgive me.”
