“Crew!” Jake cheers when he sees me. He passes his scoop to Eleanor and jogs around the counter and across the room to where I’m standing. “It’s been a while, man.”
“Good to see you,” I say, pulling him into a hug. He slaps my back before moving away and looking at my face.
“Is everything good?”
I look down at him and see that his expression is suddenly serious.
“Yeah, man,” I smile. “Everything is great.”
He nods and grins to himself before looking over his shoulder at where Eleanor is swamped with orders.
“Argh,” he groans, “I’ll have to see you soon, ok?”
I slap him on the arm and nod. “You go back to work. We can catch up later.”
He turns to leave and then stops himself, looking back in my direction.
“Come on, man. Just ask.”
We stare at each other for a second and then I take a deep breath, shoving my hands in my pockets so he won’t see them shaking.
“Where is she?”
He looks out past me to the windows that line the front of the building.
“She’s here.”
“Here?” I scan the crowd quickly, but I can’t see anyone who looks even remotely like Hartley.
“Not here,” he says, “Twin Heads. She was in here earlier but when I told her you were in town she kind of freaked out and took off.” He looks at my face and swallows hard.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say quietly, turning to go. “It’s what I expected.”
We say an awkward goodbye, and I make my way through the waiting people to my Jeep. I take the long way home in case I see her, but the only people on the streets are families with kids on bikes and teenagers carrying their surfboards home from the beach.
I open the door to my house and kick off my shoes. It’s still the same, of course, except now I really notice it. Its emptiness and white walls chill my skin despite the heat of the day. The whole place reminds me of drinking myself to sleep and screwing women I didn’t care about and endless hours pacing back and forth in front of the windows, unable to keep still. It’s a mausoleum of pain and grief, and I want nothing more to do with it. I decide to put it on the market first thing in the morning. I walk across the living area past the kitchen and the dining table that’s never been used. The windows are streaked with salt and dirt from the storms that hit the coast while I’ve been away, but the view is still beautiful. The beach is emptying out again as people head home for the day. Down past my lawn and over the dune I can see a couple of people stop and point as they look down at something on the sand. After a few minutes, they turn and walk off up the beach. I watch the waves for a while, reveling in the way I can now stop and look at something without thoughts racing around in my head and sickness twisting in my gut. It’s taking some getting used to, this third reinvention of me. I’m not the boy who loved a girl named Jessie anymore, and I’m no longer the man who fell apart after he lost her. I feel brand new, untested and tentative, unsure of how I feel in my own skin, but very sure that I’m heading in the right direction.
Out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of color down on the sand and for a moment I think it's someone’s towel blowing in the wind. But it stays in the same place, whipping up in the air and then suddenly disappearing from view. I watch it for a while and then slide open the glass doors, making my way down the steps, past the pool to the lawn and over the dunes to the beach.
When I finally make it over the dune and see what's in front of me, I make myself stop and watch for a few seconds. Because I know for certain that one day when I’m an old man thinking back to the very best moments of my life, I’m going to think of this.
“That is without a doubt the worst fort I’ve ever seen,” I say, walking towards her. “Didn’t you pay any attention at all?”
“Well,” she says, smiling and looking up. “You wouldn’t let me take any notes.”
She moves the sheet back and crawls under, holding it aside for me. I look at how serious she is and try not to laugh.
“Permission to enter?”
“Permission granted.”
There are four long sticks pushed into the sand at the corners and a couple of mismatched sheets draped over the top tied with string. It will collapse any minute.
“You wrote back,” she says, looking up into my face. The sun has given her a light tan and streaked her hair with copper. She has freckles everywhere.
“I’m sorry it took me so long.”
She looks at me for a moment, not saying anything.
“I was away for a while, seeing a doctor. I didn’t get your letters until I got back.”
“Jake told me,” she says quietly, “about the doctor.”
We sit next to each other, being careful to make sure our arms don’t touch. I’m desperate to close the gap between us, but I’m not sure how she feels about me yet.
“After you left I wasn’t good, Hart. Everything unraveled. I knew I needed to talk to someone. I couldn’t go on like that anymore. You showed me what life could be like, and once I had a taste of happiness I didn’t want to live without it anymore.”
She closes her eyes, and a tear swells just under her eyelashes. I reach over and wipe it with my thumb.
“I’ve missed you,” I whisper, and she opens her eyes. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“Why did you keep me away?” she says, reaching for my hand. “I didn’t understand it.”
“I knew that if I came back to you still broken then you’d try to save me. I didn’t want that for you.”
She sits up on her knees, pushing her hair back over her shoulders and turning to me.
“Crew? Can I give you a hug?”
“Oh babe,” I say, pulling her hard against me. “You don’t have to ask.”
She falls against my chest, her face against my neck and her hands in the back of my hair.
“Oh God,” she cries into my skin. “I’ve missed you.”
I wrap an arm around her waist and reach up to stroke her hair.
“Ssssh. It’s going to be ok.”
We stay like that for a long time, clinging to each other madly and unable to bear the slightest distance between us.
“So,” I say eventually, pulling her even closer, “I see I’m not your landlord anymore.”
“I moved in with Eleanor and Jake.”
“How’s that working for you?”
She chuckles into my neck.
“Crowded.”
“I may not be your landlord anymore, but how would you feel about me being your boss?”
She pulls away from me and looks up into my face.
“At Still Waters?”
“Yes. As you saw from my notes, my chemistry is a little limited. I need someone to help me design the lab and head up the development team. You interested?”
“Interested?” she cries. “Of course I’m interested! But wait, where would we live?”
I take her face in my hands. “Up there, down here, South America, wherever we want to, babe. We can split our time between them all.”
She kisses the side of my neck slowly, pushes my hair aside and whispers,
“both are transformed,” into my ear. I push her back gently and look down into her face.
“You got the postcard.”
“It arrived this morning.”
I kiss her slowly then, and both of us sigh in relief at the first touch.
“Are you transformed, Crew?” she says against my mouth.
I lift her chin so that I can see into her eyes.
“I'm on my way.”
The wind picks up and above us the sheets billow and lift. I pull her out by the hand just as the fort collapses in a tumble of fabric and sticks. We take one look at each other and burst out laughing. I laugh even harder when I look up the beach and see her three previous attempts, each more miserable than the last.
“I like the little fort I made for
the postcard better,” I say, taking her left hand and pulling a small square box out of my pocket.
“Do you now?”
“Yes. Do you think you could see yourself standing under it with me, maybe one day soon?”
She stops and looks up at me, the wind blowing her curls around her face and her eyes bright with wonder.
“Yes,” she breathes, leaning in and pressing her palm against my heart. “Yes Crew, I do.”
Epilogue
Crew
"How are you doing there, kid?" I say as she opens the door to her treehouse and steps out onto the landing.
"I'm doing great." But her bottom lip wobbles a bit as she says it.
I reach over and pick up her hand in mine, threading my fingers through hers. She gives it a quick squeeze and the corners of her mouth lift in a smile as she watches me, watching her.
"You look beautiful," I whisper, as I run my eyes over the curls that fall loosely over her shoulders and the simple white beach dress she bought on our first visit here, almost a year ago. Looking at her still makes my heart hurt. But these days all I feel inside my chest is good pain. The kind of ache and longing that makes me want to hold on to Hartley and never, ever let her go. Every time I feel it I'm reminded that despite everything, old wounds can heal. Even wounds of the heart. "These are for you," I say, pulling my other hand out from behind my back. She takes the bunch of pink orchids from me and brings them to her face. But her eyes stay on me.
"Are you ready for this?" she asks slowly with a mischievous glint her eyes. It's the same question she asked me the first night we spent together. Then, I wasn't sure. Now, there's no doubt in my mind.
"Yes. I've never been more ready for anything."
I pull her closer to me, and she leans into my chest, resting her forehead against my shirt. I take a moment to look over the side of the landing. Jake is standing below with his arm around Eleanor, waiting for my signal.
"Time to go," I murmur into Hartley's hair, and she gives a little sigh of contentment into my chest. I push her away from me a little so that I can look down into her face. "I hope you like it. I want it to be perfect." She tilts her head up so that we're looking into each other's eyes.
"It already is."
As the band begins to play, I tug her gently by the hand towards the stairs that wrap around the trunk of the tree. She laughs softly at how excited I am and then she gasps, putting her hand over her mouth and shaking her head when she sees the lanterns in the trees and the petals along the path leading to the beach. We reach the forest floor, and Eleanor breaks away from Jake, stepping forward with a basket in her hands. She gives Hart a quick peck on the cheek and then begins to thread flowers through her hair while they laugh. Next to me, Jake clears his throat, and when we lock eyes, I can see that he's struggling to keep his emotions in check. I nod at him, and he nods back and then he reaches into his pocket and hands me a little white shell bracelet. I hold it in the palm of my hand and look at it for a moment. It's impossibly small. Were her wrists really this tiny? I roll the shells gently between my fingertips until I find it. You can still feel it, after all of this time. Jake watches me as I lift the bracelet to my face and see the small letters I engraved there, many years ago.
Jessie
I glance up, and Hartley is looking at me over Eleanor's shoulder, her eyes full of compassion. She steps closer and pulls a flower from her hair before taking the bracelet from me and winding it around the stem.
"I wanted her to be part of this," she whispers as she pushes the flower into my buttonhole. "Now you look like you're about to get married."
The musicians from the village strum their guitars and sing love songs in Spanish as we walk hand in hand down to the sand. I watch her face as we round the last bend, and the shore opens up before us, not wanting to miss one single expression on her face. She stops where the forest meets the sand, clasping my hand tightly as she takes in the cubby house I've made between the trees out of white silk and flowers and the candles in the sand.
"Can we stop here for a moment?" she whispers and behind us, I sense everyone stop and take a step backward to give us some space. "I don't want to miss it."
I step behind her and pull her back against my chest, resting my chin on the top of her head. We stand like that for five minutes or more, watching the sea turn orange and red and purple as the sun slowly sinks in the sky.
We make it under the cubby house just as the sun dips behind the mountains. Frank steps out from behind a tree and gives Hartley a wink.
"Frank?" she laughs when she sees my face. "Frank is marrying us?"
Frank smiles warmly and pulls his collar away from his neck. He's not a suit and tie kind of guy. "It would be my honor."
We turn and face each other as the musicians slow their strumming and lower their voices so that now all we can hear are the waves rushing against the shore and each other's pounding hearts. We make our promises to each other quickly; Hartley said she didn't want proper vows. She just wants us to mean it. And then we kiss, and even though it's not our first kiss it feels brand new because now I'm not just kissing the love of my life.
I'm kissing my wife.
"This is like a dream," she whispers against my mouth. "I want this moment to last forever."
"That's perfect, kid," I say, as I lean down and kiss her again. "Because forever is exactly what I had in mind."
****
Thank you for reading Still Waters. If you enjoyed it please leave a review at your favorite retailer. And don't forget Goodreads
Quotes
'The moment was all; the moment was enough.' The Waves by Virginia Woolf
'You cannot find peace by avoiding life.' Virginia Woolf
'I am sick to death of this particular self. I want another.' Orlando by Virginia Woolf
'I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river; to me you are everything that exists; the reality of everything.' Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
'What if I told you I'm incapable of tolerating my own heart?' Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
'You can't separate me from the person you've imagined me to be.' Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
'He smiled the most exquisite smile, veiled by memory, tinged by dreams.' To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
'Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe' Albert Einstein
'The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.' Carl Jung
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my team of super beta readers for their time and effort in helping make “Still Waters” a much better book. A big thank you to my sister-in-law Rosie for her help with the cover artwork and for building the website. And lastly, a big thank you to my husband Jeremy, for wholeheartedly supporting this very girly book of mine, and for reading it without laughing or rolling his eyes once.
About the Author
Rebecca Addison has been writing stories for as long as she can remember. She always considered herself to be a children’s fiction writer until one day in May when she found herself writing a New Adult Romance by mistake. A chapter shared with friends for a bit of fun gradually turned into the book you’re now holding in your hands. Rebecca lives with her husband, two children and two cats on the edge of the forest in New South Wales, Australia. She is currently working on her second New Adult Romance, set in Hawaii.
Connect with Me
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