by Vivian Lux
“It’s fine,” I said tightly.
“I’ll go start the water. Thanks for going shopping.”
I pressed my hands into my sides so she wouldn’t see them shaking. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”
“Are you sure? Hey, I’m going out with Beau again tonight. I wanted to let you know.”
“Where are you headed?” I asked, a little too pointedly.
She caught my tone and got defensive. “Taylor from the Crown is having a fish bake to celebrate the opening of trout season. Beau caught a bunch today and is bringing them over.”
“Sounds wholesome,” I snarked.
Her eyes hardened. “It’s a party, but Beau is good about helping me know my tolerance.” She pronounced the word carefully, like she still wasn’t used to using it.
“What else are you going to do?”
“I think that’s it.” She eyed me. “Why? Did you want to come? It’s supposed to be fun. Apparently he does it every year and the whole town comes out—”
“I’m good,” I interrupted. So much had changed in the past few months. There was a time when I would have given anything to be included in something like this. To be noticed and invited. Now the last thing I wanted was to be around a bunch of people while I watched the man I loved and hated in equal measure destroy himself. “You have fun without me,” I told her, and closed my bedroom door to be alone.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Gabe
Taylor Graham’s annual fishbake had to move inside because of the constant rain. Which meant that instead of spreading out on the lawn by the creek for a bonfire, we were packed into his small converted trailer shoulder to shoulder. It was so tight that when my phone rang for what felt like the millionth time today, I had to apologize to the person I jostled as I reached for it.
“Gabriel!” Kit sounded jubilant. “Everything is all lined up. Our ducks are not only in a row, they’re arranged by size and height.”
A buzzing sound started up in my head. Almost like the sound of an alarm.
Beau and Rachel were too close by for me to discuss this freely. “Hold that thought, Kit,” I said as I nudged and squeezed my way through the crowd and out into the lashing rain. “I had to get myself somewhere I could talk.”
“Can you talk now?”
I looked out over Taylor’s lawn. Gray gloom hung over everything, matching my mood, and the thunder of the creek was all-consuming. Here and there, I could see washouts at the edge of Taylor’s lawn, the swollen creek carrying off chunks of stolen land. The slope on the leftmost edge where the bonfire was usually set up had completely flooded out and the wind carved little ripples across the top of the swirling brown surge.
It was not a pretty sight, but it still made me feel wistful. Wistful and homesick for a place I hadn’t even left yet. “I can talk,” I said, even though I knew he wanted to talk about the last thing I wanted to hear.
Beau and Rachel didn’t know that I was considering this my going-away party. Nobody knew, because I hadn’t had the guts to tell them, because I hadn’t wanted to say it aloud and make it true. Part of me hoped I could disappear in the wee hours tomorrow morning without anyone seeing me go.
Without running the risk of having to say goodbye.
“Great,” Kit said, sounding impatient. “You know I’d usually send a car, but—”
“I can drive myself,” I interrupted curtly. I didn’t want to hear about how my hometown was little more than a speck on the map. I felt a strange surge of pride for the place I’d only started to appreciate. “What time do you need me at the airport?”
The noise in my head grew as thunderous as the creek. Kit was talking in earnest now, laying out details and itineraries, but I heard none of it. Staring out at the rushing water, I wondered if I was imagining things or if the flood had crept even closer to the house as I stood here. I felt like it was coming for me, coming to sweep me under.
For months, all I’d wanted was to leave this place. Now that it was finally happening, why did I feel like I was drowning?
“Gabe? Are you there?” Kit asked.
I opened my mouth to answer him.
Then I pulled my phone away from my ear and deliberately ended the call.
The crush of bodies had packed even tighter. Over the sea of bobbing heads I saw Beau looking down, a fond smile on his face as he watched Rachel dance. She was stiff and awkward, but there was something about her graceless exuberance that was completely captivating. Beau certainly seemed to think so.
I started to move to them, then stopped, an ache in my chest opening up like a canyon across my heart. I didn’t want to see the two of them happy like that, marveling in how they’d found each other. I’d had that. I’d fucking had exactly that, and I’d ended it. I’d ended it rather than risk having Everly end it for me when I told her I was leaving.
If that wasn’t the definition of shooting yourself in the foot, I didn’t know what else it could be. By rights I should be limping again.
A whoop went up from the people by the front door. A couple of guys walked in and I felt the slight rush of recognition, though I didn’t know from where or why. Three guys, all skinny and pale. It was raining like a bitch outside, but I guessed that sheen on their skin was sweat and not water.
“Fuck,” I murmured. My hands itched, fingers curling in, already gripping the imaginary pill bottle. My mouth flooded with saliva, ready to swallow them down dry. I knew these guys because they were me two years ago.
What’s the harm? my racing brain wanted to know. Already I was making plans for how I could bliss out for the next few arduous hours. I’d wake up feeling shitty, but then I felt shitty sober too, so what was the difference? I could score a few pills off these dudes and skip the next few horrid hours, skip forward in time to where leaving was inevitable.
I’d almost convinced myself this was a good plan when I spotted Rachel.
Beau was turned away, talking to Taylor. He didn’t see how Rachel was watching the three new arrivals in open fascination. To my horror, this sheltered and naïve girl just starting to break free of her past made a beeline for the pillheads.
“No!” I growled. In three steps , I’d intercepted her, catching her up in my arms before she could get their attention. “Rachel. No.”
She fought like a panicked wildcat to get free and I let go of her before she started yelling. “Hey! Hey hey hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry I grabbed you.”
“What the hell is going on?” Beau was at her side in an instant. She hugged herself, taking deep breaths. “You can’t fucking grab her like that, man!” he shouted. Beau never shouted. “It freaks her out.”
I raked my fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry, Rachel.” I felt about two inches tall. “Just…keep her away from the pillheads, okay? Don’t open that door. You might never get it closed again.”
Beau looked at me and then down at the calming Rachel. “I told you no,” he said. “I’ll take care of you when you want to drink, but nothing more than that.”
“You don’t get to tell me no,” Rachel hissed. “You’re not in charge of me. No one is.”
“Fuck,” I repeated, raking my hands through my hair again. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m just—I need some air.” I turned away from my brother, who was so busy arguing with Rachel he didn’t notice when I headed back out into the rain.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Everly
It was one of the few nights off I had these days, and I was spending it on the National Institute of Health website, searching the statistics on successful recoveries from opioid addiction with my heart in my throat.
I couldn’t do this. Addicts died from relapses all the time. Even worse was when they start using again after recovery. They think they still have the same tolerance as they used to.
He might not love me, but I could still save him. First and foremost, I was a nurse. It was my job to save him.
I ran out into the rain
with my hoodie zipped up to my neck, still skirting around the Acura. I was going to save him from himself, no more than that. I didn’t need to remind him of how good he’d been to me before he turned into a complete dick.
But Grim. Fucking Grim. My car saw my stubborn pride and promptly punished me for it by carrying me only halfway to Taylor’s house. Then he seized his opportunity. I slowed at a four-way stop, and Grim let out a dramatic death rattle and died.
“Seriously?” I shouted, slamming the heel of my hand into the dash again and again. “You were fixed, you fucking piece of shit! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I turned the key again and again, knowing that I was only making it worse. With one last curse on his entire model year, I shoved the door open and stepped out into the lashing rain.
Taylor’s house was another two miles away by road. But if I cut through Latham’s farm there and then followed the creek downstream, I’d come out into Taylor’s back yard. It was less than a mile.
I set out at a run.
My shoes squished, mud sucking at my feet and slowing me down. Within moments, my shoes were soaked through. It was close to eight o’clock now, and what little light still hung on through the dim gloom was fading fast. I tried to pick up my pace.
“Fucking hell, Gabe,” I snarled through chattering teeth. In my mind I could perfectly see his face, that strong, straight nose, that sweet, mocking mouth, but my brain kept forcing me to imagine him slumped over, the pills scattered across his chest. “No,” I moaned as I saw him choking on his vomit with no one around who knew how to take care of him like I did. “Fuck you, seriously,” I groaned.
I was so intent on getting to him before my vision came true that I barely noticed where my feet were landing. They were already numb, so it took me until the water started lapping around my calves to realize that I was standing in the middle of a lake.
I blinked and stood still, trying to get my bearings. Where Latham’s corn field should have been there was a sea of water. I swallowed as I turned in a circle, looking for a familiar landmark.
That’s when I noticed the tug of a current at my feet.
“Shit,” I hissed. My heart pounded in sick, terrified thuds. I wasn’t in a lake.
I was in the creek.
The flood had buried the field, erasing everything familiar, even as the last bits of light bled from the sky.
“Okay. Okay. I’m okay,” I said, but the water was up to my knees, rushing so fast it was hard to lift my foot without the current threatening to tear it out from under me. I shuffled in a tight circle and let out a little moan when I felt the first splash above my knee. My hands shook steadily as I tried to count five sounds I could hear, five things I could see, but the grounding technique for warding off a panic attack only made me more aware of how fucked I was right now. “Fuck!” I screamed as the current knocked me off balance. Mindless with fear, I started running, half sprinting, half swimming. “Help!” I shouted, my body bobbing and twisting in the water.
The current grabbed me and yanked me off my feet, sending me under. I choked and sputtered as I fought to keep my head above water, then screamed as something unseen in the water raked a long, deep scratch across my leg. I twisted and fought as the current dragged me to the deep water where the flood was moving fastest. I coughed and flung out blindly, and my fingers closed on a low-hanging branch. I grabbed on with all my strength as the creek swept my legs out from under me. “Help!” I cried again.
“Where are you?” came a voice, distorted and faint.
I could barely hear over the rush of the creek and the water in my ears, but I pulled myself higher on the branch, ignoring the scrape of the twigs on my arms. “Here! I’m here!” I shouted. There was an ominous crack and the branch dipped lower in the water. I screamed.
And then I was being pulled through the water. The current tugged at me, dragging me down and not wanting to let me go, but I was being wrenched upward as I clung to the branch. “Hold on, Everly. For god’s sake, don’t let go.”
“Gabe?”
“Can you reach my hand?”
My vision swam with water and tears, so he appeared out of nowhere, a blurred shadowy shape of a man. But I’d know that voice anywhere.
I forced myself to let go of the branch and reach out my shaking hand. His fingers clamped down on my wrist. “I’ve got you,” he cried. “Let go of the branch.”
“No!” I shouted in panic. The fingers of my other hand were so cramped up, I couldn’t have let go if I tried. “No, I can’t!”
“You can.” He sounded calm. So calm. The darkness was near total now, but it was almost as if I could see his eyes looking down at me, more green than hazel, and feel his lips brushing across mine. “I’ve got you,” he said. “But you have to let go of the branch so I can haul us both back up here. Come on, Everly. Trust me.”
I let go of the branch.
In one motion he swung his other hand up, bracing himself by grabbing on to the tree, and hauled me upward with the other hand. The branch swirled, caught in an eddy, then got sucked out into the current as my foot landed on the muddy, shifting bank. Gabe yanked me up, then wrapped his arm around my waist. I clung to him as he leaned hard against the tree. The sound of our panting, gasping breath was almost as loud as the creek itself.
Gabe held me, murmuring with his lips against my forehead, until my breath came easier. Then he pushed off against the tree and gave me a shove up the steep bank. With the last of my strength I clawed my way up to level ground and flopped onto my stomach. The rain pounded my back and washed the tears from my face.
“What the hell were you doing?” Gabe had climbed up after me and was now crouched down at my side. There was still light enough to see his face, but not enough to read his expression, and I couldn’t tell from his voice whether he was scared or angry.
“Saving you,” I croaked.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Gabe
I stared at this wild, stubborn, hysterical girl lying mud-soaked and shaking on Taylor’s back lawn, and all I could think of was how much I wanted to kiss her.
But I was too busy shaking my head. “You were saving me? Baby, I think the exact opposite happened.”
She didn’t seem to notice the endearment. She sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. “Gabe, you can’t do this. I don’t care if you don’t love me anymore. You can’t go back.”
My heart stalled. “How’d you find out about the show?”
She tilted her head to the side. “The show? No, I’m talking about the pills. The drugs. You can’t go back to that. You’re better now!”
I was falling. Head over heels and tumbling right back in love with her. If I was honest with myself, I’d never not been in love with her. I’d only been too chickenshit to deal with what that meant for us both. “Baby, no.” I pulled my shaking, shivering, soaking wet girl into my arms. “I’m not on pills again. I’m not.”
“Rachel said that—at this party—”
“There were some people scoring here. But I wasn’t one of them.” I pressed my lips against her forehead. “Was that really why you decided to wade into a creek during a flood warning? To knock the pills right out of my hands?” My heart was so big it crowded my chest.
“I was going to try and reason with you first, at least,” she protested, burying her face into my chest.
“God, I love you so much,” I sighed.
Her face tilted to mine and I covered her mouth and kissed her with all of my love. She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back the way only Everly could. “I love you too,” she sighed against my mouth. “Clearly.” I felt her smile. “I wish I could see you right now.”
“We’re getting really good at kissing in the dark.”
She hummed, a little noise of remembrance, and pulled back from me. “But why did you break up with me? I’m sorry I freaked out about Noelle. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. That was me. I see that. It was my own insecuri
ty and I put it on you. But then—” She gulped back a sob. “You let me go so easily.”
“That was me,” I said quickly. “My insecurity.” I held my breath and let it out again in a rush. It was time for the truth. She deserved it after wading into a flood to make sure I was safe. She deserved it after taking a risk like that for me. “I was breaking up with you then so you couldn’t break up with me now.”
“Why would I break up with you?”
“Because I was about to leave to start filming King of Pain again.”
“When?” I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear the horror in her voice.
I was the biggest piece of shit on the planet. “Tomorrow.”
“What the fuck? Gabe! Are you seriously going back to doing that daredevil shit?”
“That daredevil shit helped drag you out of a creek just now,” I pointed out. “But who are you yelling? You went charging off into a flood to save me instead of, oh, I dunno, calling my brother or your housemate and asking them if I was okay.” I grinned like a fool. God, I loved her so much. “Which one of us is the real daredevil?”
“But Gabe…tomorrow?”
I kissed her.
I kissed her slow enough and long enough that the rain started to lighten. When I finally pulled back, it was with new clarity. “I won’t go,” I declared.
“Of course you will,” she said. “But not tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Can you give me ’til I re-take my boards?”
“Everly?” Hope thudded in my chest.
“If you’re gonna risk yourself like that, you’re gonna need a nurse. I’ll come with you once I have my license.”
I felt so light I could float away. I was higher than I’d ever been before. “Seriously, baby? You can do whatever you want as long as you say you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” she said, pressing her hand to my heart. She smiled against my lips. “Glad you finally noticed,” she said, and kissed me again.
