Breaking Point

by Lesley Choyce

  “You can’t do that,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. When I get ashore, I’ll have someone phone and tell them about you. Someone will come and get you.”

  “It’s not that,” I insisted. “It’s you. You can’t go back out there.”

  It was still windy but very warm, and the sun was out.

  “I got you ashore, didn’t I? I can handle this,” she said. “I’ll go toward the mainland and hug the shoreline. I got this far, didn’t I?”

  I was getting mad at her now. “You can’t go back out there,” I shouted.

  “I don’t like people telling me what to do,” she snapped back. “And I don’t like being shouted at.”

  I calmed myself. “If you go back out there now, I think you might die.”

  “Nobody would even care,” she said, now sounding more hurt than angry.

  “You got that wrong,” I said. “You need to stay here with me tonight. We have to ride this storm out. Tomorrow we’ll come up with a plan.” I didn’t know what else to do to make her see my point, so I kissed her hard on the mouth. She pulled away a little at first but then suddenly changed, and she kissed me back.

  In about an hour, the wind came up stronger, and the sky began to get darker. We wandered into the forest. I knew the tent wasn’t going to be enough to keep us dry and safe. Halfway up a small rocky hill, there was a stone outcropping facing away from the wind. We stopped. We were both exhausted.

  “Here,” I said. “This is the best we’re going to find. We’ll tuck in there and wrap ourselves in the tent. “It’s gonna be one hell of a night.”

  She smiled at me—almost a shy smile. The girl was tough, but she had no idea what we were in for. I had been outside once at Lawrencetown Beach when a hurricane had come ashore. You could lean into the wind, and it would hold you up. It was wild. Stuff was flying through the air, and I got hit in the head with a piece of asphalt shingle that gave me a large cut. They said that it was a Category 2. What Chris had said was that this one might be a Category 3. That could be deadly.

  There was a flat area covered with moss under the rock outcropping. It wasn’t exactly a cave, but it was the best shelter we were going to find. I rooted in the pack and found the water-proof container with five matches left.c “I’m gonna make a fire,” I said. “Get us dry and dry out the tent. And then we’re going to stay put right here until it’s all over.”

  She nodded. I began to gather dry twigs and pine needles from beneath the rock and bigger branches from nearby. Without saying another word, Brianna began to gather more dead wood. It took two of the precious matches, but I got a fire going. All the damp wood made for too much smoke, but soon I had a big blaze with flames leaping when the wind gusted. I wanted to go back to the shoreline to search for clams and mussels, but I was afraid to leave her. We kept the fire going for two hours until we were mostly dry.

  It was late afternoon, and the wind was getting stronger. We sat on the life jackets and wrapped up in the tent beneath the rocky outcropping. I meant to just close my eyes for a minute and rest, but I fell asleep. So did Brianna, I guess.

  I awoke later in the pitch-dark to the howling, horrifying sound of wind. Not far away, I heard a tree snap in half and topple to the ground. The fire was out, and rain was driving down in buckets. We were protected from the worst of it, but the sound was as frightening as anything I had ever heard. Brianna was awake as well. She was clinging to me, and I held tightly to her. She was speaking to me, but her words were lost in the sound of the storm around us. Trees were being uprooted and knocked to the ground. Branches were breaking off and flying through the air. We could not see a thing, but the sound was terrifying.

  We clung to each other for hours in the deafening roar. Alone on an island like this in the middle of a hurricane, I knew that our survival depended upon keeping our wits, staying put and doing nothing but wait it out.

  And then the wind began to diminish. I had never experienced anything like that in my life. We remained tightly wrapped in our tent like a cocoon. I had chosen well. The rocks had protected us. Eventually Brianna, still clinging to me, fell asleep. My plan was to try and stay awake until I was sure the storm was completely over but exhaustion overtook me and I fell asleep as well.

  In the morning when I awoke, I was alone. Brianna was nowhere in sight, and what had once been a forest on the hillside now looked like a war zone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I knew that Brianna was one crazy girl, but I wasn’t ready for this. I called out her name over and over as I began to stumble through the maze of fallen trees. I was hoping I was wrong, but I had no choice but to head for the shoreline. Nothing of the island looked like anything we had seen the day before. There were few standing trees left, and I had to climb over piles of fallen limbs and trees to make headway to get to the water.

  When I got there, the kayak was gone. My paddle was still there, and she had left me the backpack with the matches inside. There was a note on a scrap of paper inside the pack.

  Dear Cameron,

  I’m sorry. I really am. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. I think I love you. I will send help, I promise, but you will never see me again.

  Love,

  Brianna

  The sky was blue now. The sea looked brown and frothy, and there were still large waves rolling by, but the wind was just a light breeze now. If I looked up and away across the water, it was as if nothing at all had just happened. I sat down on a smooth wet rock, feeling more alone and sad than I had ever felt in my life.

  She was out there somewhere, still headed toward Port Joseph, still planning to escape and run to Montreal. And she’d left me behind.

  Brianna was in real danger though. The waves would be treacherous out beyond the protection of shore. And she was alone. She was tough, but not that tough.

  I sat frozen for nearly twenty minutes. It was like I was paralyzed—my mind and my body. I wanted to shake myself and make this all go away. But I had to face the reality of what I’d let us get into. What I felt now was much worse than the fear I had felt during the hurricane.

  Finally, I got up. I looked around. I decided to walk the shoreline of the island. Maybe she tried to leave and was washed back in, or maybe I could see her if I looked in all directions. It seemed pretty hopeless, but it was the only thing I could do. I put on the backpack and picked up my paddle and began to pick my way along the rocky shoreline, heading east toward the seaward-facing part of the island. There was washed-up debris and fallen trees to climb over. It was slow going.

  When I first saw it, I thought it was some kind of trick my eyes were playing on me. It was just a flash of orange in a mass of seaweed up along the tree line. I stopped and looked at it in disbelief.

  My kayak had washed ashore in the storm. As I stumbled toward it, wobbling on the boulders, I knew that it was probably smashed, but it was buried in kelp and rockweed, and I couldn’t really tell. I knelt down and slowly began to pull the seaweed off.

  It was damaged, yes, and filled with water and more seaweed. But as I unearthed it, I began to pray that it would be seaworthy. I had not prayed in a long time. But I prayed.

  Some cracks in the hull, but no real holes. The rudder was smashed, but I knew I could still steer with my paddle if I had to. I took a hard look at the sea in front of me. The waves were large, and I knew how difficult they could be. Was I really getting ready to go out there?

  I decided to shut my mind down, to stop thinking about anything but bailing water out of the kayak. I ran along the shoreline until I found a cracked plastic pail that had washed in. I began to furiously bail the seawater from the boat and couldn’t believe how much was in there. My heart was pounding. I knew that for each minute that went by, Brianna would be farther and farther away. If she was still afloat.

  Finally, I had emptied enough water so that I could flip the boat over and drain the rest. Funny, I kept thinking that something—I don’t know what—would happen and I w
ouldn’t really have to face up to the sea journey. But here it was.

  I had worn my life jacket through the night. I had a paddle. And I now had a boat to follow Brianna. I dragged the kayak along the shoreline looking for an easy place to launch where the waves were not slapping hard on the shoreline. Looking east, I saw the next island. For the most part, Brianna and I had been island hopping, staying on the landward side to avoid the larger waves and the wind. As I slid the kayak into the water, I almost chickened out. I had no spray skirt. It wouldn’t take much to swamp me. I took the pail because I knew I’d have to bail water slopping in. All I had to do was keep the little boat upright and keep me inside. Keep the waves behind me. Keep my brain focused. Damn. How had I got myself into this?

  I sat in the kayak in the shallows and took a long, deep breath. This was a very bad idea. I now blamed Brianna for getting us into this mess. I suddenly wasn’t sure she was worth dying for. I put my hands on the side of the boat and began to lift myself out. No way was this going to work.

  And then something stopped me. I was halfway out of the boat when this voice in my head told me that if I didn’t go after her, I’d regret it for the rest of my life. I dropped back down into the seat. An image of Brianna smiling appeared in my head.

  Maybe I would drown out there. But at least I would die trying to save her. I tightened the straps on the life jacket, jammed my paddle into the sand and slid off into the waves.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The sea was not choppy, but the waves were powerful enough to swamp me at any minute. I spent as much effort keeping upright as I did trying to paddle forward. I had never felt so alone in my life. My mind was racing. What would I do if I found her drowned? What would I do if I found her alive and we got out of this okay? What would I do differently in my life?

  My brain went to any number of crazy places, but my arms kept working. As I neared the next island, I had settled into this thought: I am out here on my own, and I am at the mercy of much larger forces. That hurricane was more powerful and violent than anything I had ever experienced. My night with Brianna was as frightening, yet as amazing, as anything I’d ever known. And now I was here, at sea, following her. Trying to save her. Trying to save me.

  My arms ached, and my body told me to give up. Go ashore at the next island. Yet, as I rounded the back of the island and the protected waters suddenly became calmer, I regained my strength and my resolve. I did not go ashore. Instead, I focused on the next, much smaller, island farther east. I rounded a sandy spit of land and charged out into the open waters again. There were hundreds of tiny islands out here, but I wanted to believe I could instinctively know where Brianna would go next.

  I forced myself to go ashore at the next island and stretch my legs, which were badly cramped. I ate a few blueberries that were growing there and stuffed more in my pockets. I found a tiny pool of fresh water left from the rains and drank deeply, wishing I had a container to carry some of it with me.

  Then I pushed off again, my dedication to finding Brianna stronger than ever. I fought off the demons of fear and doubt in my head and focused on the next, much larger, island in the distance. When I got slapped by two waves larger than the rest, I got drenched but kept the little boat steady, turning away from the waves until the swells had passed by. I bailed with my plastic bucket as best I could and, laden with water that would slow me more, kept the island in my sights and worked the paddle as if my energy was limitless.

  The bright sunlight sparkling on the water made me squint, and my vision seemed to blur, but as I neared the island, I saw something—something red. I paddled even harder.

  It was a kayak, for sure. Brianna’s. As it came into focus, I could see that it was floating near shore, upside down. I felt a cold wave of panic sweep through my head. I told myself to stop thinking. Just paddle. And I thought about those larger forces again. Not just the sea, the storm. But something was guiding me. I’d never been a religious person, and I can’t say I had a name for what the force was. But it was inside of me, yet something much larger than just me. Whatever it was, it drove the panic away, it made me feel stronger and it urged me on.

  I pulled ashore alongside of Brianna’s red kayak. She was nowhere in sight. I pulled her kayak up onto the beach and flipped it over. There was no spray skirt. No paddle. She had dumped it at sea. I scanned the water, hoping not to see what I feared most.

  I was about to head back out to search for her, not knowing if this just happened or if she’d swamped hours ago. It was as if time had ground to a halt.

  But then she appeared, walking along the shore toward me. I began to run to her, but my legs were cramped from being seated in the kayak for so long. I guess I looked pretty funny—limping along. Just as I was about to reach her, I tripped on a beach stone and fell right into her. We tumbled to the sand beneath us, and I couldn’t speak.

  As we lay there, all she said was, “Hold me, Cameron. Just hold me and never let me go.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  We stayed on the island for two days. The weather was good and much warmer than usual for the Nova Scotia coast. We swam in the tidal pools in crystal-clear seawater. We found enough fresh water, and mussels and clams to eat, although we had to eat them raw. The matches were gone.

  “Let’s never leave,” Brianna said. “They’ll stop looking for us, and we can just stay here forever.”

  “I’d like that,” I said. But I knew it was a complete fantasy. While Brianna was sleeping in the morning, I had fashioned a usable kayak paddle from a piece of driftwood. I had cleaned up both kayaks, and they were ready to go.

  On the third day, the sea was completely calm and the sun was bright. We were both feeling a little sick from eating nothing but the shellfish. I was worried one of us might get really ill.

  “Today’s the day,” I said. “We need to go ashore.”

  Brianna looked at me sadly. “What about forever?”

  “I’ll stay with you,” I said. “I’ll go with you to Montreal like we planned. We’ll meet your cousin. We could be there in a few days.” I was about to tell her a story—repeating her story about the two of us and the new life we would start in Montreal, but she cut me off.

  “There is no cousin,” she said bluntly. “I made that up.”

  I was a little shocked and confused. Why had she lied to me? “We’ll find another way. We can do it.”

  But she shook her head. “I’ve tried before. Something always happens. I get sent back.” I had not seen this side of Brianna before. She had always been so feisty, so confident in herself, so strong. Now she seemed like a weak, hurt little girl. I held her in my arms again, but even though we were still together, alone on our island, I felt her slipping away.

  We sat in silence for a long time, just staring at the water and at the shore of the mainland to the north. And then I took her to the kayaks and showed her my makeshift paddle. She put on her life jacket, and I handed her the good paddle. We dragged the kayaks from the bushes and settled them into the water. I helped her in and gave a little push. “I’m okay now,” she said. “Whatever happens, we’ll always have this.”

  It was a slow trip across the water to the mainland. We were in no hurry. I tried to talk to her about what we could do once we got ashore—where we could go and how we could still make a life together.

  “I’m tired of running away,” she finally said.

  I wanted to find the right words to make her believe and to make me believe that it would all turn out all right. But I couldn’t do it.

  We came ashore near a gravel road at the tip of a headland. There was a single shack there, the home of an old fisherman who introduced himself as Jack Kaiser. He had been watching us approach through his binoculars and was there to greet us when we arrived.

  “Hell of a storm,” he said by way of greeting. Even here on the mainland, hundreds of trees had been knocked down by the hurricane. “You lived through it out there?”

  I nodded. I told him who
we were. I told him the whole story.

  “You are two of the luckiest people I ever met,” was his response.

  Brianna smiled at me then, and I felt love and longing and loss at the same time. Nothing would ever be the same again in my life.

  “I got a truck, if you want me to take you somewhere. I’m not going to turn you in or anything. That’s not my style.”

  I knew he was telling the truth.

  We went inside Jack’s home, and he fed us and told us some stories about his life and how his wife had died and left him there to live alone.

  Later in the day, Brianna shocked me by asking Jack to drive us back to the camp. I tried talking her out of it, but she insisted.

  Chris looked as if he was seeing a pair of ghosts when we arrived. He gave me a hug, and he held on to Brianna’s hand. “We’d given up hope.”

  Everybody else had left before the hurricane came ashore, and Chris was the only one left to close down the place for the season. There were no harsh words, and he even let Brianna and me spend the night together. “Just don’t tell anyone I let you do this,” he said. We promised we wouldn’t.

  In the morning, Chris drove us to the city. “You’re both going to have to do some correctional time. I was hoping the camp thing would change all that, but your adventure made for some serious attention. But first I’m going to take you both to your homes. We’ll be back in touch tomorrow to talk about what happens next. Just don’t screw it up. You need to work with the system.”

  I’d heard those words before and always despised them. I knew we’d be sent to separate facilities, and I knew there would be a good chance Brianna, despite what she said, would run away again.