Beyond the Rising Tide (17 page)

“What? What does that have to do with—”

“I mean, is there anything about
me
”—I point to my chest, trying to make him understand that I’m talking about my character, not my hobbies—“that you love? That would make you want to be with me even if I never surfed again? Like kindness, or devotion, or intelligence, or … anything?”

He stares at me for a minute. “Avery, don’t do this.”

“I’m just trying to understand—”

“You’re acting like your mom. Overthinking. Overprocessing. Why don’t you get it? I just want
you
back. So come back. Get on some meds and get off the train to crazytown.”

“What?” I fall back a step, like I’ve been struck. He knows my sensitivity about mental illness, my fear that I’ll inherit my mom’s struggles someday. I shake my head. “I can’t believe you’d say that. You think meds are going to fix our broken relationship? Well, unless there’s a pill that makes you stop being a jerk, meds aren’t going to solve our problems. What I need from you is patience. And unconditional love.”

He sighs loudly. “I’m just trying to help. You’ve got to snap out of this. Don’t get all offended just because I think you could use some help.”

“What’s wrong with me the way I am now?” I shout. “Why am I worthless to you just because I can’t get on a surfboard?” I glare at him, at his stunned face, and all I can think about are Kai’s words earlier.

Just be yourself. It’s enough.

But just being me will never be enough for Tyler. There’s only one version of myself that’s enough for him, a version that’s impossible to maintain one hundred percent of the time. “I have to go.” I take another step back.

“Avery—don’t.” He reaches out like he’s going to try and stop me, so I spin on my heel and go back inside, scanning the room for Kai. I have to leave
now
. But I don’t see Kai anywhere.

I search the kitchen and hallways. I make my way up the stairs, and it’s even more crowded on the balcony. I’m drowning in a sea of people, tossed by the waves of their movements, their chatter, their stares. I can see it in their eyes. I’m the messed-up girl with the messed-up mom. I can’t breathe, and I search in vain for a lifebuoy to cling to, for Kai. But he’s nowhere to be found, so I start asking around to see if anyone has seen him. A redhead hanging on some guy by the front door says she saw him leave.

“When?” I ask.

She gives a lazy shrug. “A few minutes ago.”

I hurry through the front door, hoping that Kai is waiting by my car. But when I get there, he’s nowhere in sight.

’m in the ocean, hanging onto my surfboard. A storm rages around me, but at least I’m not alone. A boy clings to the opposite side of my surfboard. The boy who just saved my life.

I feel the remains of my surfboard leash snaking around my legs. The boy’s shoulder dips beneath the surface as he fishes it out of the water; then he grabs my wrist and cinches the leash around it with a messy knot. “You don’t want to lose this,” he shouts over the roaring waves.

I’m shaking, but not only because I’m cold. For the first time in my life, I’m truly afraid. He must see the fear in my eyes, because he reaches across the surfboard and captures my hand. We’ve got our thumbs interlocked like arm wrestlers, but my hand is on top, like I just won. I want to see his face, but with the rain pelting me I can’t keep my eyes open. So I look at his hand, at his long fingers curled around mine. The waves move us up and down, up and down. But with my hand in his, I feel steady. And just as I start to believe that we’ll make it back to shore safely, his hand is ripped from mine.

My eyes open to a dark room, and the image of the boy’s hand is still branded in my mind. My heart is racing, and I find my own hand clutching my blanket, like I’m still trying to hold on to him. I try to calm my breaths and force my fingers to unfurl.

There are some details of that fateful afternoon that I keep to myself. Like him tying the leash around my wrist. And him holding my hand. Because they’re sacred to me. And I don’t think I can share them without betraying a truth that I keep hidden deep inside.

That I love him.

I can’t tell anyone that, because they’ll think it’s ridiculous. They’ll say I can’t love someone I don’t even know, someone I’ve only spent twenty minutes of my life with. But what nobody realizes is that I do know him. I learned everything there was to know in the short minutes we spent together on my surfboard. He was selfless and brave, caring and strong. The best qualities a person can possess. And the bond we forged in that small space of time was stronger than any other bond I’ve made. Because no one else has ever sacrificed so much for me.

A subtle light pours into my room from the hallway, and soon I feel the give of my bed. I turn to see Dad sitting on the edge, the remnants of his blond hair sticking up in all directions. “Bad dream?” he whispers.

It’s then I realize I’m crying, and although I wasn’t making much sound, it was enough to alert him. It takes me a minute to find my voice, and when I do, it comes out with a pathetic vibrato. “I should have wrapped the leash around his wrist.”

“Avery—”

“No—he wouldn’t have died if I had. I wasn’t thinking. At least not about anything but myself. There was plenty of leash. I could have—”

“Stop.” His voice is gentle, but there’s enough authority in it to quiet me. “What you’re doing right now is unproductive. It won’t change anything. All you’re doing is punishing yourself.”

When someone causes the death of another human being, they’re punished. They go to jail, sometimes are even executed. Why shouldn’t I be punished too? I don’t say this to Dad, I just lay there quietly for a few heartbeats, grappling for the remains of my memories of the boy. But I may as well be trying to hold on to wisps of smoke. An angry tear escapes from the corner of my eye. “I need to find out who he was, Dad.”

“You’ve explored every avenue.” He takes my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “You’re going to drive yourself nuts looking for something you’ll never find.”

“No—there has to be something I’m missing. Some little detail I’m forgetting that will help me figure out who he was.”

Dad is quiet for a long moment, then says, “Avery, I know we’ve talked about this before, but—”

“I’m not going to see a counselor.”

He releases my hand and folds his hands in his lap. “I think someone would be able to help you.”

I shake my head. “The only thing that will help me is remembering what that boy looked like. Figuring out who he is. Letting his family know what happened to him. A counselor can’t help me with that.”

Dad sighs. “Maybe they can. And … it seems like you have a lot of emotions to work through. I wish you would talk to someone about what you’re feeling.”

“Well, a complete stranger is the last person I want to open up to.”

“Sometimes a stranger is the best person to open up to. There’s no risk, no judgment.”

I slowly sit up and look into Dad’s eyes. “I’m too afraid,” I whisper.

He knows exactly what I’m talking about, because he says, “If you see a counselor, it doesn’t mean you’re going to end up like your mom. It doesn’t mean you have mental illness. It just means there are some knots in here”—he taps his temple—“that you can’t quite untangle.” He smooths out a wrinkle in my blanket. “But you know what? Even if you were like your mom, there’d be nothing wrong with that. I love your mom. She’s funny and full of life. She has so much love in her heart. And when she shares it with you, there’s no better feeling in the world.”

His voice reflects his pain, and I reach out to touch his arm. “What happened yesterday? Did you two talk?”

“We didn’t really have a chance. She had me fixing things all day. First it was the broken light bulb, then a leaky pipe in her bathroom. Then it was a squeaky door hinge and a sticky kitchen drawer. She made me lunch and ordered pizza for dinner and kept me working all day. Every time I would go to leave, she’d think of something else for me to do.”

I lay back down. “Sounds like she misses you.”

“She’s just lonely.” He sighs. “But I miss her. I wish she would come home.” He looks at me for a long moment, and then reaches for my hand again. “I love you. You know I’d do anything to help you, right?”

I nod. “I love you too, Dad.”

He sits there quietly on the edge of my bed holding my hand, the dim light of the hall illuminating the lines of his face. Neither of us says anything else, and I can tell from the sad crease at the side of his mouth that he’s still feeling Mom’s absence. I give his hand a little squeeze, and he squeezes back. The small gesture connects us, allows us to share our sorrows without words. For the moment, my hand is his anchor, and his is mine, and the comfort it gives calms me enough that I fall back asleep.

When I wake up again, there’s a different boy in my mind. A boy who stays up late to help a friend make chocolates, who wields a guitar like a knight wields a sword, who sings haunting and lovely lyrics that echo in my ears long after the song is over.

He’s probably working right now, and I have to work today too. But I have an overwhelming desire to see him, to find out what happened to him last night. Maybe he saw me with Tyler and assumed we were working things out, so he didn’t feel the need to stick around. I just hope he didn’t end up walking all the way home, that he caught a ride with someone.

If I go see him now, he’ll probably ask about things I don’t want to talk about, like what happened with Tyler. I don’t want Kai to know that everything fell apart, especially after he went to so much trouble. But the thought of not seeing Kai this morning feels unbearable. So I get up and shower, throw on a blue sundress and Converse, then get in my car. I stop at the chocolate shop to pick up a gift for Kai and tell Paige I’ll be in later, and then I head to Isadora’s vineyard.

y chest feels heavy when I come out of the cottage in the morning, though I can’t pinpoint exactly why. Maybe it’s the mounting guilt of breaking rules and of taking something that doesn’t belong to me. Maybe it’s my looming departure from the living world, the knowledge that the sounds of the tide and the scents of the earth will soon be barred to me again. But I think it has more to do with Avery, because it’s her that I can’t get out of my mind. It was her face I saw before I fell asleep last night. It was she who inhabited my dreams. And it was the desire to see her again that woke me up with the sun. My time with her will be over soon, and the weight of her coming absence is already threatening to crush me.