Just Say Yes (Just Say Yes #2) (9 page)

Later that night, I’d let myself get so depressed I didn’t feel like hanging out anymore, so I decided to go to my room. I found my iPod and was in a shitty mood, feeling the need to listen to something brutal. I scrolled through my music, stopping on the metal band, Lamb of God.

They were a bit too brutal, so I quickly changed my mind. I continued scrolling until I found another one of my favorite metal bands, Opeth. Aside from his screams and growling sounds, the singer had an amazing voice. I popped in my earbuds and lounged on my bed, not bothering to check my phone for messages.

I fell asleep and woke up a couple hours later, when the girls staggered in to go to bed. I put my iPod away and took my phone with me to the bathroom for privacy. Andy had sent me a few texts and left a voicemail. I decided to read the texts first.

Call me please!

Sorry…

I love you.

I listened to the voicemail last.

“Zoey, it’s me. Sorry about the accidental call. We’ve been busy today, a typical Monday. Looks like you’re having a great time. I guess I’ll talk to you later.”

I called him back and he answered right away. “Hi,” I said quietly, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Are you alright?”

I was on the verge of tears. “No, not really. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I’m very overwhelmed right now. I don’t know what I did for you to start acting so distant and push me away. One minute you’re acting normal and the next minute you’re not. I can’t keep up with it.”

He sighed. “What are you saying, Zoey?”

I didn’t know what I was saying. I was so confused.

“Look, I have all these crazy thoughts going through my head right now. I don’t know what to do or say because I don’t know how you’re going to take it. I just know I don’t like the way things are going.”

Within an instant, I felt horrible for saying it because it would hurt him and that was the last thing I wanted to do. We sat in silence, neither of us knowing what to say. I hated to consider it, but maybe we needed to take a break so we could figure out what to do about our relationship when I came home. The thought of it not only made me sick to my stomach, it made my heart ache.

What other option did I have though? We were both going to be miserable with all the tension between us and with me not even being in the same country as him right then…I didn’t see any other choice.

“Andy?”

“Yeah?”

Fuck, this sucks…
“I think maybe we should take a break while I’m here. Things have been edgy between us since my accident and I truly don’t know what else to do.”

He let out a long sigh. “It’s not what I want, Zoey, but if it’s what you want, then there’s nothing for me to say. I guess this is goodbye,” he said.

Seriously? He wasn’t even going to fight it. He was just fucking giving up.

He didn’t even give me a chance to say anything before he ended the call.

Shit. What have I done?

A couple of mornings later, Jess, Sasha, and I hopped on a charter boat with several other tourists then sailed out to sea in search of whales. It was another gorgeous day, but inside my mind, a storm was brewing. I was trying to hold it together in front of my friends and family because I didn’t want them to know something was wrong. Inside, I was miserable.

My entire body ached from the tension and anxiety I carried within me. I couldn’t think straight and I felt like jumping into the ocean and sinking to the bottom to collect my heart and my guts too, for that matter. I’d honestly never felt so low in my life. I hurt so bad I could hardly breathe.

It felt worse than when I left after my birthday. I knew it was because we were in a relationship and not ‘just friends.’ Well…we
were
in a relationship, but not anymore.

The three of us gathered near the back of the boat, watching for signs of whales breaking the surface of the water. Jess and Sasha were busy taking pictures and talking to other tourists. All I kept thinking about was Andy. I don’t know what the hell happened that night. I didn’t want to break up with him, yet I had.

My anxiety was overwhelming me and I felt like I was going to be sick. I desperately wanted to call Dr. Jensen, but there was no cell service when I checked my phone. We were too far from land. I stood and walked to an empty section of the boat’s guardrail, wanting to get some fresh air to see if it helped.

I took in several deep breaths, closed my eyes, and tried to enjoy the day. Besides Andy, the only thing that kept coming to my mind was the song “Run” by Snow Patrol. Just the thought of never seeing Andy and his beautiful blue eyes again made me want to cry. The lyrics were perfect for the way I felt at that moment.
God, this is not helping.

Over the loudspeaker, I heard the captain of the boat say something, but I didn’t open my eyes. People suddenly started crowding around me, talking loudly.

“Look, there it is!” I heard a woman say excitedly.

When I opened my eyes, directly in front of me in the water was a large Blue Whale spraying water out of its blowhole. It was beautiful and surreal to see something so large, wild, and graceful only thirty feet away. I was in complete awe.

The crowd around me started pushing and shoving, trying to get close to the railing to see the whale. I found myself trapped between them and the railing and I started to panic. The anxiety of my deteriorating relationship with Andy, the fact that I was so far from home, and the overpowering sensations I’d had since the accident, brought me full circle to how I felt when I was adopted. I was sad, angry, hurt, emotional, and completely overwhelmed with my life.

A rather large person wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a fanny pack leaned against me, pinning me against the railing in their attempt to see over the top of me. Because I was standing with my arms resting on top of the railing, my bruised ribs pressed directly against it. The pain was excruciating.

I needed to get the fuck out of there, fast. Someone was stepping on my bare toes and another person kept elbowing me in the ribs. Apparently, my ribs were still very tender, because it hurt like a motherfucker.

Come on people. I am not invisible.

My heart thundered inside my chest from the buildup of everything that I’d been thinking about and the sudden swarm of people around me. My lungs tightened and I became lightheaded from being unable to breathe.
Oh, not a panic attack, please
. I started pushing back against the crowd, trying to get away from them. Nearing the edge of the group, I tripped over a backpack someone had dropped in their rush to see the whale.

A second later, I found myself sprawled out on the hard, wooden deck of the boat. I picked myself up as quickly as possible, afraid of being trampled. My palms and bare knees stung from my not-so-graceful landing. I made it to the other side of the boat, sat on a bench, and buried my face in my hands, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Zoey, what happened?” Sasha asked, running over to me. “Are you okay?”

Unable to speak or catch my breath, I was officially hyperventilating. Having been there, done that, I leaned over and put my head between my knees.

Someone, please tell me why I was such a freak of nature. Why did I have to be this way?

Sasha sat next to me and rubbed her hand in a calming circle on my back. “Z, please try to calm down, honey. You’re scaring me,” she said. I heard Jess ask what was going on, but my head was still between my knees.

“She’s bleeding, Jess. Get someone, please.” Sasha continued to console me. A few minutes later, one of the boat’s medics came over with a first aid kit and cleaned up my scrapes for me.

After I was finally calmed down, Jess brought me a bottle of ice-cold water.

“Z, what happened?” she asked.

Here goes nothing...

“I broke up with Andy the other night,” I blurted out and immediately started sobbing again. Jess walked away, pulling her cell phone out of her purse.

“He’s been so distant and moody since that stupid guy hit me and put me in the hospital. I’ve tried talking to him, but he won’t
talk
to me. All he does is say he can’t lose me then acts the way he does when we talk about what happened to his family. I’ve tried to convince him that I’m okay, but it doesn’t help. I don’t know what to do.”

Sasha put her hand up to stop me from rambling. “Z, what do you mean about his family? What happened?”

I didn’t want to tell them Andy’s business, but I needed to talk to someone. It was killing me to keep it all bottled up. Jess came back and I explained what happened to Andy, his sister, and parents. I explained everything to them about the accident, the move to Sonoma, the ex-wife.
Everything
.

“Zoey, please don’t take this the wrong way, because you know I love you,” Jess said. “But think about it from his point of view. His
entire
family was taken from him in a split second. He goes to work one day, a newly married, happy man, after that he comes home to divorce papers lying on the table. No warning, no nothing.”

Jess sat down on the bench next to me and continued talking. “Then he meets you, falls head over heels in love with you and you end up in the hospital.
You were just standing on the sidewalk, Z.”
Jess stopped talking then picked the conversation back up after a moment. “I feel terrible because I told him you wouldn’t wake up after you were hurt. I shouldn’t have said that, but I didn’t know about his family. Oh Zoey, he asked me if you were
dead
.”

She sighed heavily, a pained expression on her face and tears in her eyes. “Shit!” She stood up and walked off again.

My brain went into overload as I absorbed everything she said. It began to sink in and make sense. I thought back to some of the things he’d said and done when I tried to get him to talk to me.

He kept running his hands over his jaw the way he did anytime we talked about his family, or the accident that killed them.

Did he think about what happened to me in the same way he thought of the accident that claimed his parents and sister? Fuck, why didn’t I see it clearly before?

That was it…he thought of me as his family.
Because I am…and he is mine.

God, I’m such an idiot.

His family was killed in a huge, tragic accident and all I was doing was standing on the sidewalk, talking to my friends.
I was just standing there minding my own business.
If things had gone a different way, my life could have ended. I could’ve been thrown further out into the street, been hit by a moving car, and killed. I’m sure to him, the possibilities of what
could
have happened to me were endless.

“Z, what are you going to do?” Sasha asked.

Another tear rolled down my cheek, dropping onto the wooden deck at my feet. “I don’t know, Sash. I feel so stupid.”

Jess came back over, her cell up to her ear and she was talking to someone. Apparently, we were close enough to land to receive cell service again, so I made a mental note to call Dr. Jensen.

“Here she is,” she said into the phone before handing it off to me.

“Who is it?”

“Z, just say hello.”

The corners of her mouth turned up in a tiny smile when I put her phone up to my ear and said hello as she’d instructed me to.

“Zoey, are you alright?” asked the deep, accented voice I loved so much.

“No,” I admitted honestly. I sighed with relief at the sound of his voice. Tears stung my eyes again and trickled down my cheeks. I didn’t know what to say to him, so the words “I fell” spilled from my lips.