“You’re sorry?” He sounds so incredulous that the words hit me like a blow. It’s the last straw. “Baby, I—”
I don’t wait around for him to finish whatever he’s going to say. Instead, I push past him, make a mad dash for the uneven stone steps that lead up to his house. That lead to freedom.
“Chloe, stop!” He chases after me, which only makes me run faster. “Baby, you’re going to trip! You’re going to hurt yourself!”
I ignore the warning, keep running. It doesn’t matter. What’s the pain of a little fall when I already feel like I’ve been ripped open, my insides spilling out for everyone to see?
“Damn it, Chloe. ” He’s right behind me. I can feel his breath on my neck, hear his footsteps slapping at the rock right behind me. I half expect to feel his hands on me as he yanks me to a stop. But still he doesn’t touch me. For some reason, his reticence only wounds me more.
Tears I still refuse to let fall are in my eyes, in my chest. My vision is clouded and I’m having trouble breathing. I’m strangling on my pain and the aching, painful breaths my body doesn’t quite know what to do with anymore.
I’m almost at the top when it happens. I stumble trying to climb up a particularly high step and I bang my shins, hard, on the harsh, jagged edge of the stair. My legs go out from under me and I start to fall, panic coursing through me at the thought of tumbling twenty feet off the side of the open staircase to the sand below.
Ethan does touch me then, his hands jolting out to grab me so quickly that I know he must have been waiting for this to happen all along. Then I’m in his arms, my legs draped over his arm and my side pressed against his chest as he carries me up the few remaining steps.
I wrap my arms around his neck and hold on tight, even after we get to his patio. I’m sure he wants to put me down, to show me the door as quickly as he can. But I’m not ready to let go yet, not ready to give up the strange and powerful comfort that comes from just being held in his arms.
Ethan makes no move to put me down. Instead, he crosses to one of the many long outdoor sofas that make up the different seating arrangements out here. He sinks down onto it, keeping me on his lap. In his arms. And then he starts to rock me like a child.
The dam inside me bursts, and emotions—dark, messy, devastating—come pouring out in all directions. I don’t know how to stop them. I can’t stop them, not anymore.
Unable to do anything else, I bury my face in Ethan’s chest and give in to the harsh, ugly sobs that threaten to tear me in two.
Chapter Eighteen
I don’t know how long I sit there wrapped up in Ethan’s arms as emotions I no longer have control over tear through me.
Long enough for the last remnants of day to fade to twilight and twilight to fade to inky darkness.
Long enough for the lingering warmth of the afternoon to give way to the chill that comes with early summer evenings on the beach.
More than long enough for the tide to roll in on the sand below us.
In a moment of clarity, I think of Ethan’s surfboards, of the wetsuits and the picnic basket and the towels, and I wonder if any of them are still there. Or if the ocean has swept in and carried them away in its endless, inexorable grasp.
For years, I wished that it would do that to me. That the ocean would push onto the desolate stretch of beach I used to roam all through high school and cover me. Envelop me. Pull me down, drag me under, carry me away from the taunts, the threats, the hate. Carry me away from him.
I haven’t felt that way in a while. Not since I graduated from high school and moved to San Diego. Not since I got away from my parents, from that damn boarding school, from Brandon.
Yet at this moment I’m right back there. Looking out at that endless stretch of ocean and wishing, praying, to be swept away. To be dragged under.
It’s not fair. Why now, when everything is going right? I have school, real friends, a job that challenges me, Ethan. It should be enough. God knows it’s more than I’ve ever had before.
And yet somehow, it isn’t enough. Because underneath all the polish, all the gloss, all the layers I’ve built up, I’m just as messed up as I’ve always been. I hate thinking that. Hate even more that it’s true.
I’ve spent three years here in San Diego, hiding, pretending to the world that all that matters is who and what I am now. It almost worked, too. Until Ethan came along. Why he brings it all back I’ll never know, not when he’s been nothing but wonderful to me.
Eventually the tears stop. So do the self-recrimination and even the sadness. In their place is only numbness, a blank emptiness inside me that I’m afraid will never be filled again.
Long minutes pass. I know I should muster up the energy to move, to apologize, to do something. But there’s nothing there, not when it’s taking every ounce of energy I have to just be. To just breathe.
Ethan waits patiently. He doesn’t shift, doesn’t talk, doesn’t betray impatience with me or the situation in any way. He just holds me. Rocks me. Strokes my hair. And I know if I could feel anything, it would be gratitude.
The thought has me stirring a little, just enough to lift my head and say, “Thank you. ” It seems the appropriate thing to do.
But Ethan stiffens against me, his entire body going rigid between one moment and the next. “What did you say?”
“Thank—”