I get out and walk down to where the water meets the sand with my hands shoved deep in my pockets. The wind cuts through my sweatshirt as if it were made of paper, but I don’t care. Everything in my life has gone cold now anyway.
The remnants of our hut sit about twenty yards away, what’s left of the palm fronds I wove together with determination and way too much optimism. It looks pathetic now, beaten down by weather and time and whatever the hell is happening between us.
I built that for her. Spent hours getting the stupid thing to stay upright, planning how I’d surprise her with it. The look on her face when she saw it—like I’d given her the moon wrapped in starlight.
Now I wonder if any of it was real.
The waves keep coming, relentless and angry, and I can’t shake the feeling that they’re trying to wash away something that wasnever as solid as I thought. Maybe we were never as solid as I thought.
Go slow.
What’s there to figure out? Either you love someone or you don’t. Either you want to be with them or you don’t. All this careful stepping around feelings, all this sudden need for space—it feels like she’s already made her decision. And judging by the way she’s been lip-locking with Logan, she has.
I pick up a piece of driftwood and hurl it into the waves. It disappears under the foam like it was never there at all.
Maybe that’s what we are now. Under the waves, sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Maybe that’s where we’ve been all along.
The fog keeps rolling in, and I let it swallow me whole. Because right now, disappearing sounds like the best option I’ve got.
19
Skyla
The morning storm hits Paragon like the island personally offended Mother Nature and she’s decided to make us all pay for it.
Rain hammers against the kitchen windows with the fury of a thousand tiny fists, each drop striking glass with enough force to make the entire house shudder. The wind howls around the eaves like some tortured spirit seeking revenge, and I swear the whole structure sways with each and every gust. It’s the kind of weather that makes you wonder if Paragon is trying to shake us all off like fleas from one very irritated animal—an animal that’s about ready to roar and swallow us all whole.
The Landon house, thankfully, feels like a warm bubble of normalcy against the chaos outside. The scent of coffee mingles with something sweet—blueberry muffins, maybe—and there’s that underlying smell of mold, and whatever cleaning product Mom uses that makes everything smell vaguely like lemons.
I stumble down the stairs in yesterday’s clothes, my hair doingthat thing where it looks like I stuck my finger in an electrical socket, and once I take a look around at the house, I immediately know something is off. Not just off—but completely sideways.
Tad sits at the kitchen table with the newspaper spread out like he’s planning a military campaign, except instead of battle plans, there’s a map on top covered in red circles. His hair sticks up, this way and that, and he’s wearing his “I’d rather be fishing” t-shirt that he reserves for days when he wants the world to know he’s given up on professional appearances.
Mom hovers over his shoulder with an excitement I haven’t seen since she discovered that discount grocery store across town. Her auburn hair is pulled back into a messy bun, and she’s wearing her pink ratty robe with flowers printed all over it, that gives her a quirky fairy godmother appeal.
“The Caribbean package looks divine,” she’s saying, pointing at something on the map with the enthusiasm of someone who just discovered chocolate doesn’t have calories.
I blink. Hard. “Did you just say Caribbean?” I try to think back to a single instance in my life where my mother had uttered that tropical locale’s name.
Drake sits hunched over a bowl of cereal at the bar, shoveling counterfeit Lucky Charms into his mouth as if he’s been shipwrecked for months and just discovered food. His messy brown hair falls across his forehead, but there’s something different about him that I can’t quite put my finger on.
Mia and Melissa sit at the far end of the table, phones glued to their faces as if they’ve been surgically attached—nothing new there, completely ignoring the plates of scrambled eggs and toast in front of them. Mia’s blonde hair is pulled into a perfect ponytail that probably took an hour to achieve, while Melissa’s dark curls frame her face as she types with the speed of a teenager conducting a very important social media emergency.
“What’s going on?” I ask, sliding into the chaos with all the grace I can muster, considering the fact that I’ve already accepted that nothing will make sense, so I may as well go with it.
“Althorpe says they might be handing out some early retirement packages,” Mom says, her voice giddy with excitement. “And they said those who are interested could start asking about the benefits.”
Tad looks up from his map with a greasy ear-to-ear grin. “That’s right. They’re offering double what I would get if I waited to grow old and die. And if I’m smart, I’ll take it. And when I do, it’s chip’s ahoy and all that other good stuff. Your mother and I are living on a cruise ship.”
I gasp so hard I nearly inhale my own tongue. “But what about us? What about the baby?”
Living on a cruise ship?
What the actual hell? Did this ever happen? Maybe I missed it in one of my angst-riddled moments where I was too paralyzed to get out of bed because Logan or Gage wasn’t paying enough attention to me. Lord knows that happened now and again on a loop. In fact, it’s sort of happening now.
“Baby?” Mom blinks my way.
Every single person in the kitchen turns to stare at me like I just announced I’m joining a convent. The silence is so complete that even the storm outside seems to pause in an effort to listen in.
