What she was saying made sense, and that weakness she spoke of, that current, was something I could feel in myself. That panic was paralyzing me. It had been there forever, like a worm inside an apple. From the outside, the apple looks perfect, but when you cut it open, you can see it’s full of holes and starting to rot.
I wanted to cry, but instead I tried to put on a happy face. I rebelled against my sorrow, stopped slumping over, raised my chin up as if defying my own insecurities. They wouldn’t get the best of me. Not this time.
9
And That Hurts
Something occurred to me as I said goodbye to Adele: things pile up and pile up, and eventually something tips the scale. Even the most trivial things weigh something. And when you feel the balance shift, it can change the whole course of your life. On that island, I could tell the balance was starting to shift.
I was taking a turn, and all around me were signs that fate or some higher power or who knows what was trying to tell me something. That fascinated me, but it was also an enigma. Since arriving in Petit Prince, I’d met two people who had given everything up for a new start there. They’d left behind a secure, comfortable, and stable life where they were just puppets, letting others pull the strings, because they’d wanted to follow their dreams and truly be happy. And that’s what happiness is: a possibility that exists but that not everyone achieves—only those who accept the risk, no matter how far away their dream might seem. Because a dream that doesn’t involve sacrifices isn’t a real dream.
And I needed to find out what my dream was. That’s why I was here. To find what it was that made my heart beat strongest.
I needed to start being who I really was. I needed to stop wasting my life trying to live up to the image others had of me; to know what I wanted, where it was and how to achieve it, and go for it.
Harper, don’t be scared to start over, Adele had told me when she hugged me.
All right, then.
The air smelled of rain—that was my favorite scent—and it felt charged with electricity. A dark mass had covered the sky. I walked faster. The wind was howling and blowing sand into my hair, my eyes, my clothes. All around me was ocean, gray and foamy, whispering to me of the storm to come. The pebble beach had virtually vanished underwater. There was just a narrow stone path along the steep wall of the cliff.
For a few seconds, I thought I’d gotten lost. I didn’t recognize the sinuous dunes that stretched out before me. They changed, rose up, and vanished before my eyes, shaped by the violent winds.
A gust brought salty sea spray up into my face. I looked at the sky, the coal-dark clouds, the glow of lightning. One bolt followed another, and a few seconds later, thunder reverberated in my head.
The first raindrops hit my hands and face. Soon afterward, the storm began in earnest. I took off running as fast as I could in my strappy sandals. A curtain of water devoured the remaining light. Every definite shape around me started to blur, as though fading into darkness.
At last, I saw my house, vague on the horizon. By the time I reached the porch, I was out of breath and my lungs were on fire. I wiped my damp hair back from my forehead and entered.
I was shivering nonstop, and my teeth were chattering. I ran to the bathroom and tore off my soaked, sandy clothes. From the coast, the wind struck the walls mercilessly. I could hear the crack of thunder and see the glow from the lightning crossing the sky. If this apocalypse was just the beginning of the storm, I didn’t want to imagine what was coming next.
I filled the tub with hot water and exhaled as I submerged myself.Slowly my body warmed up, and I played with the soap foam rising around me, thinking about Adele and what a coincidence it had been that I had met her. It was almost like a dream, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure if it had been real.
But of course it had been! And I hoped I would see her again before I left.
I stayed soaking a long time, until the skin on my fingers and toes started to wrinkle. Then I put on underwear and an old T-shirt and went down to the kitchen for a sandwich and an herb tea. I ate by the windowsill to watch the storm, feeling safe behind the double-glazed windows. Knowing my sister, they must have been her idea.
I felt maudlin when I thought of her and how I missed her, and I picked up my phone to give her a ring. But because of the damn storm, I didn’t have service!
An hour later, I was lying in bed, looking at the ceiling, nervous as I listened to the moaning and howling of the night outside. The rain struck the roof like drops of lead, so hard you could hear it echo in the walls. A few times, the lamp on the nightstand flickered. Then it went out and darkness filled the room.
I curled up under the blanket, hugging my book. I never went anywhere without it. In a situation like this, Anne would have invented one of her crazy stories, facing her fear and loneliness with the help of knights and princesses, shouting her head off to frighten whatever creature was lurking in the shadows and hurling lightning bolts that made the bedroom sparkle with blue.
Marilla would shout from the kitchen for her to quiet down, telling her that was no way for a lady to act, and Matthew would rush to her defense, amused at her imagination.
I closed my eyes and imagined I was six again. Six-year-old Harper, with Mother, not Marilla, coming to kiss me good night.
But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have to stop, and that hurts.And I did hurt as I fell asleep.
A noise awakened me. I opened my eyes, startled, certain there was someone downstairs. I reached for the light switch and clicked it over and over, but nothing happened. Then I tried to grab my phone, but I remembered I’d left it in the living room.
When I think about it now, I don’t know where I found the courage to get out of bed, but I did. On the dresser was a pair of wooden candlesticks. I grabbed the biggest one and held it like a baseball bat. Then I tiptoed down the stairs, trying not to make noise.
However closely I listened, I could hear nothing over the noise outside. For a moment, I told myself I was imagining things. It wouldn’t be the first time my mind had played tricks on me.
Only when I was about to go back to the bedroom did I hear a thud and the voice of someone cursing.
I froze.
