My voice drops to a whisper. “Does it still follow you? The aftermath of your attack?”
“No matter how much work I put into trying to make it stay or go away, it’ll always be there. It’s a part of who I am, Emory. Just like what happened to you will always be a part of who you are. The goal is making sure it doesn’t overshadow all of the good pieces of yourself that thrive despite it.”
5
EMORY
Everything is a deep blue.
The walls, the floor, the bedsheets.
The furniture around me takes on different shades of the color. Harsh brushstrokes paint the ceiling in dazzling curves, imitating the irreverent lines of an endless number of waves. A whooshing sound starts in my eardrums, quickly turning into a thumping noise that crashes against the outside wall of the room.
My heart pounds in my chest, and I quickly sit up, swinging my gaze to the windows. It’s daylight on the other side of them, rays of sunshine slanting through the half-suddy waters that creep up Coralhaven Beach during high tide. Only…this tide isway too high, reaching as far as the homes perched on the coast. As far asourhome.
I try to get up, because we need to evacuate. Storm surges like this are deadly.
“These aren’t storm surges,” a voice comes from the corner of the room. I look over and find Lance sitting in one of the kitchen chairs. He must have brought one up to the room, but I don’t understand why. It’s not something he’s ever done before.
I glance at the door off to the side of him. “Lance, we have to go. We need to leave!”
“No, we don’t.”
“Yes,we do. The water is too high. Look.” I point at the windows, my stomach dropping when I see the glass splintered. “Oh my god.” Those same three words echo in my mind over and over.
“It’s fine,” is what he has the nerve to say.
I whip the covers off my body and try to move my legs to the side, but they don’t do a damn thing. It’s almost like my muscles are nonexistent and unworking. I look back over at Lance as waves crash into the windowpanes.
“We need to go, but I can’t get up. I need your help.Please.” My plea is a whimper that crawls up my throat. An anxious sob comes next, and a briny scent follows, entwining with every atom in the room. It makes my stomach lurch, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes.
I attempt moving my legs again.
They don’t fucking work!
“Lance,” I choke out. “We don’t have long. And I-I…”
“You have all the time in the world.”
“No, I don’t!” I scream at him, not understanding why he’s not doing anything.Why is he just sitting there? Why isn’t he helping me? Why isn’t he getting us to safety?
“We’re going to d-die,” I sob, hoping Lance will hear and finally comprehend the weight of our predicament. “You can’t let us die!”
“This isn’t about me,” he says, sitting there as he looks at me, a neutral expression painted on his face. “It’s about you. You’re the one who wanted this house right on the water. You’re the one who decided against hurricane proofing the windows. You’re the one who’s responsible for all of this.”
Confusion almost entrances me. I shake my head. “Your mother wanted us to have this home,” I remind him. “She’s the one who told you to put an offer in when it went on the market, despite it not having the necessities of a coastal property.” She told us those were updates we could add on as time passed. That it wasn’t that big of a deal because we were getting a house that most people only ever dreamed of.
I blink and Larissa appears, sitting in a chair next to her son, her gray-streaked hair done up in tight curls as if she’s attending a fundraiser.
She huffs, offended. “I did no such thing.”
Yes, you did, I want to say, but my brain thinks it versus my mouth speaking it.
“Everyone thinks you wanted this, you know,” Larissa coos, trying to make it sound like everything is okay when it’s clearly the opposite.
Panic swarms me, and my legs go more numb, if that’s even possible. I roll to my side and grip onto the nightstand, dragging myself out of bed, my body thudding to the ground. I pull myself two feet before the splintering of glass sounds.
“No,” I whisper to myself, my gaze settling on the windows and how each fragment makes up a beautiful masterpiece that will inevitably also be the thing that ends me. “Please, no.”
