“Nothing,” I answer back quickly. Too quickly.
“So what? You forgive this guy now? You’re what? Friends again? Because it didn’t look friendly. You looked like you were about to black out.”
“I don’t know. We didn’t get that far before you decided to throw him across the beach.”
“Oh, my bad. You’re looking all kinds of distressed while this guy ambushes you alone on a beach. Didn’t realize intervening made me the asshole.”
My nostrils flare with my deep exhale.
He looks sideways at me. “What do you want from me, Ever? I’m supposed to stand by and watch you have a panic attack? Watch some douche from your past corner you?”
“No. I didn’t say that.” I clasp his bicep. The right corner of my mouth lifts in a half smile. “Actually, you throwing him across the beach stopped the attack, so . . . thank you?”
He reaches for me and pulls me into a bear hug. “Fuck, you scared me.”
I stay still in his arms, mirroring the rise and fall of his chest and feel his body settling. The calm washes over me like a baptism. It starts where his jaw rests on my temple, travels down my neck, shoulders, spine and settles in my chest. The butterflies in my stomach land. It rolls down my legs into my heels and toes. I want to stay in the cocoon of his arms forever—where nothing can touch me, and if it tried, he wouldn’t let it. But I want to hear what Chase has to say. I want toknow about the lies that derailed my life and changed its trajectory forever.
“He, uh . . . wasn’t cornering me. He was apologizing.” Without letting him go, I arch my neck back to look up at him.
“Hmph,” is the only response I get.
I lower my head again and stay still in his arms. I count his heartbeats that I feel in my own chest. This man is the sun and I’m in his gravitational pull. My hands creep into his shirt to touch the muscled skin of his back, and his heat seeps into my fingertips. If I could bottle and sell the sanctity I feel in this space, there’d be no need for therapy. Feeling blue? Have a dose of this. Down, depressed, angry, sad? We got you. Take two of these and you won’t need to call us in the morning. God, I fucking love this man. I stopped counting heartbeats, but I haven’t stopped curling my nails into the taut skin of his back, softly clenching and unclenching to the beat. My human stress ball. Then I hear and feel the baritone of his voice against the side of my face.
“Go get your apology, closure, whatever you need. I’m not leaving though.” He pauses. “Do you want me to leave? Wait at home?” His questions drip with incredulity.
Calling it home flips my heart. I shake my head before the words come out. “No, no. Wait here if you want. But I’m not scared. I just . . . It’s just a lot to go back there in my mind. But I already told you, I wouldn’t take it back, because it gave me you. Us.”
He squeezes me tighter and kisses my temple. Once. Twice. The third time he just rests his lips there before he lets me go. Taking a step back, his fingers wander down my arms and twine with mine. He swings them back and forth, knocking our hands together. “See you soon?” He says it like a question.
I nod in answer. “Wait. The wedding party?”
“Everyone, especially the bride and groom, were ready to leave. Pete and Shelley finished the clean-up details. I helped.”
“Okay. It really was a perfect day for them. Right? They were happy?”
He nods in agreement.
I mirror his nod.
“I’ll come to the apartment as soon as I’m done.”
He nods again, pinning me with his stare, his lips curled inward in a thin line.
I know he’s not happy letting me go alone, but I want to know. I need to know. Chase isn’t going to go there with Julian breathing down his neck.
***
A shiver rolls over my body, and I hug my knees to my chest. I’m still in the clothes I wore for the wedding, and the warmth of the sun is long gone. Chase is sitting with his elbows resting on his thighs, looking down at his hands. Seeing me shiver in his periphery, he turns to offer me . . . comfort? Warmth? I’m not sure even he knows.
“Are you cold? Can I . . .” He reaches his arms out, then abruptly drops them. “I can go find a blanket . . . or a towel? I didn’t bring a jacket.” He holds his hands out, palms up in apology.
“Chase? It’s fine. I’m fine. Just tell me the rest, please. Get it over with.” I rest my cheek on my curled knees, face turned to him, in feigned calmness that doesn’t reach my bones or match my words. Idig my fingers into the flesh of my calves, willing myself to wait for him to speak—say the part I’d been dreading.
He already told me his cousin, the unit secretary of the emergency department at Oak Valley General, saw the files. “No evidence of ingesting substances in a deliberate attempt to self-harm.” The files also noted that there was no clear indication of recent vomiting, though they couldn’t determine it conclusively.
“Nothing added up. She never went to one class or therapy session. She acted like her old self as soon as they released her from the hospital. Unless we were around other people. Then it was the victim show. I didn’t want to believe it, but I think I always knew.”
As Chase speaks, I nod, not looking at him. Just stare down at my hands.
