My neck snapped in her direction. She was suggesting shit like it was her birthday trip and not mine. I did an itinerary. I wanted to be outside, instead of sulking around. My man needed to be with me enjoying this shit. Turks and Caicos is beautiful. This trip was planned months ago, and TikTok spoiled me with all the cute adventurous videos. In just three days, I planned to go back home happy that I’d done everything that I wanted to do.
“It’s supposed to storm,” Oliver chided, chewing on a piece of bacon.
My eyes grew wide. “Storm?” I shrieked. “I didn’t see anything about a storm!”
“Yeah, it won’t hit until later on.”
I palmed my forehead, seeing all of my plans drowned in the midst of bullshit.
“We still have time to do the jet skis, right?” Synthia spoke.
My head popped up. “Who said anything about jet skis? I don’t want to get on no damn jet skis,” I snapped. “I want to go kayaking.”
She stared at me. I stared back. Our eyes didn’t move. The menacing glazes in our eyes could put out a fire. If she snapped, then I’d pop off and crackle her ass in the mouth.
“I thought I saw jet skis in your itinerary,” she mentioned.
I shrugged. “The rain fucked that up. I want to at least go kayaking if I don’t do anything else though.”
“Bitch, you don’t know how to swim and you want to get on jet skis,” Mimi giggled, teasing Synthia.
Breaking the stare, she glanced at Mimi with a smile. “Who said anything about me drowning?”
“I can’t wait to see how this shit plays out,” Mimi muttered.
“Hoe shut up,” Synthia shoved her, causing Mimi to giggle. “Let me drown, you’ll be the first one putting on a cape to save me.”
They erupted into loud chit chat. Romelo entered the room, and I felt a gravitational pull. My neck snapped in his direction. At the sight of him, my heart thumped, and I felt my soul sink to the bottom of my ass. The love of my life is no longer in love with me, and that’s a hard pill to swallow. I was exhausted and tired of trying—trying to be the girl he fell for. But he wasn’t having it. He looked at me with disgust, his mouth curled up, like there was a sour taste on his tongue.
We ended up kayaking together, and I thought for a moment I could tug at his emotions. But even then he was quiet, like I was a stranger. Padding in silence, his jaw tight, his mind drifting somewhere I couldn’t reach.
“You okay?” I asked, my voice low, barely above a whisper.
“I’m good.”
I wanted to press him, demand the answers he wasn’t telling me, but I kept my mouth shut and paddled, pretending not to care. The sound of the water filled the noise between us, aside from loud cackles and shit-talking behind us.
Then I heard screaming.
My head snapped toward the sound, and my heart dropped to my stomach. Synthia. She was in the water, flailing, going under.
“Synthia!” Mimi’s voice cut through the air, panicked and shrill.
Before I could even process what was happening, Romelo was moving. He dropped the paddle, dove into the water without hesitation, swimming toward her like his life depended on it. I sat there, frozen, watching him move faster than I’d ever seen him move for me. He was swimming like his life depended on it.
No—like her life was the only one that mattered.
“Juicy! I’m coming baby.”
Juicy.
My hand went numb. The paddle slipped from my fingers, clattering against the kayak. I couldn’t feel my body anymore. Couldn’t feel anything except the sick, hollow ache spreading through my stomach, up into my chest, squeezing my lungs.
The thought came unbidden, vicious and true. I could be the one under that water, choking, drowning, and he’d probably paddle at a normal pace—or if he’d saved me at all.
But for her? He was losing his fucking mind.
Other people were moving now—Mimi screaming, Oliver jumping in to help since he was closer than we were, the instructor shouting something I couldn’t hear. But all I could see was Romelo. The way he shoved a kayak out of his path without even looking. The way his face stayed locked on the spot she’d gone under, like if he looked away for even a second, he’d lose her forever.
