I had to stop, my throat closing up. I took another ragged breath, the sound loud in the silent cabin. Iris’s hand was still on my arm, her grip firm, grounding. So similar to Caitlin’s long-ago grip, yet so very different. I focused on it and drew strength.
“And then a huge wave came out of nowhere, a sheer wall of black water. It caught us broadside. I remember the sickening lurch as the boat moved sideways, the world tilting at an impossible angle. The fiberglass screamed as it surrendered to the pressure. And then… just cold. The shock of the violent, churning water closing over my head.”
Iris gasped, her mouth forming anO.
“I was thrown clear. I don’t know how. I surfaced, sputtering and choking on saltwater, the rain still blinding me. The boat was gone. Sunk. I saw a bench cushion floating nearby and grabbed onto it. Held on with everything in me, my body already shaking so bad I could hardly grip.”
“And I just screamed. Screamed their names into the void, into the howling wind. Over and over. But there was nothing. Just the roar of the storm.”
“No…” Iris’s denial was a soft whisper.
“Then I saw him for a second. Leo’s head, bobbing on the crest of a wave about fifty yards away. He had one arm in the air, waving. I screamed his name again. When the wave passed, he was gone.”
The finality of that word, even after thirteen years, was a fresh knife in my soul.
“The storm passed as quickly as it came. The rain stopped. The wind died down. And I was alone. Floating in an empty, debris-strewn sea. Holding onto a cushion. The silence was almost worse than the storm had been.”
At last, I looked at Iris. Her face was white as paper, her eyes wide with horrified compassion. A tear rolled from her eye.
“The Coast Guard found me hours later, half-delirious and hypothermic. They continued the search for three days. Found pieces of the boat. A cooler. But they never found them.” I let out an endless, shuddering breath, theconfession finally, brutally, complete. “They never recovered the bodies.”
The story hung in the still cabin between us, heavy and suffocating. The ghosts of Leo, Beth, and Caitlin were here now, their presence as real and tangible as the gentle rocking ofLine Dancerin its slip. I had opened the door to that locked room in my mind, and the pain that had flooded out was nearly as raw and sharp as it had been thirteen years ago.
“It was my fault, Iris. I knew the signs. I didn’t listen to what the ocean was telling me. And three people paid for my mistake with their lives. My punishment was to go on living.”
Silent tears traced paths down Iris’s cheeks. My first instinct was to look away, to shut down, to retreat from the naked empathy on her face. But I didn’t. I just watched her feel it with me.
“Oh, Austin,” she murmured, her voice thick. She reached down, her hand covering my white-knuckled fist on the blanket. “That’s terrible. I am so, so sorry. But you must realize it was an accident. A horrible, tragic accident. You were all just kids. Maybe you shouldn’t have gone out, but you didn’t twist anyone’s arm, did you? You didn’t force them to go.”
Her words were meant to be a comfort, an absolution I’d never allowed myself. But they bounced off the calloused walls of my guilt.
“Doesn’t matter.” I pulled my hand out from under hers, the loss of her touch like a sudden chill. “It doesn’t matter if they wanted to go. I was the one who knew better. I should have shut the whole damn thing down before it ever started.”
“No.” Her voice was gentle yet firm. She refused to let me retreat into that cold, lonely place. “It was a tragedy,Austin. A terrible, senseless tragedy. But it’s not something you should punish yourself over for the rest of your life. You survived. That’s not a punishment. It’s just what happened.”
I whipped my head back and forth, pulling away from the gentle logic of her words. “No. You don’t get it. It’s not just about punishment. It’s about the… the wrongness of it. I was the one who was supposed to know better. Yet I was the only one who walked away.”
I met her gaze and let her see all of it—the ugly, unending loop of my failure. “Why, Iris? That’s the question that never stops. Why did I get to live when they didn’t? It doesn’t make sense. It’s a debt I can never repay.”
My words hung in the dim air. I waited for her pity, for her to tell me I was being irrational. Instead, her expression hardened into a look of fierce, protective anger. She leaned forward, her hands gripping my arm again. “Then don't try to repay it. Instead, you live. That’s how you honor them. Your survival wasn’t a debt. It was a miracle. And you are a good man who has been carrying an impossible burden for far too long.”
Her words battered against the walls I’d spent thirteen years reinforcing. I shook my head, a small, defeated movement. “You can't know that.”
“You’re right. I can’t.” Her anger dissolved, replaced by a look of such patient acceptance it stole the air from my lungs. Her grip softened, and she slowly stroked my arm. “No one can. And you don’t have to believe it right now. Maybe you won’t believe it a year from now. But that crack in the door you just opened? The fact that you’re even questioning it after all this time? That’s a start, Austin. That’s a huge, scary, very promising start.”
I stared at the fierce sincerity in her eyes. She wasn’toffering cheap platitudes or trying to fix me. She was offering me a different perspective. A hand in the darkness. Maybe even a lifeline. For the first time, I didn’t immediately slap it away. I held her gaze, a thirteen-year war raging inside me.
A slow, heavy breath shuddered out of me. “It’s not gonna be fast.”
A beautiful smile touched her lips. “Perhaps not. But you’ll get there. I know it.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” The admission was momentous, torn from a place deep inside me. “Being with you has made me realize that maybe life can be good. Not just… surviving.”
Her hand came up, and she brushed a stray tear from her cheek before resting her cool fingers against my rough, stubbled one. This time I let it be.
“Your life can be fulfilling, Austin. You deserve to be happy.”
The simple, soft conviction in her voice made something clench hard inside me. I had to focus on a scuff mark on the cabin floor to anchor myself.
