“That’s cool. Rag on me. I don’t care,” Christopher joked. “I caught six waves. How many did you catch?”
I scowled at him. “All right, all right.”
“Beboppin’ Bailey bags the big one,” Christopher went on. “I doubt we’ll get another like that.”
“What do you mean?” Reece asked. “The storm’s picking up.”
“Exactly,” I replied. “Remember how I said I respect the water?”
He nodded.
“It’s time to go,” I explained.
Christopher nodded. “You gotta understand what ‘just in time’ means.” He waved his hand toward the water at surfers still riding. “You see those jokers? Man, they dumb. You gotta listen to your instinct when it’s time to go. You gotta feel it in the water, right Bailey?”
I nodded, and we headed to our cars, fighting the wind that howled a last warning: Get out.
Holly made landfall at 2:31 P.M. the following day. It remained a Category 2—just strong enough to rip people’s houses to shreds, tangle power lines, blow out the phones. The water damage would be the worst. My parents and I went back and forth about leaving. If the storm would have been elevated to a Category 3, we would have boarded up and headed west to Central North Carolina.
I cracked open a beer.
“These hurricane parties are a real thing, then, huh?” Reece said, sliding a bowl of chips onto the coffee table.
Most of my furniture was up on cinderblocks—about two feet high. Flooding was inevitable, even with all the sandbags we put around the house. We still had power, so the TV was on. We watched it sitting in cheap folding chairs. Reece wanted it glued to The Weather Channel, but I convinced him to flip back and forth between the storm and The History Channel. Hey, Benedict Arnold was on. I found him fascinating.
“Yes,” I replied. “And they’re totally stupid and unsafe.”
“What are they?”
“Excuses to get plastered and do dumb shit,” I replied. “People throw them during the storm. And then they get drunk and go stand outside like a bunch of imbeciles.”
“What?”
“That’s what they do. It’s pretty common that at least one person dies.”
Reece shook his head. “College students?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. Last time it was a 65-year-old man.”
We jumped as a tree cracked and slammed onto the road. It made a monstrous noise, and for a split second I thought it was going to crash into my house. I was fairly confident we’d be okay—my house is four-sided brick—but the roof was an altogether different story. It was the one weak point, like Smaug’s missing scale.
“Bailey?”
I grabbed the chips and my beer. “Come on.”
The power flickered on and off. The wind screamed—high-pitched and angry. The noise outside grew louder, whipping about in a frenzy and finally knocking the power out for good. I grabbed the flashlight on my nightstand. We’d need it later.
There’s really no slow build up to a hurricane. Once it makes landfall, everything moves fast. I know that makes no sense since the actual storm reduces significant speed when it hits land, but trust me: you don’t feel that way when the water comes. One minute there’s stillness while the storm is out to sea. In the next minute there’s destruction as soon as her toe hits the sandy shore. I knew the water would move fast. There was no way my house (or anyone’s, for that matter) could avoid flooding.
Another crash outside. Screeching and buzzing—like metal tearing down a chalkboard. For a second I thought we were in the midst of a tornado instead.
“Up,” I ordered, and Reece and I climbed into bed.
“They really go outside in this?” he asked.
“No. Right before.”
“Are they crazy?”
“Yes.”
“Are we gonna die?”
“Reece, why on earth would you ask me that?”
He just looked at me.
“We’ll be fine,” I assured him. “I mean, we’ll have a hell of a lot of work to do starting tomorrow, but everything will be fine.”
“Bailey!” Reece cried, pointing to my bedroom door.
It was already starting—the water creeping under the door and rolling along my hardwoods.
“Fucking sandbags,” I mumbled. “What are they good for?”
“Bailey, how high will it go?” Reece asked. “I can’t remember.”
He spent two weeks absorbing every little detail about this storm, learning more about hurricanes than even I knew. But I’d ridden out Category 2’s several times in my life. And the experience was far different from book knowledge. I knew he was alarmed, watching the water slink in, but I understood elevation and storm surge. I’d witnessed the surge many times. That was why I had Reece help me put all my most precious pieces of furniture two feet off the ground. I was almost positive the water wouldn’t reach that high.
“Eat your chips, hon,” I said absently.
“How far?” he insisted.
“Reece, I don’t know,” I admitted, watching the water rush under the door. No more creeping. More like pouring in. “Fuck,” I whispered.
“‘Fuck’? Why ‘fuck?’ What the fuck does that mean?”
“Reece, calm down. I promise it’s fine. I said ‘fuck’ because I’m worried about my hardwoods buckling.”
He stared at me in disbelief. “Your hardwoods? What if we get stuck on your roof?!”
“That’s not gonna happen. The storm isn’t strong enough.” But I kept my eyes glued to the water, pouring pouring rushing pouring higher higher. A foot high. That’s okay. The eye is coming. That’s the peak. Doesn’t get any worse than that. We’ll see the water recede after.