“A little faster, Jack! This is an emergency!”
He twisted his mouth to one side. “I don’t think he said where he was going.” He squinted, frowned. “I just remember him saying some lame joke about jumping off a cliff. I told him suicide was never a laughing matter—”
“Jumping off … a cliff! I know where he is!” I ran toward the Henricks’ minivan, which was parked along the curb. I pulled on the sliding door handle and groaned to find it locked. My body twisted with one hand still on the car. I looked back toward the house. No one had moved.
“I have to find him,” I said, feeling more sure of those words than anything I’d felt in months. “And I need you to help me. I don’t know how to get anywhere in this city.”
Manda frowned. “Now, that is just sad, Charlie.”
“It’s true!” I was starting to shriek. “Everybody in the van! Auntie Charlie needs help on a treasure hunt or Auntie Charlie is going to have a nervous breakdown.”
“Awesome,” Jack called. He jogged to the driver’s side door, his entourage hot on his trail. “This is like geo-caching only more urgent. I love it.”
I nearly had to breathe in a paper bag while waiting for Manda and Jack to buckle three car seats, particularly when Dane began weeping inconsolably about something involving his tennis shoes (a hateful choice, apparently) and his snow boots (too small, but eventually retrieved from his closet so we could leave in peace).
After an intense debate between Jack and Manda, they decided on the general location of the cliff where Kai and I had accidentally fallen asleep all those months ago. Once he had his coordinates, Jack raced into every busy intersection as if he were in a high-speed chase, tires squealing and kids giggling with delight. Manda clamped white knuckles on her armrests and occasionally exclaimed in disbelief.
“You didn’t speed like this when I was in labor!”
“Just close your eyes, Manda!”
As we rounded a corner, the kids squealed and Manda turned to the backseat. “Kids, stop encouraging your father!”
Jack pushed even harder on the gas pedal when she added, “You are not a stunt driver and never will be!”
We drove more slowly once we reached the neighborhood where Manda and Jack suspected Kai and I had walked. When we passed a dilapidated wire fence with a narrow path beyond, I yelled for Jack to stop. The brake action was so swift and severe, I tumbled between the front two seats.
“Thanks,” I said, yanking open the infernally slow slider. “Wish me luck.” I was jogging by the time I heard the door close behind me.
The path was steeper than I’d remembered and overgrown with branches after a full summer’s worth of rain and sun. Lines of shallow scratch marks traced pink stripes on my arms, and, at one turn, I tripped over a rock and went sprawling on my hands and knees. When I cleared the final curve and stepped onto the soft grass, I was panting.
I scanned the clearing quickly, the rush of blood in my ears louder than the surf that crashed on the rocks below. The trees moved in the breeze, the music of their leaves a crisp lullaby in the fall air. My body tensed at the sound of movement, but all I found was a squirrel running along an outcropping of rock.
Kai wasn’t there.
I stood, chest heaving, thoughts returning with an unforgiving thud of truth. Of course he wasn’t there. Letting my legs give beneath me, I lowered myself to sit facing the sea. Why on God’s green earth had I thought he would be here? Seattle was an enormous city.
I stared out at the water, feeling every bit the ridiculous fool I was. Balancing my elbows on my knees, I closed my eyes and felt a cold mist from the ocean tickle my face.
I was too late.
“Charlie.”
I turned around, my hand clutching my chest. Kai stood with rumpled hair, eyes intense.
I rose to my feet, slipping a bit on the wet grass. “You’re here,” I said, surprise and relief filling me in equal parts.
Kai remained still, his eyes on mine. “I was on a walk.” He nodded to a path behind him.
I blinked. “I didn’t know the path continued.”
A half smile. “We didn’t exactly get that far.” He shook his head a bit, as if to clear it. “Jack said you’re moving back to New York. Tomorrow.”
I nodded. “Yes.” My toes and fingers suddenly felt numb with cold. “About that.” I paused, willing him to hear my heart, even if I mangled what I was about to say. “Kai, I was hoping you’d be here so I could talk with you in person before I left.”
He waited. His eyes looked more gray than blue surrounded by the sky and sea.
“I’m sorry.” I rushed ahead, scared that if I stopped talking, I’d chicken out and walk away. “We had something good and true and …” I paused, searching until I found the right word. “Hopeful. We had something hopeful. And I screwed it up.” My words caught in my throat, but I pushed on. “You were good to me and very, very patient. And I squandered it all because I could only see one thing.”