Just so you know, sometimes, when it takes you a while to respond, it freaks me out. Especially after I send emails like the last one.
I’m really glad we’re on the same page. It’s weird how two people often worry about the same thing, and stew over that thing, and create assumptions and fallout plans over that thing . . . without ever talking about the thing. So let me say this, loud and clear: I like you for you. Beginning and end of story. I’m going to write that down and put it in Big right now.
Thank you for what you said about my face. I grant you the freedom to change that opinion after you see me.
Okay, I’m going to hit send. Honesty is uncomfortable.
Love,
Sadie
CHAPTER THIRTY
I put my hands up in an act of surrender—for the game, for myself—and walked toward registration. My autopilot was set to the Jet Ski, and somewhere on the island, Max’s autopilot was set to me.
Gray stayed on the ground.
Back on the main beach, paint splatters covered various pirate costumes, and participants who had lost sat on the sand recounting war stories, addressing blows to their pride with Miller Lite and suggestions of cheaters. I’d never been in this crowd before, and I had no plans to stay now.
My skin swelled in the few places I’d been hit. The whelps didn’t compare to the hit I’d taken in the heart. Lies were like that. They barreled straight into deep tissue.
I made a beeline to the Jet Ski and sat down. Max appeared beside me wearing not a single fleck of paint. His hands on my shoulders, he gave me a quick hug, and looked me over, worried.
“I need to get out of here,” I said.
Wordlessly, he gathered our stuff and waved away other curious participants who couldn’t believe we weren’t staying until the final horn. Behind me, Max apologized to someone—I didn’t turn and look—saying we’d be back next year. I hated to leave Tommy and Marge without saying good-bye, but they wouldn’t want to see me like this. I didn’t want to see anyone.
Max stowed our gear in one of the Jet Ski compartments and swung his leg over in front of me, facing me.
“You want to talk?”
He was hoarse.
“I just want to go.”
Max held out a life jacket. When I didn’t react, he spoke to me the way I’d spoken to him at Trent’s funeral.
“Forward is the only way through.”
I wasn’t trying to be difficult; my arms just wouldn’t obey instructions. My brain was too busy being a washing machine, tumbling facts and histories over and over, drowning them.
They both lied to us.
I’d told Gray the truth about Trent.
I needed to tell Max.
Sliding the jacket around me, Max zipped it up as if I were five. I felt his intense gaze and closed my eyes.
“We have to push off,” he said, taking my hand.
Mechanically, we launched the Jet Ski into the water. Max drove without direction. His parents’ boat lay anchored nearby, but he whizzed past them without acknowledgment. Max didn’t flinch or answer as Sonia yelled to ask him where we were going. When we were no longer in sight of the little island or any of the boats, Max killed the engine.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“Open ocean.”
“Done,” he said, and we were driving again.
The world hazed around me.
I felt everything without feeling anything.
The puffy, happy clouds of the morning darkened like a bruise in the sky and threatened rain. Soon the threat was more than idle; we were dry one moment and under a waterfall the next. Rain plastered my bangs against Idaho and suctioned Max’s clothes against his body. Nature, at its strongest, shaved off mountaintops or threw houses into the air, but it couldn’t wash away pain.
Everything had limitations.
Max steered toward the curve of the horizon. I shivered from the wind and rain as we bumped along in the violent surf.