Everything is in slow motion.
The waves, Dare’s mouth moving, his words. I stare at him, at the dark stubble on his jaw, at the way he swallows. At the way his dark eyes are impaling me, holding me, scaring me.
“You’ve got one question left, Calla,” he reminds me now. “Ask it.”
The past year swirls through my mind in blurs and snippets. Through everything, Dare has been here. He’s been with me, he’s held me, he’s loved me.
Or has he?
My lips tremble as I try to move them.
“Why were you there that night?” I finally ask, choosing my words carefully. “You weren’t supposed to be. But you were.”
Dare answers my question with one of his own, staring at me cautiously.
“Which night, Calla?”
I’m speechless as I stare at him.
“You know which night. The night. The night my brother died.”
Something wavers in Dare’s gaze, but he gathers himself.
“Do you remember now? Do you remember how bloody I was?”
I’m already shaking my head from side to side, slowly, in shock. Not because I don’t remember, but because I don’t want to.
“There was a lot of blood,” I recall, thinking about the way it’d streaked down Dare’s temple and dripped onto his shirt. It’d stained the t-shirt crimson, spreading in a terrifying pool across his chest. “I didn’t know if it was yours or… Finn’s.”
And for one scant second, I had forgotten that Dare had confessed something to me.
I’d forgotten that I was terrified of him because of it.
Because amid all of that blood, all I could see was my fear of losing him, because heaven help me, I loved him anyway.
“You held me up,” my lips tremble. “When I was falling down. You held me while I waited for… Finn.”
I’d waited for Finn to call.
I’d waited and waited and waited.
The sirens wailed in the night, and I’d paced the floor.
Finn never called.
Dare nods. “I’ve always held you up, Cal.”
“When my father came in, and said… when he told me about Finn, everything else faded away,” I recall, staring out at the ocean. God, why does the ocean make me feel so small? “Nothing else mattered. Nothing but him. You faded away, Dare.”
The truth is stark.
The truth is hurtful.
I lay it out there, like flesh flayed open, like pink muscle, like blood.
Dare closes his eyes, his gleaming black eyes.
“I know,” he says softly. “You didn’t remember me. For months.”
We know that. We both know that. It’s why we’re here, standing on the edge of the ocean, trying to retrieve my mind. It’s been out to sea for too long, absent from me, floundering.
I snatch at it now with frantic fingers, trying to draw all of my memories back. They’re stubborn though, my memories. They won’t all come.
But one does.
My eyes burn as I fix my gaze on Dare.
“You confessed something to me. It scared me.”
Dare’s lids are heavy and hooded, probably from the weight of guilt.
He nods. One curt, short movement.
“Do you remember what I told you?”
He’s silent, his gaze tied to mine, burning me.
I flip through my memories, fast, fast, faster… but I come up empty-handed. I only emerge with a feeling.
Fear.
Dare sees it in my eyes and looks away.
“I tried to tell you, Cal,” he says, almost pleading. “You just didn’t understand.”
His voice trails off and my heart seems to stop beating.
“I didn’t understand what?” I ask stiltedly. Just tell me.
He lifts his head now.
“It isn’t hard to understand,” he says simply. “If you remember all that I told you. Can you try?”
I stare at him numbly. “I’ve tried already. I… it’s not there, Dare.”
Dare’s head drops the tiniest bit, almost imperceptibly, but I see it. He’s discouraged, disappointed.
He shakes his head. “It is there. Just relax, Calla. It will come. But you should know now that you’re not safe. You have to trust me.”