Jocelyn
Of all the ways to die, heartbreak is the only one you can live through.
—My Therapist
After promising Asher I’ll tell him if I need him, I set down my phone and sink onto my couch. This is the smart thing. I
can’t continue to rely on him for everything. I can brave this—my greatest fear—by myself. I’m strong. This hurricane is predicted
to be mild, and I prepared for it. Water. Food. Easy peasy.
First, survive the hurricane. Second, repair the fissure between me and Asher. What that repair involves is still a bit foggy.
Is it releasing him to go fall in love with someone else? Is it leaping onto him with both arms and legs and never letting
go?
Who could say?
Not me, and definitely not while 90 percent of my headspace is wondering if I’ll be dead in the next twenty-four hours.
Storm tracking while I distract myself with my latest novel, I make it through most of the evening without losing my cool.
Regular updates to Ali help me relax, though she’s vocally irritated at my decision to remain in my death trap of a house instead of shacking up with the boy who owns a brand-new Cat-5-proof home.
The news is obnoxious. The idiot anchors keep cutting to onsite reporters out in the thick of it, standing in abandoned streets
while sheets of sideways rain pelt them. Even a few hours ago, the wind was strong enough to knock them off their feet.
Morons, the lot of them.
After nine, I give up on the novel and call Ali, but it doesn’t fully ease my nerves. We chat about everything except the
weather while I try desperately to forget the potential destruction heading my way. Why did I do this to myself? Am I secretly
a masochist? That’s the only logical explanation, right?
The jitters have me nauseated, and the thought of food makes me gag. Someone has taken a hand mixer to my insides and scrambled
everything out of place. My heart is in my throat. My stomach in my feet. The horrendous assault of the wind outside makes
me cringe, and I do the toddler thing where I press my palms over my ears to make it stop.
I am the world’s biggest dumbass.
The storm worsens close to midnight, so I take to my bed with earplugs.
Block it out and it doesn’t exist, right?
Trying to sleep during a hurricane in a wood-framed house with no shutters is perhaps the hardest—and stupidest—thing I’ve ever done.
Each gust of hundred-plus mile per hour wind slams against my home like a freight train, rattling the vulnerable single-pane windows.
Debris peppers the siding every so often, making me flinch despite the earplugs.
Category 2 sounds so weak. Two out of five? This hurricane would get a D in math class. But around 1:00 a.m., I finally admit
to myself I should have stayed with Asher. My house rocks with each wind gust, and the minced ends of my overstimulated nerves
recoil at every thump. Lying in my bed in the wee hours of the morning, staring at my ceiling, I own up to my mistakes. I
shouldn’t have listened when they said it wouldn’t hit us. That’s exactly what my parents did.
It’s what the majority of people do. Ignore the warnings. Play with fire.
Hours pass while I suppress the rising panic.
I’ll be fine. This is fine.
A bang crashes above the roar of the storm, and my ceiling fan stills. The dim night-light from the bathroom disappears. The
cool air from the vent in the floor stops.
Power’s out.
Night has barely given way to an approaching stormy sunrise, so the sudden darkness envelops me. I sit up in bed. The covers
pool around my waist. Fingers and toes cold, face hot, I swing out of bed. My phone at my bedside table lights up when I grab
it.
A series of emergency alerts glow over my screen.
National Weather Service: A HURRICANE WARNING is in effect for this area for dangerous and damaging winds. Urgently complete efforts to protect life and property. Have food, water, cash, fuel, and medications for 3+ days.
National Weather Service: A STORM SURGE WARNING is in effect for this area for the danger of life-threatening flooding. Urgently
complete efforts to protect life and property. Follow evacuation orders if given for this area to avoid drowning or being
cut off from emergency services.
EMERGENCY ALERT: Your county has issued a mandatory evacuation for flood zones A, B, C. Emergency services have been suspended.
Please leave the area immediately.
What the hell? What happened in the few hours I’ve been trying to sleep? And why didn’t my phone make a sound?
With a single bar of signal, I open the local news website. The storm has grown and slowed. Now upgraded to a Category 5,
Franklin’s turned his course dramatically. The bastard is close and heading straight for me. The storm surge has already started.
Fuck. I scurry from my bed.
Another loud crack rocks my house while I scramble to put on clothes and sturdy shoes. Above me, the ceiling creaks. My gaze
lifts right as the plaster splinters apart and the giant oak from my front yard rips through my bedroom.
With a scream, I leap for the doorway. Branches claw scratches into my skin while I crawl to safety. With the house torn open,
the howl of the storm is deafening. Lying on my belly in the hallway, I try to catch my breath. The pounding in my chest makes
it impossible.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I’m going to die here, aren’t I? Rain showers my bedroom, and I spy my phone screen glowing on the floor between the leaves
of the tree.
“Shit!”
That phone is my only source of communication.
I army crawl through the destruction, pushing aside branches until I reach the main trunk.
The phone lies barely out of my grasp. The useless foliage does zero to protect me from the storm above.
Stinging rain pelts my body as I stretch my arm beneath the wood. My fingertips grazing the plastic case.
Bark digs deep into my shoulder, and something pinches in the joint, but my hand closes over the wet device. I slide it toward
me and clamber out of the bedroom. In the hallway, I lurch to my feet, wiping at the water on my scraped skin. My shoes skid
over wood floors, and I trip in my haste to reach the front entryway, where I keep my car keys. As my hand clenches around
the keychain, the street outside the front window grabs my attention.
The life-sustaining organ in my chest abruptly slows, skipping too many beats at once. My vision goes fuzzy. Black closes
about the edges. Weak gray daylight illuminates a horror scene. The street is flooded. My front yard is flooded.
I can’t drive in this. I’m trapped.
With a clang, the keys fall to the floor. My knees give out and I sink to the wood beneath me. At the bite of pain in my joints,
I come to and lift my phone. My fingers find Asher’s name and hit the call button. At my ear, no rings come through, so I
pull away to look at the screen. When did I lose signal?
The call fails.
I open our message stream. The last text he sent glares at me. Judging.
Promise me you’ll call if you need anything.
I waited too long. I let fear cloud my judgment, and now terror has me frozen, reverting back into that frightened fifteen-year-old
who didn’t know what to do. Who dove into rising floodwaters to save a mother she’d never see again.
Asher I need you
The bubble is green instead of blue, and I stare at the bar at the top for two full minutes while it tries to send. A little
red exclamation point pops up beside it.
Not delivered.
A sob catches in my throat. My gaze strays again to the gray, eddying water outside, now lapping at the cement stairs of my
front porch.
I’m going to drown. I’m going to die today. Alone. I could have been alive. With him.
My brain struggles to organize itself. Survival mode switches on and I stare around me. The highest point in my house is the
bar in my kitchen. It can be my last resort.
I hop to my feet and run toward the attached garage. It sits a foot lower than the rest of my house. An inch of water already
covers the floor. I pause for only a moment to stare at the proof of danger, then snatch a push broom from its spot against
the wall.
I try to shoot out another text.
Asher please I need help
Not delivered.
In a quarter hour, the surge has reached my porch. Skin slicked in sweat, I stand far back from the window, letting my heart
pound out its last beats.
The water rises.
Memories flash through my mind.
. . . my parents dancing in our kitchen . . .
. . . Leo pulling me from the storm surge . . .
. . . Grandma helping with my history homework . . .
. . . Aiden telling me he loves me . . .
. . . Ali in her wedding dress, hugging me close . . .
. . . her children laughing at their first birthdays . . .
. . . Yayoi’s giddiness from her positive pregnancy test . . .
. . . Geoff claiming I’m one of his best friends . . .
. . . Asher . . .
. . . his smile . . .
Water spills over the porch, seeps toward my front door.
. . . his teasing laugh . . .
The wood groans when water trickles through the cracks. I clutch my broom tighter.
. . . the sparkle in his eyes when he looks at me . . .
Water builds against the windows on either side of the door.
. . . I want something real . . .
The glass creaks against the slap of the rising tide.
. . . I’m in love with you . . .
The waves crash against the door. Water inches inside.
. . . Can you see a future for us? . . .
Why couldn’t I give in? Give him what he wants? I’ve been so terrified of everyone else’s death, I never paused to consider
my own mortality. I’m going to die, but does it count as death if I’ve never really been alive to begin with? I’ve hidden
in shadows. In excuses. In a glass box nearly full of floodwaters.
With a great crack, the thin glass windows shatter, and water spills into my home. My face is wet, breath short, but I square
my shoulders. Broom in hand, I stomp to the door and turn the knob. One sweep at the inches of water spilling inside is ineffectual,
but I keep trying.
Sweep.
Flood.
Sweep.
Flood.
I poke my head out the door. My face and hair are whipped by wind powerful enough to kill. It’s not easing up in the slightest.
If I had cell service, I could check the radar, figure out where the eye is, determine how much longer this storm will brew
with such violence.
Sweep.
Flood.
Sweep.
Flood.
Behind me, the tide rages against my back doors—glass sliders. It’s only a matter of time before they break against the weight
of the water. I stop sweeping and peer down at my feet, now ankle deep.
The broom drops out of my hands. Splashes beside me.
My tears are soundless, but numerous. Hundreds of them. Thousands.
Tears for myself. For what I’ll never have. For every person I’ve lost. Every person I’m about to lose.
Eyes locked on the rising surge, I splash through the water to my kitchen. I slowly lift myself to the countertop, feet dangling.
I pull out my phone once more.
I need you.
Not delivered.
I love you.
Not delivered.
I’m sorry I never told you.
Not delivered.
Just know you were the last thing I thought about.
Not delivered.
I’ll love you until the end of time.
Not delivered.