17. Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
Rye
Fifteen years.
Fifteen years , he’d been down in that hellhole. That dark, cold, damp basement. Cowering in his corner, his back pressed up against the hard, unforgiving concrete wall, hoping to not hear the door unlock or the man’s heavy, weighted boots coming down the stairs. Hoping to not smell the stench of the man’s sweat or the ick of cigarette smoke wafting off him as he got closer. Hoping to not feel the man’s rotten breath on his cheek or the man’s rough fingers on his skin. Grabbing him, touching him, hurting him.
Fifteen years of living in constant fear.
And only miles from home. Still in Rocky Cove—so close to home and yet so, so far away.
Rye sat with his back against this new wall, cowering in this new corner, crying for what seemed like forever. At some point, Jake had come in and tried to talk to him, but Rye hadn’t been able to get past the image of large man blocking doorway , and he’d panicked, his mind momentarily telling him—insisting—he was back there again. Back in the basement, powerless and weak, about to be punished for whatever it was he must have done.
But then Jake had spoken to him so kindly, called him by his name—not stupid fucking child or worthless sack of shit —and told Rye again that it was his choice. That he had a choice .
And that had made Rye cry even more.
He hadn’t been given a choice in so, so long. In fifteen years, apparently.
Outside, the storm continued raging. Wind beat at the windows, sending raindrops pounding on the glass. The sound of the ocean was distant now, the waves only occasionally audible over the wind gusts and rain. And as Rye’s crying finally slowed and calmed, he pressed his feet into the carpet and let himself get lost in the sounds from outside .
Hours must have passed that he sat there. His stomach grumbled and ached, probably angry that he hadn’t eaten anything but a single cookie early in the day. But it was a feeling he was more than familiar with, and it was easily ignored. Much like the pain in his side and the long hours of just... sitting.
He stared out the window for a long time too, his eyes raw and swollen from crying, and he watched as darkness grew and the storm finally eased up. Only when the window was fully black with night and the sounds of rain and wind had faded to dull background noise did he shift a bit, lowering himself to the ground and curling up to sleep.
But he didn’t sleep. Instead, the shift in position brought other things into focus—things he’d been ignoring the whole afternoon. Small sounds from the living room. Talking but not... definitely not Jake’s voice. Something quiet and a bit muffled, but that sounded maybe like... a TV?
He opened his eyes and slowly pushed himself up as he strained to hear.
“...when the first US Atlantic Swordfish Fishery Management Plan was finally implemented. Yet it wasn’t until the late nineties that more comprehensive and ultimately effective management strategies were enacted. By the early 2000s, swordfish populations appeared to be benefiting from...”
Rye heard a cough and then another sound, like a mug being set down as the deep, smooth voice of the narrator continued. It was a TV, playing one of those informational shows, like the ones his mom used to watch... maybe. He closed his eyes and searched for a memory—one he almost just knew was there but somehow couldn’t seem to find. Like it was just beyond his reach. He could almost see it, but it was fragmented and hazy. Broken pieces of a puzzle he couldn’t fit together.
And he wanted to remember. He wanted it so badly. He looked back up and toward the door.
The sound continued, the narrator still talking about something Rye didn’t quite understand. Something more about swordfish.
What... did a swordfish look like? Was it the fish with the really long, pointy... nose? There was surely a better word for it that he just didn’t know. But he could sort of picture it, maybe. An image popped into his head of a giant fish with a sharp sword-like nose, leaping up out of the ocean.
Was he right?
Curiosity forced him to his feet and then forward toward the open door, his heart racing. He paused at the doorway, glancing out and down the hall toward the living room. A different voice was talking now, saying something about the swordfish having a wide temperature tolerance compared with similar species, and there was splashing and sounds of the ocean—coming from the TV, not from outside. Pushing back the lingering unease he had about leaving the bedroom, Rye walked silently along the wall toward the living room, hugging the far side of the hallway.
When he reached the end of the hall, he stopped again, his eyes wide as they were drawn to the huge TV hanging on the wall. He’d seen it before, but it hadn’t been powered on then, and he hadn’t really realized just how big it was.
And the picture on the screen... He was right! The swordfish from his memory was right there on the TV, leaping up out of the water, twisting in the air, its skin glistening as it caught the sunlight. Then it splashed back down on its side.
He gasped as he just stared, unable to pull his eyes away. The camera shifted to an underwater view, following along next to another swordfish, and the narrator began talking again.
“The swordfish is a midwater fish, generally found at depths of two hundred to six hundred meters...”
Rye took one step and then another, and soon, his hands reached out to grasp the back of the couch, his attention still drawn to the TV. The fish glided through the water smoothly, just below the surface, moving closer to the camera for a second before twisting and swimming away again.
“They’re pretty magnificent, aren’t they?” said a gentle voice just to Rye’s right.
Rye somehow stopped himself from flinching away, though his heart jumped up into his throat and he sucked in a short breath. With a nod, he forced himself to stay looking ahead, at the TV. The view had changed again to what seemed like an interview or something. Several people were crowded on the deck of a small boat, the deep-blue ocean stretching out behind them. One of them motioned toward the water and started talking about how they study swordfish or something.
And it was still distracting—the TV, the crisp image on the screen, the camera view panning out to catch a flock of some sort of seabirds settling on the water, the people talking. Rye bit his lip and kept watching, his hands still gripping the back of the couch.
“You can sit here if you want. There’s plenty of room.”
Jake’s voice was soft and kind, and again, Rye managed not to flinch. Finally pulling his eyes away from the TV, Rye glanced down at Jake, who sat in the same spot on the couch as Rye had helped him to that morning. His back was flush against the cushions, and his bad leg was on the ground rather than elevated.
“The documentary just started a little while ago,” Jake explained. “It’s supposed to be pretty good. My friend Steve is in one of the later bits. He studies swordfish populations off the coast down near Half Moon Bay. ”
Jake gave Rye a smile and then motioned toward a bowl on the coffee table. “There’s popcorn too. It’s just the microwaveable stuff—but it is the good movie theater butter flavor. Help yourself.” Jake huffed a little laugh. “Just don’t tell my sister. She might disown me for not making ‘the real stuff.’”
Rye had been so distracted by the TV that he somehow hadn’t smelled the popcorn, but now that Jake mentioned it, his senses were flooded by the rich, buttery smell, which was all at once so, so familiar. He breathed in deeply, closing his eyes, and his stomach growled again. Only this time, unlike earlier, the ache seemed to bother him, and he didn’t want to ignore it.
Carefully, he looked back at Jake, who was still watching him with that same soft expression. Jake nodded lightly and smiled one more time before shifting his attention back to the TV. And Rye bit his lip. He should sit. He should sit and eat popcorn and watch the—what had Jake called it? a documentary?—with Jake because it was a normal thing to do, right? A normal thing that... that a twenty-three-year-old man would do. And he wanted to. He really did. Yet his body still took a little convincing before he could move, and it was also immensely difficult to get himself to sit on the couch rather than head toward the corner he’d spent much of the day in.
By the time he finally sat, smushing himself up against the armrest on the side opposite Jake, trying to make himself as small as possible, the TV was showing some graphic representation of the area along the California coast where swordfish were often found. The narrator called it the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem.
And Rye had no idea what that really meant. But he wanted to understand. He frowned and squinted as he tried to concentrate, listening carefully as the narrator explained what the region of the ocean was and its importance for swordfish populations.
Rye soaked it all in, hanging on every word. He was so deeply immersed that he’d forgotten Jake was even there on the couch with him until Jake cleared his throat, leaned forward, and picked up the bowl of popcorn, then placed it between them on the middle couch cushion.
“Ah, look,” Jake said, shifting again to point toward the TV. “See that guy in the black Stanford hoodie? That’s my buddy Steve. We were in college together. Undergrad and then grad school until—well, until the accident. But he’s still there. He’s a postdoc now. Hah. This is great. I’m gonna have to call him tomorrow.”
Rye glanced at Jake and then back at the TV, where Jake’s friend was now standing at the edge of a dock next to a boat, talking animatedly as he explained his research work. He only spoke for a minute or so before the scene changed, and Steve and two more researchers were out on a boat on the water.
The documentary continued, taking them from one side of the United States to the other and back again. Rye followed along as best he could, but the amount of information was overwhelming, and at one point, when the narrator seemed to pause to just follow another swordfish as it swam gracefully through the water, he finally sat back a little deeper into the couch cushions and then chanced another glance over at Jake and the bowl of popcorn. His stomach ached, reminding him of how hungry he was, and he swallowed hard and then slowly—ever so slowly—reached out with a hand and grabbed just a couple of the popped kernels. Jake turned his head and gave Rye a small smile and a nod before looking back at the TV.
It was okay.
It almost didn’t seem real, the fact that he was about to eat popcorn while sitting on a couch and watching TV. Rye lifted his hand to his mouth and stuffed the popcorn in, and it instantly melted against his tongue, bursting with flavor and richness. He might have made some funny little sound, which was probably why Jake glanced at him again, and he immediately pushed himself back into his corner of the couch and set his hands back in his lap as he chewed and swallowed the popcorn, pretending to focus on the TV.
“It’s good stuff, huh?” Jake said. “Have as much as you like. I’m full already. And there’s leftover soup for dinner, if you’re hungry.”
Rye’s stomach grumbled again—loudly this time—as if to say just how empty it still was. Jake chuckled, and Rye froze as he felt the couch shift.
“Here, really. It’s all yours.”
From the corner of his eye, Rye saw Jake push the bowl of popcorn even closer to him before settling back in his spot on the couch with a barely muffled grunt. He bit his lip. It would be okay. He could have a little more. Jake had basically given him the bowl, right? And he wanted it. A lot.
He tilted his head just enough that he could see the popcorn and Jake. Jake was looking at the TV again, one hand now lightly massaging his injured leg, not paying attention to Rye at all. So, as he had earlier, Rye reached his hand into the bowl slowly, grabbing just another two or three pieces. And when he popped them into his mouth, he was awarded with another burst of flavor, just like the first.
“Ah, there’s Steve again. This is great,” Jake said with an amused laugh.
And Rye shifted his attention back to the TV as he picked up another small handful of popcorn.