Shrunkation

Chapter 17

Catalina

It was strange, after all the running, panicking, screaming, and crying that had occurred for most of the day, to then experience a moment such as this. One that was calm, peaceful, and almost normal.

Catalina didn’t know how Trey talked her into taking a break, a breath to relax and get their bearings, when everything in her insisted they needed to return to the resort before they ran out of water and food.

Except Trey had pointed out that, even though the whole traveling-by-seagull-in-an-empanada had been the most terrifying moment of her life, the one good thing was it had taken them closer to their destination.

So, in the end, it saved them a bunch of walking time.

Taking a much-needed break wasn’t going to change anything of significance, and they’d still come out ahead of his original estimation.

So she tried to relax while sitting on the beach with Trey and occasionally brushing her shoulder with his.

They stared at the ocean while splitting a bottle of water and a banana and watched wave after wave kiss the white sandy beach as the sun traveled lazily across the sky.

It really was a gorgeous country regardless of her size.

When Trey suggested they should always travel by seagull, she couldn’t stop herself from laughing.

She didn't know when or how or if it was just out of survival, but things had changed. She no longer had this constant simmering agitation toward him. The feeling had been pushed aside to make room for kinder emotions because this was what she needed at the moment. Catalina wanted the comfort of his touches, for him to put his arm around her. She even wanted him to kiss her again, to really kiss her and not stop. Catalina was beginning to ache for it, to crave it—something she hadn’t experienced for a long time.

She offered him the last bite of banana. “Here, you can have it.” Reveling in a reason for their fingers to brush together regardless of how brief.

“You don’t want it?”

“No, I’m okay. My stomach is still a little queasy from our earlier flight.”

His smile in response was as warm as the day. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, well, thanks for always looking out for me.” She was nervous to turn the conversation into something sentimental, but, at the same time, she wanted to push for something more, hoping for sweet rather than sour.

Trey released a hmm with a cryptic, amused expression before saying, “I have to.”

It wasn’t the response she expected, and her emotions flipped back to irked.

“Wow, okay. Well, I don’t want you to feel obligated or anything.

” She shoved her arms through the dirty cover-up dress.

It didn’t help her mood to not have cleaner clothes to wear and having to put it on again. Catalina moved to get up.

He grabbed her arm, keeping her seated beside him. “Where are you going?”

“Where do you think? We’ve wasted enough time sitting here, and the sun is going down soon. What are we going to do when it’s time to sleep and—”

“Fifteen, Cat.” The hand on her arm slid up, and his look pinned her to the spot, and she was unable to move.

“I’m going to do whatever I can to be with you, and that means keeping you safe.

Because if something happens to you, I’ll probably lose it.

And that’s why I don’t have any choice. I have to look out for you for my own well-being.

” His hand trekked upward until it came to the final resting spot on her neck.

“Oh.” Catalina swallowed hard, slowly coming to an understanding. “That’s reason number fifteen, the one you were saving, on why I should love you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why couldn’t you tell me before?” she asked.

He stared off into the ocean and gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. “And let the universe know my biggest kryptonite. Feels a little risky.”

“How do you know if the universe is listening? Or maybe it already knows.”

He leaned in close, softly touching the shell of her ear with his lips.

“It’s just you and me here now. None of that outside world stuff can touch us.

It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along.

So if we come across Buddy or a tiny divorce lawyer, I’m warning you right now that I’m going to have to fight them.

I’d fight them. I’d fight giant seagulls. I’d fight anything for you.”

She clutched the torn, dirty sleeve of his shirt. “You didn’t actually fight a seagull. We just ran away from it.”

He pulled back from her in order to stare into her eyes.

His deep blue gaze, like the ocean, sparkled.

“Shut up. You just wait for the next one. I’m going to do a Hadouken at the bird, right in its toenail.

Maybe it just takes a while for that Ant-Man strength to kick in, and then they’ll all be sorry for taking that empanada away from you. ”

She would have laughed at this, the giddiness wanting to rise and spill out of every cell in her body, but then he kissed her.

This was a much better outcome. Trey might not have always known when she needed kissing, but he did know how to kiss her.

It was deceptively sweet and soft, enough to make her want to weep in its perfect simplicity.

This was just where it started, but where it ended made her want to melt down to the same consistency as a jellyfish.

He nibbled on her lower lip, groaning like he was completely satisfied with only a taste before swiping his tongue inside her mouth and acting as though he was about to devour her, his grip on her tightening.

Catalina did her best to give as good as she got because, by then, she wanted to be ravaged, even if it was on a public beach with danger surrounding them.

She was past the point of caring, and no one could see them anyway. The possibility may have excited her.

But, as with the previous kiss, he stopped short of devouring her, ending with his forehead pressed to hers, breathing deeply. “Ready to get moving again?”

“Seriously?” was all she could say because Damn you wasn’t an option when all he was doing was sucking her back in with his kissing and his sweetness and his ridiculous reasons why she should be with him. What an enormous tease, one that left her nerves twisted in frustrated knots.

“We should cover as much ground as possible before the sun goes down completely,” he added, getting up and reaching a hand toward her. She let him help her up, holding the bag to her chest with one hand.

“It’s funny how the sunset looks the same no matter how small you are.” He took her free hand, holding it as if they were on a romantic date night on the beach instead of in the absolute day from hell. She let him, sliding her own fingers in between his.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Catalina replied, appreciating the pink-gold hue of the sky melting into the indigo ocean waves below.

It reminded her that despite her current situation there was still things that gave her the feeling of peace, like the feel of her husband’s hand in hers and beautiful landscapes.

They continued making their way toward the resort.

It was an endless path of hills and valleys, making her already sore calves even more painful.

Despite this, that single moment with Trey, to breathe and eat and talk, gave her a boost. Maybe they could succeed—they could do this because they had each other, and she didn’t have to do it alone.

Maybe they could survive more than this, like the giant rift in their relationship.

And, yes, what he accused her of was horrible and uncalled for.

How did the big goof not expect her to get angry?

But even before the accusation, she had gotten good at not talking to him, shutting herself off because she didn’t have enough to give.

What was she supposed to do? Tell her job she needed help, that she couldn’t do everything?

That she couldn’t do her job, and the tasks of the two people who left the department earlier in the year, and also be a hundred percent at home?

Tell him she was at a real crossroads with her work and couldn’t help but feel guilty?

Because if she also gave up on the organization, she was abandoning the people who needed her work the most, the ones who benefited from the program.

People who were in the same spot her mother and her had found themselves in after being abandoned by her father.

All of these weren’t easy things to talk about, even to a spouse.

Things were already tight enough financially, both for the non-profit and at home.

While she loved the mission of her work and was happy to be giving back to people whose situation she understood, there were a lot of people who needed help.

The number grew every day, and, most of the time, it was like trying to bail a sinking boat with nothing but a thimble.

There was no end. She had to keep going—to find new marketing and financial opportunities for the organization.

If Catalina didn’t, people, especially kids, would go hungry.

In the grand scheme of that, the problems between her and Trey paled in significance.

It was easier to not talk about it, to go at it alone, rather than vomit spew all her greatest fears about failing everyone.

Even so, Catalina didn’t like who she had become.

She thought the worst of herself. She assumed Trey had begun to think the worst of her too.

Every sigh, every one of his disappointed frowns, confirmed this in her mind.

Then it was easier to turn to anger. Because how dare he treat her in such a way when she was doing all she could to hold it all together?

How was it both easier and harder to take everything and stuff it into an emotional bag to lug around alone, one that was heavier than her literal purse?

But in her current situation, she no longer had the job or her stress causing problems. There wasn’t a lot she could do about her work at the moment.

This new world consisted of only her and Trey, which simplified a lot of her emotions, especially those concerning him.

She realized it wasn’t fair to treat him as though he was expendable.

As though she’d be better off without him, rather than depending on him to be there if she needed someone to lean against.

If today proved anything, it was that he would fight not only everything else but also her in order to be by her side.

She was embarrassed the pressure had caused her to give up instead of meeting the same level of effort as him.

Catalina had been looking for a way out from the constant, seemingly unattainable need to do it all, and as soon as he gave her a legit excuse, she latched onto it.

It was the ideal scenario she could point to and say, See!

He is a horrible human being who doesn’t love me!

I don’t need to feel guilty for cutting myself off because he unfairly accused me of having an affair.

Despite using this as a reason to pour liquid steel down her spine and lock her determined jaw into place, the relationship breaking apart around her hurt.

It crushed her—made her want to crumple to the floor in an agony of emotional pain because she didn’t want Trey to stop loving her.

No matter the reasoning, she lost a piece of her heart, and being self-reliant would never make up for that.

Her consistently unhappy mother was further proof on the matter.

Honestly, she didn’t need all his weird reasons to love him.

She already had her own list building in her mind.

Ever since that first moment they’d met, when they found themselves sitting next to each other in a chilly lecture hall in college, it was as if he’d seen her on a deserted island of her own making.

He built a bridge from his island to hers because that was what Trey did.

And then he never stopped building that bridge.

At first the connection between them was a small tether, then a rope, then planks.

He kept building even when she broke out an axe and tried to do as much damage to the bridge as she possibly could.

Today, he was still building, even in the face of impossible situations.

Catalina wanted to throw her axe down and start building the bridge back to him. She wanted to believe she could do anything, even that, which somehow seemed scarier and harder than facing a horde of angry seagulls while inside a partial empanada.

She opened her mouth to tell him some of what was on her heart, but all she got was, “Trey—”

“What the fuck is that?” he said, stopping short.

By this time the sun had nearly slipped beyond the horizon of the ocean, and dusk was settling in. Things became harder to see. She squinted in the direction of his finger, trying to decipher the strange movement in the distance. “What is that?”

Above the surface of the sand was the scampering of movement, tons of them all over. The separate individual movements were similar to each other but not coordinated.

“What the fuck?” Trey said again, his grasp on her hand becoming tighter. “Are those spiders?” His free hand scrambled for his pocket. “Where’s my phone? I need my phone.”

“What for?”

“I need a flashlight. Spiders are scared of the light, right?”

She wasn’t sure this was the case. She’d never heard of spiders being scared of light before. They weren’t cockroaches. But she wasn’t about to argue with him if this was what he needed to feel safe.

“Do you have a flashlight in your bag?” He grabbed at the purse clutched to her chest, and it dropped to the ground. “Shit!”

“I don’t have a flashlight in there.” She fell to her knees to claim her bag before he spilled everything out in his panic.

“It’s okay. Maybe it’s not spiders, maybe it’s just…

” She attempted to come up with something pleasant and not at all scary, but when a person is tiny, almost everything is terrifying, even things that used to be okay.

Before she could think of something, a skittering of movement happened just behind them, the sound of it growing closer.

She sucked in a breath, her heart racing. “Oh shit,” she whispered before slowly raising her head to peer over Trey’s bent body.