Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
Rhett
Fifteen Years Ago
L ike a flip of a switch, everything had suddenly gone dark.
My entire life had changed.
And just when I’d thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.
Because four days had passed since I’d talked to Lainey. My calls to her cell went unanswered. When I tried her parents’ house, my call would either go to their answering machine or the phone would be picked up and then slammed down.
Lainey’s parents were making it clear they didn’t want to hear from me.
Which had started when Mr. Taylor thrust his head into the room at the police station where I was being interviewed.
He had pointed his finger at me from the doorway and said, “I never want you to see or talk to Lainey ever again—do you hear me?” before a police officer pulled him away.
According to the law, I was innocent. I’d passed the breathalyzer test. The preliminary blood test showed small traces of THC in my system from when I’d smoked the day before—a level not high enough to prove I’d smoked around the time of the incident. The witnesses—the ones who had called the Coast Guard—had confirmed that Penelope had jumped on her own, that I was in the captain’s seat when it happened, therefore I hadn’t physically forced her into the water.
Still, Mr. Taylor believed I deserved the death penalty. He’d said as much when he shouted, “Give him the electric chair,” in the hallway after the police pulled him away from my interview room.
Whatever I’d said to Penelope that made her jump off my boat was on me. I would have to live with that for the rest of my life.
Just like I’d have to live with the memory of this morning when, while hiding in the back of the cemetery, far from her parents’ line of sight but with a clear view of Lainey, I’d watched my girl pull free from her parents’ grip. I’d watched her crawl to Penelope’s casket. And I’d watched her beg for Penelope to come back. I’d never seen anything more gut-wrenching or heartbreaking.
An image that would forever live in my fucking head.
While she had pressed her face to the casket, holding it as though she were trying to hug it, I’d just wanted to put my arms around her. I’d wanted to whisper in her ear that everything—somehow, someway—would be all right. I didn’t know if that was true, if she’d ever be able to move on after a loss like this, but they were words Lainey needed to hear.
And I was determined to say them to her.
Which was why, hours after the funeral, I was at her front door, ringing the bell.
I clenched my fingers, listening to the sound of stomping feet on the hardwood floor, each step getting louder. I held my breath as Mr. Taylor’s face appeared in the doorway. He still had on the black suit he’d worn to the funeral, the same way I still had on mine.
“I told you to stay away! Get off my front step and get the hell out of here!” Every time he emphasized a word, a piece of spit came flying toward me.
I didn’t care how angry he got; I wouldn’t back down, nor would I let him push me away.
“I need to talk to Lainey, sir.”
He held the top of the door, looking at me with complete disgust. “I don’t care what you need! Leave! Now!”
“You don’t understand. I need to talk to her. Please. A couple of minutes—that’s all I’m asking for.”
“ I don’t understand?” He took a step toward me. “I understand that I put my daughter in your care, and according to the witnesses, there was yelling and screaming on your boat before she stormed off and jumped into the water. Your engines should have been off if you were idling and there was concern that she might jump?—”
“I didn’t know she was going to jump.”
I couldn’t even count how many times I’d said that over the last four days.
When the Coast Guard had arrived at the boat.
At the police station.
To my parents.
To my siblings.
“It doesn’t matter what you knew or what you didn’t. You do not take a risk like that when there are other people on your boat!”
I slipped my hands into my pockets to stop them from fisting. “But we weren’t anchored, sir. I was just pulled over in the water so we could talk?—”
“Argue.”
“Regardless, the circumstances aren’t what you’re describing. If I was going to anchor, the engines would have been off. That wasn’t the case. I was only stopping for a second?—”
“I don’t give a fuck what your circumstances were, young man. What you did on that boat killed my daughter!” He put his hand in front of his mouth, like he was trying to either hold himself together or prevent himself from exploding.
I took a deep breath.
And then another.
“She was my responsibility. I fully accept that. But there’s nothing I could have done to stop her from jumping?—”
“As the captain, she was under your care, and whatever you said to her led to her jumping.” He took another step, the door staying open as he released it, his finger aimed and pointed at me. “You failed her, son. You failed her, you failed my wife, you failed me, and you failed Lainey.” His face was turning red, the veins in his forehead sticking out.
He was right. Since I had been the captain, Penelope had been under my care—a role I took seriously. A promise I’d made to him when I spoke to him on Lainey’s phone before I even got on the boat.
I’d failed him. He was right about that too.
“I’m sorry.” Words that weren’t strong enough. Words that had little impact as he stared at me. “I don’t know how to express how sorry?—”
“That’s not fucking good enough.”
“What can I do?—”
“You could have not argued with my daughter—that’s what you could have done. You’re the reason, Rhett. You’re the goddamn reason!”
He was putting this all on me.
He was making me out to feel like a murderer.
I shook my head. “That’s not it. It’s not what you think.”
“The report I read from the police said there was an argument between you and my daughter about getting to the beach house. Why didn’t you just put the boat in gear and drive the rest of the way there? Why did you stop in the first place?”
I had been careful about what I told the police.
Not for myself, but for Penelope.
“I wanted to get going, but she was?—”
“She was what?” He waited. “Are you going to blame something on an eighteen-year-old girl who’s no longer here? Who should be heading off to NYU in a few months, but isn’t? Who I just watched get lowered into the fucking ground?”
Jesus.
I couldn’t … I couldn’t stop the shaking.
In my knees. In my hands. In my entire body.
His finger got close to my chest, but it didn’t touch me. “When the witnesses got on your boat to help you with the CPR and wrap her wounds, they saw you throw Penelope’s bag overboard. Who the hell does something like that? Someone who’s pissed off—that’s who.”
I knew how that’d looked. I knew how it could be interpreted.
But I’d had a reason.
And that reason was hanging on the edge of my tongue.
But as our stares stayed locked, my throat closed.
My lips shut.
My eyes burned with emotion.
My chest felt like it was going to cave inward.
“I was upset,” I said to him.
“ You were upset?”
“And, yes, I was angry, but?—”
“ You were angry?”
My hands were sweating so badly in my pockets. I took them out, and they fell at my sides. “I’d just pulled Penelope out of the water and performed CPR?—”
“I don’t need a goddamn play-by-play. I already know how you killed my daughter!”
He stepped toward me, and I backed up a few paces, the accusation vibrating through me.
“Do you know what you’ve done to this family since you came into Lainey’s life? You brainwashed her into becoming obsessed with you. She couldn’t ever feel settled in New York and begged me every day for two years to move back to LA. And once we got here, USC was all I heard about. My daughter should have picked Stanford, but, no, you convinced her otherwise. Not anymore, Rhett. You’re out of her life, out of our lives, and none of us will, thankfully, ever see you again. And if you try, I’ll fucking kill you!”
What?
I’m … out of her life?
But how?
And if I try … he’ll kill me?
Lainey was leaving for college in a few months.
Where we were going to be together.
“Lainey isn’t going to USC?” I asked.
“No.”
No?
“She isn’t going anywhere near you!”
That couldn’t be true.
It … wasn’t possible.
I needed to talk to her. I needed to see if she was okay. I needed to know why she wasn’t speaking to me. I needed to hear if what her dad was saying was true.
Mr. Taylor wasn’t going to allow me to see Lainey.
So, I was left with no other choice.
While he aimed his finger right at my heart as though it were the end of a gun, shouting, “Now, get the fuck off my property,” I used my skills as the fastest wide receiver in my high school’s division and quickly swerved around him, running for the stairs.
“Get back here right now!” he yelled from behind me. “I’m going to call the police!”
I took two stairs at a time, and at the landing, I rushed down the hallway until I reached her room, opening the door without knocking. I scanned the inside until I found her. I didn’t expect for her to be on the floor, tucked in the corner between the window and her dresser, the shades drawn and the light off.
She didn’t look up at me.
She made no reaction as I stood there, her pale face a combination of appearing like she wanted to throw up and on the verge of crying and so empty that there was nothing left inside her.
“Lainey …”
My heart had shattered at the funeral.
But here, right now, was a sight I could barely handle.
I locked the door behind me, knowing it would only be a few seconds until Mr. Taylor would try to tear me out of this room.
“Lainey …”
Still no response.
I crossed the carpet and knelt in front of her. She was in the black dress she’d worn to the funeral. The mud was still caked to her knees. It was on her fingers. And there was a smear of it across her cheek.
“Lainey—”
“Stop.” Her voice was just above a whisper as she finally glanced up, pushing my hands away as I set them on the sides of her knees. “Don’t touch me.”
“But I want to hold you?—”
“No.” Her head shook so violently that hair moved into her face.
No?
Oh my God, this was worse than I could have even imagined.
“Lainey, I love you.”
Her head continued to shake. “No.”
“I’ve been calling you. Your cell, the house. I just want to talk to you about what happened.”
She pulled her bent knees against her chest. “No.”
Mr. Taylor’s fist pounded on the door. “Get out of my house right fucking now!”
“Lainey, I just want you to hear me out. Please.”
The look in her eyes scared me. It sent a shiver through my whole body. What I’d thought was emptiness was not that at all. Emotions were in there; they just weren’t directed at me. And at me, she was cold, turned off.
Finished.
“Rhett, I trusted you.”
“You can trust me, baby.” I put a hand beside each of her bare feet. “I didn’t want this to happen. I didn’t know she was going to jump off the boat. We were going back and forth in conversation, and she told me she was out of there. I had no idea that meant out of the boat and then …” I couldn’t say what happened next. That would be too much for her ears.
She folded like a smashed Oreo. “You had one job. To take care of her like I would have if I’d been there. And look what you let happen—” Her hand slapped over her mouth right after a sob escaped her lips.
“I did, Lainey. I took perfect care of her?—”
“You can’t say that.” A single tear rolled down her face. “Because she’s not here with me right now. She’s not in her room. She’s”—another cry came out of her, but this time, she didn’t try and cover it with her palm—“dead.”
“Get out of my daughter’s room right now before I rip off this goddamn door!” Mr. Taylor shouted.
My eyes squeezed shut until her father stopped screaming, and I looked at Lainey. “There’s so much I need to tell you about the boat. Your sister?—”
“I don’t care what you have to tell me. I’ll never be able to look at you the same ever again. I’ll never be able to forgive you.” Her hands covered her face. “Get out, Rhett.”
“Lainey—”
“It doesn’t matter what you say.” Her hands dropped. “It’ll never bring her back.”
“No, but it will show you that none of this was my fault.”
As she held the tops of her knees, the pieces of mud that were there turned to dust and hit the air. “Were you driving the boat?”
I exhaled, the defeat eating at me. “Yes.”
“Did you stop her from jumping?”
The inside of my body was moving so fast, yet the outside felt as though it were frozen. “I couldn’t have, I didn’t know she was going to do it. I wasn’t even looking at her.”
“Exactly! You weren’t watching her, and that’s all I wanted from you—for you to be me if I wasn’t there.”
It didn’t matter that Penelope had been on coke.
Or that she had been out of control.
Or that she had been all over me.
All Lainey and her father cared about was that I’d failed them.
The realization of what I was facing was too much.
The truth was too much.
The thoughts in my head were too much.
“We can get past this,” I urged, desperate to make her remember that she’d loved me before this. “You can find a way to forgive me, and we can go to USC and be together, and?—”
“I’m not going to USC.”
There was wetness in my eyes, and I pushed it away, my hand staying because another round of tears was on its way. “What do you mean, Lainey? What about us?”
“Rhett, there is no us.” Her head slowly moved to the right and then the left, her throat bouncing when she swallowed. “Us ended when”—she glanced up at the ceiling, and the drips fell from her chin—“my sister died.”
“Lainey, no?—”
She pointed at the door. “Go!”
I sucked in a breath, feeling the blood drain from my body. “Lainey, I love you. I’ll do anything to make this right. But please, don’t do this. Don’t push me away. Don’t end what we have. You’re my why?—”
“After you leave this room, you will never see me again.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but there wasn’t any softness in her expression. No love as she stared back at me. “Now, go!”
“Lainey, can we talk about this? Will you please just hear my side of things?—”
She got up, stepping around me, and kicked my hand away when I tried to touch her ankle. She unlocked the door, and as her father rushed in, heading right for me, Lainey gave me one last look.
I knew then.
I felt it.
I saw it.
She was gone from my life forever.