Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
Rhett
Fifteen Years Ago
“ R hett?” my father said from the other side of my bedroom door.
I ignored his knock and pulled the blanket up to my neck.
I wanted it all to stop.
The noise.
The memories.
The sound of Penelope hitting the engines and the scream that had escaped her lips.
Fuck!
“Rhett!” he yelled again. “Can I come in?”
I put my hands over my ears, my body swaying over the bed, like I was still in the boat and the waves were causing me to rock.
Seconds later, from the corner of my eye, I saw the door open, my dad moving through my room and taking a seat beside me.
He put his hand on mine, pulling to free my ear. “Are you all right, son?”
“No.” The pain was so severe in my chest; a sob came out of my lips. “I’m not fucking okay.”
He rubbed my hand. “Your sister’s been asleep outside your door for over an hour.” He nodded toward the hallway. “Right out there, on the carpet. She’s afraid to bother you, but she wants to be close to you. And your brother’s been pacing the upstairs, waiting for you to open your door. We’re all very worried about you.”
“I don’t want to see anyone. I just want to be left alone.”
“I know, son.” He paused. “It was a horrible tragedy.”
“A tragedy? It was worse than that! Penelope is fucking dead!”
I put my hands over my face, the tears making my palms so wet.
“It’s going to be okay, Rhett. I promise.”
I was tired of hearing that.
From my father.
From my mother.
From the friends I’d talked to.
That was all anyone said.
But they were wrong. How could any of this ever be okay?
How could things ever go back to normal?
My hands dropped and balled into fists. “You told me one rule when it came to boating. One rule I always had to follow, and that was to make sure the engines were off before anyone got in the water. I didn’t follow the rule. I didn’t say it to Penelope, and look what happened!”
“You didn’t know she was going to jump in, Rhett.”
“I should have turned off the engines!”
“But you were idling,” Dad said, “and about to take off at any second. There was no reason to turn them off.”
Air wasn’t moving through my lungs. I was a mess of words, and wet lips, and a runny nose, and an ache so bad that every part of my face was throbbing.
“She’s not coming back, Dad!” I pounded my fists against the bed. “And now, Lainey never wants to see me again, and her father wants to kill me and …”
There was nothing left to say.
It was all over …
Penelope’s life.
My relationship with Lainey.
The plans we’d made, the dreams we’d had.
“It hurts, Dad.” I hit my chest with the back of my hand. “It hurts so fucking bad, and I don’t know how to make it stop.”
Rowan appeared in the doorway, holding the side of it while rubbing her eye. “I heard you and woke up.” She made her way through my room and crawled onto my bed, grabbing a pillow on her way to my side, her head resting on my shoulder. “Don’t cry, Rhett.” Her arm looped through mine. “You’re my favorite person in this whole world. You and Ridge both are. You would never do anything bad or hurt anyone. This wasn’t your fault. Lainey knows that. I swear she does.”
But Lainey didn’t know that.
She’d said she put me in charge of her sister and look what had happened.
“Your sister’s right, Rhett.”
“Regardless, she won’t take my calls. I tried again a few minutes ago,” I admitted. “She’s not going to USC. She’s done with me.”
Dad rubbed my hair. “That doesn’t mean she’s done forever. She just needs a time-out, and that’s okay. Lots of people take breaks and get back together.”
“This is different,” I barked.
“She won’t answer my calls either,” Ridge said.
I glanced at the doorway, where he was now standing. “You called her?”
He nodded. “I know how much you’re hurting. I just wanted to do something to make it better.” His arms straightened, his fists hitting the air. “I just wanted to tell her how much you love her.”
“Ridge …” I whispered.
“It’s true,” he said. “I didn’t know how else to help.”
As my brother joined us on the bed, my father said, “Listen to me, Rhett. If you need to take a few days and bury yourself in this room, fine. But you’re going to enjoy the summer with your friends, like you planned to do before this all happened, and you’re going to go off to USC. Who knows? Maybe Lainey will show up a little later in the year or your sophomore year.”
What the hell is he talking about?
Did he really think I could go to the beach with the rest of the guys and ride the waves, like a catastrophe hadn’t happened in that ocean? And find myself at parties, laughing, drinking, smoking, having fun, when all I could think about were the sounds from that day on the boat?
And the blood.
Oh fuck , all that blood …
I held the top of my headboard and banged my skull against it. “Lainey’s not coming back.”
“You don’t know that, Rhett?—”
“Yes, I do, Dad. You should have seen the way she looked at me when she left me with Mr. Taylor and walked out of her room. I could feel her glare all the way in my stomach. She’s … done.”
Rowan squeezed my arm.
“She’s upset, son. That’s understandable.”
“But it wasn’t my fault.” My voice was so soft.
“No, it wasn’t,” Dad said. “Right now, they’re too upset to see that.”
“Well, they should see it,” Ridge said. “Rhett’s the guy everyone loves. How could they treat him like this?”
“The loss that family just experienced is unimaginable,” Dad explained. “If anything happened to any of you”—he cut himself off and shook his head—“I don’t know how I’d ever be able to move on. But you know what? Somehow, someway, I would—because I have other children I need to live for, just like Mr. Taylor does.”
His hand moved to my cheek. “I need you to stay strong, son. I need you to keep going. That’s all you can do.” He tapped my chin with his fist. “You’re a Cole. We don’t give up, we fight. That’s just what you’re going to do.”