Chapter 2 #2
I wait, but she doesn’t explain further. Just lets that truth hang between us like laundry on the line—soft and worn and still heavy.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur.
She nods, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Thanks.”
I should stand. I should end this. I should tell her to go home. This is the part where I should remind her I’m not anyone’s fixer or friend. Tell her I’m not someone you lean on, but my lips don’t move.
Neither do hers. She just stays. And I let her.
When she finally gets up to leave, she murmurs, “I’m going to call it a night. Goodnight, Gruene. Thanks for letting me sit.” I don’t respond. I just nod.
Sighing, she leaves the shed. I catch myself watching her walk the gravel path back to her cabin until her silhouette disappears behind the trees.
I don’t realize I’m still holding the damn thermos, her damn thermos, until she disappears.
Well, shit.
I’m halfway down the dock, adjusting the anchor line on the last boat when I hear the shout.
“Hey, Gruene! Do you see the new girl?” Reece calls out, as he adjusts raft straps at the end of the dock, helping people into the river.
“What?” I growl.
“Your neighbor… pretty lady in cabin 2.” He nods back toward our cabins. “She just waded into the river with nothing but her suit on.”
She what? She’s in the river with nothing?
My blood goes cold, and I snap, “When?”
Reece shrugs. “Like sixty seconds ago. I just saw her. No float. No tube. No paddle. She’s just… drifting. You didn’t warn her about the river?”
Dropping the rope, I bolt.
The river’s not angry today. It’s low. Calm.
But that’s not the point. People don’t just walk in.
Not without a plan. Not without a life vest or a fucking tube.
You have no idea what’s under the water.
And the flow, the current, shifts. No one goes into the river without someone knowing. That’s just stupid.
Is she fucking trying to get herself killed?
I race down the path toward the cabins. They’re right before the bend in the river where the water curves near the bluff. That’s where currents shift. Where debris gathers. Where you don’t go alone. And then, I see her.
Blakelyn.
She’s waist-deep, stepping farther in like the water’s calling her. Like she’s trying to feel something. She’s teetering as the water rushes past her. I can see on her face that she didn’t expect it.
Something dangerous twists in my gut.
“ Blakelyn! ” I roar.
She freezes and almost falls over. Somehow, she manages to catch herself, but she’s fighting the river to stay upright.
I stalk toward the shore, fists clenched. “What the hell are you doing? Get the fuck out of the water!”
She jumps at my tone, clearly startled but she starts back toward shore. “I—what?”
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” I rage, storming into the water and grabbing her arm. It takes both of us to get back to the shore. As soon as we reach the bank, I drop her arm like it burned me.
She flinches as I glare at her. I’m soaked, my jeans are plastered to my legs, and my breathing is escalated. I snarl again, “Are you stupid?”
She jumps like I hit her and backs up like she thinks I’ll actually hit her. Her eyes are wide and terrified. Instead of reigning it in, it enrages me further.
Does she think I would hit her? That I would hit any woman?
I’m so close to the edge of snapping, but I finally realize how scared of me she is.
Stepping back, I exhale through gritted teeth.
“Do you know how many people drown in this river every year because they think it looks calm? You go in alone, without a float, without telling anyone, and you think that’s fine? You don’t go into the river alone! ”
She jumps again, but her back straightens. Her eyes meet mine. “I wasn’t trying to— I didn’t know the current was so strong. I can swim.”
My eyes widen and I coldly say, “So could my wife!” Her face pales, but I don’t let her speak. “You didn’t know! That’s no excuse. This is a damn river. A force of nature and you weren’t thinking ! Jesus Christ, I?—”
My voice wavers. I turn away, jaw tight, chest heaving.
She doesn’t speak.
When I finally look back, her eyes are wide and glassy, and her bottom lip is trembling. She’s deathly pale and shaking.
Shit.
I take a step forward. “Shit! Blakelyn… I didn’t mean?—”
“No, it’s fine,” she says, her voice thin and tight. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know this river. I shouldn’t have gotten in. It was stupid.”
Shit! Damnit to fucking hell.
“Blakelyn—”
“It’s fine.” Her voice is toneless, flat. She stands there for a second, water dripping from her, her bikini top clinging to her like a second skin, but she doesn’t wrap herself up or try to hide. Instead, she turns on her heel and walks right past me, back to her cabin, soaked and silent.
I hear her door close solidly behind her and I stand there, heart hammering, fists shaking, and unable to move. I wasn’t yelling at her . At Blakelyn. I was yelling at the ghost of my wife.
At the scream I never got to make.
At the image of a different woman slipping beneath the river’s water and not coming back.
The moon is full and reflecting on the water as I sit on the dock.
Alone.
The river hums beside me, low and patient.
I don’t hear her approach, but I feel her.
She sits beside me without asking. She doesn’t look at me, though I have a feeling she’s watching me the same way I’m watching her. Through the corner of her eye.
“I’m not trying to die,” she says softly.
I stare straight ahead, holding my breath.
“I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know this water. I knew better, but I didn’t even think about it—” she adds. “I was trying to escape… for a minute. I just… wanted to feel weightless. For a moment. Wanted to float without carrying anything. I just wanted to be .”
I don’t respond because I understand that feeling too well.
After a long silence, she finally murmurs, “You lost someone in the river. Your wife?”
You don’t pull any punches, do you Blakelyn?
I suck in a sharp breath before exhaling raggedly. “Yup.”
She gasps.
I blurt out, “My wife. And my daughter,” before she can say anything.
Why am I telling her this?
Her breath hitches and her eyes widen as she turns to stare at my profile.
I don’t face her. I don’t expand, but her hand lightly brushes across the top of mine on the dock and I don’t pull away. I don’t turn my hand and accept her comfort either. I just… sit.
She sits with me in silence, because sometimes the only thing more dangerous than the river… is surviving it.
Standing quickly, I mutter, “Night, Blakelyn,” and head to my cabin, leaving her at the edge of the dock.