38. Taylor
Chapter 38
Taylor
D rip, drip, drip.
The pitch of the water filling the basement around my feet shifts as it gets slowly deeper. It’s all I hear now that I shut the noisy pump off, no longer bothering to try to keep it dry in here.
I run my finger up the jagged crack in the cement foundation. I swear it’s gotten longer since I’ve been down here. Has it been hours or days? With no daylight, and no one daring to come down those stairs, it’s easy to lose track of time.
The meditative drip does nothing to calm the thoughts raging through my mind.
It’s over.
I’ve failed.
I should have protected my family home. The house my great grandparents built by hand will now be demolished and probably replaced by high rise apartments.
Built by hand.
There’s another kind of failure.
It’s touted as such an achievement, but I bet we wouldn’t be in this mess today if my penny-pinching ancestors had just hired a damn professional to do the job.
I jump as the door at the top of the stairs bangs open but manage to settle back into my statue-still glowering by the time I hear footsteps hurrying down the stairs.
“Taylor?”
I knew it would be him.
He’s too late, but I knew he’d still come.
“I’m so sorry. Oh my god. Your mom told me?—”
“Don’t, okay? Save it.”
He stops on the bottom step and takes in the scene down here. It’s not somewhere I’ve brought him before, or anyone, not wanting to have my determination derailed by the gaping mouths of onlookers telling me it was a lost cause.
It wasn’t.
It is now, but it wasn’t all along.
It was my cause.
I could have saved it.
But I failed.
“How long have you been sitting down here?”
I shrug, not looking away from the still weeping crack in the wall that decided my fate.
“It’s filling up with water.” Ainsley states the obvious.
“I’m hoping it starts filling faster so I’ll drown.”
I hear his feet splash into the water as he starts to wade toward me. It’s at least ankle deep by now.
“Shut up, man. You’re not going to drown yourself down here.”
“Like you care.” I have to take a few stabs at the guy, and I know he’s prepared for them.
“You know I care.”
“So where the fuck were you? ”
“My dad stopped by unexpectedly, we got to talking, and I lost track of time.”
I say nothing, not turning to look at him.
I don’t care.
I hear a rustle and then his hand connects with the back of my shoulder, holding a stack of papers. I don’t know how he managed to get these from the auditor’s office after they closed, but it doesn’t matter now.
I reach back and pull the stack aggressively from his hand, watching his face expand with surprise. I throw the papers across the basement without even looking at them and then turn back toward the wall.
“Hey!” he shouts, wading over to where the stack is now sinking in the water. “I sold my soul to get those fucking papers.”
I huff out a dark laugh. “You’ve known me long enough to know that selling your soul gets you nothing.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
I stand up too fast and nearly fall into the water, spinning toward him with rage finally bubbling to the surface. He rushes forward to try steadying me, but I shove him hard, nearly sending us both into the water with my effort.
“Fuck, man. I’m sorry. I said I was sorry,” he huffs, righting himself and taking a step back.
“It’s not good enough. Sorry means nothing. You said you’d be here. This was my one shot. And it’s over. You didn’t show up.”
“I know. I fucked up. I just…I lost track of time.”
“So you said.”
“I know it’s not an excuse. I should have been here. I’m wrecked over this, man. I’m so fucking sorry.”
I flop back onto my seat on the low, concrete bench by the wall, tracing my finger up the crack once more. As if it will calm me. As if the crack wasn’t the one thing standing in the way of me and my dreams.
“I’ll buy you a new house,” he says.
“Fuck you.”
“I know. I know that’s your answer, and that’s how you feel. I just don’t get why?—”
I’m on my feet again, this time steadier. Ainsley wisely takes another step back. “Protecting my family home was my responsibility. This,” I wave my hand wildly around me in the dark basement, “is my shot at having something in life. People like me don’t get to buy houses on islands and have beach views and driveways and garages. People like me are damn lucky to have something to inherit that they can afford to pay taxes on as they bust their asses sixty hours a week at jobs deemed not valuable enough by society for a living wage.”
He’s silent, watching me, his face in shadows.
“They’re going to condemn this place. Probably tomorrow. And then I have nothing.”
“That’s all bullshit, and you know it.”
It surprises me enough that it takes me a second to respond. When I do, my words drip with contempt. “You would say that. You have fucking everything!” I scream the last word in his face as he stands his ground.
“And all I want to do is give it to you.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“Why not?”
I don’t have an answer, so I turn away, glaring at the crack once more.
Ainsley, however, isn’t done.
“I’ve been listening to this sob story from you since day one, Taylor. About how you gave up everything to pour your money into this place. About how your parents, who seem pretty damn able to me, do nothing to help. Your fucking brothers, who could easily be holding down jobs and helping do fuck all. It’s just you, making the ultimate sacrifice of your time and your energy and your dreams. And what was the end goal here, Taylor? Really? You talk about inheriting the place, so your plan was to continue working your ass off and sleeping in the attic of your girlfriend’s house until your parents died? Or maybe just until you need to move in here to take care of them? And then what? You work full-time and care for your parents? And your fucking brother? Where was he going in this future homeowner utopia you’re living in? He just magically gets his shit together and moves out and you get to live here in your crumbling beach house, hours away from your job, all by yourself? That was your fucking plan?”
“Fuck off.”
“No, man. I’m not fucking off. You’re stuck with me. And if you want to pretend that shit was all going to magically?—”
I turn too fast for him to react, my shove connecting with both shoulders and sending him back onto his ass with a splash.
“Jesus fuck?—”
“You were supposed to be here!” I roar with my last morsel of energy.
“I know. I fucked up. Tell me what I can do.”
I sink back to my seat, resting my head in my hands. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Ainsley shifts toward me, still on his knees in the water, which grows deeper by the minute. “It matters to me.”
“If it mattered, you would have been here.”
“That’s not true. Nothing matters more to me than this. Than you and Gem. I fucked up and shit went sideways, but that’s going to happen. And it’s never going to be the end. There is no end. That’s how much you matter. ”
I shake my head, too tired to keep fighting. “It was all for nothing, anyway.”
“Taylor—” he starts, but I cut him off.
“The papers. He never even asked for the surveys. He was always going to fail us. I mean, look at this fucking thing.”
After hours of staring at the crack, now I can’t even bring myself to turn my head in its direction.
“It’s unfixable. That’s what they’ve been trying to tell us from day one. I was just too pigheaded to listen. I needed to try everything. No one else bothered because they could see the truth.”
His hands are on my knees, sliding up my thighs, tightening his grip. He slips his kneeling body between my knees until there’s barely an inch between my hanging head and his upturned face. I close my eyes and let him kiss me. At first, I allow it because fighting him off seems like too much trouble, but as the moment and his mouth press on, I start to feel some of my energy returning. Some of the energy I lost along the way. Some of the sanity I left at the top of those stairs.
When I let go and kiss him back, a low, contented sound escapes the back of his throat, tickling my lips as it passes through his mouth and mine. I press my tongue into him, and he raises up higher on his knees to press back.
With Ainsley's hands on my face and his tongue in my mouth, the taste of him a reminder that not all is lost, even as my stupid mind tries to convince me it is, I feel a bit of the weight loosen from my chest and lift off. Not all of it, but enough.
“I’m sorry. I wish there was something we could’ve done,” he whispers, forehead pressed against mine.
“My dad says it’s time for us to move on.”
He must hear the hesitation in my voice because he asks, “But? ”
I shrug. “But he’s been saying that for years.”
“You’re not ready?”
“I don’t have a choice anymore.”
“Is that what you’ve been waiting for? A reason to walk away that doesn’t make it look like you gave up?”
I want to punch the guy, but of course he’s right. “Maybe.”
Ainsley says nothing, and I’m grateful for the moment of silence.
And then, wet and cold and ankle deep in the same sea water that I’ve been battling for years, I take what feels like my first full breath in years. And surrender.
“How’d you even get here?” I know he missed the last ferry.
“Bribed some guy at the docks to bring me.”
I nod as he gives the answer I expect. “Is he waiting to take us back?”
“No, but it was pretty easy. We can find someone to take us.”
“Where’s Gem?”
Ainsley shakes his head. “I got her voicemail on the way over and she responded with a picture.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and shows me Gem’s beautiful, smiling face, lit from the right by the golden glow of sunset.
But then I look closer. “Is she on a plane?”
Ainsley looks at me like I’m nuts, but turns the screen back to himself, pinching to zoom the image in and get a closer look at the fabric seat behind her head.
I watch him hit the button to call her without saying a word. It rings on speakerphone, the tone echoing through the damp, quiet basement. When her cheerful voicemail message picks up, we’re both on our feet.