Chapter 11
The frigid spray of water coming over the bow of Tai’s kayak from the white crests of the Ocoee River did little to cool the heat of blood pumping through his veins.
He dug the blade of his paddle into the living beast of a river below him and pulled the shaft, his muscles bulging as he simultaneously fought and worked with the swirling, churning rapid that would enjoy nothing more than chewing him up and spitting him out.
Kind of like Evangeline had done earlier.
The river roared in his ears, but neither the low din of thousands of gallons of water breaking on rocks nor the high shrieks of fear mixed with enjoyment coming from the group in the large raft from a local adventure company could drown out the echo of Evangeline’s pronouncement.
He’d been a bit taken aback and more than a little disappointed in her assessment of him.
“You have trouble written all over you.”
While body art didn’t hold quite the same stigma it once had, there were still some people who looked at him warily or with a quiet judgment in their eyes.
He was mostly used to it and didn’t really care that much.
Life was too short to live confined to other peoples’ expectations and opinions.
He’d done too much of that growing up—first by trying to appease and lessen his mother’s fears, but no matter what he did, how small and restricted he made himself, she still worried.
That had led him to rebel when he’d gotten a bit older, trying to break free of the confines of her anxiety.
He’d admittedly made some bad choices in his teen years, which had consequently soured the town’s opinion of him.
When he’d left for college, it had been that reputation that had kept him away for so long.
It had only been relatively recently that he’d come to a point where he realized he couldn’t let what other people thought of him dictate his decisions.
He’d much rather enjoy every moment he had on this planet than worry about what went on in someone else’s head.
That was their problem, not his. Besides, it was totally out of his control anyway.
He hadn’t thought Evangeline had seen him in the same narrow-minded way others had, though. She’d shown interest and curiosity in his body art, not judgment or scorn. Could he really have been that mistaken? It seemed so, based off her reasoning for rejecting him.
Tai dipped the paddle blade into the water on the right side of the kayak’s stern to steer around a protruding rock.
The rapid shot him out of the section of white water and into the calmer swirls of a slower current.
He laid his paddle across the cockpit of the kayak and let his head fall back to feel the sun on his face.
Kayaking had been one of his first rebellions, as his mother liked to call his more thrill-seeking interests.
She’d railed on him after she’d learned he’d joined a group heading down the river with one of the tour companies.
He’d grown up only hours away from multiple rivers people far and wide traveled to experience: the Ocoee, the Nantahala, the Nolichucky, and the Pigeon, to name a few.
Right in his own backyard but never allowed to so much as put a toe in the water.
“What if you have an asthma attack?” his mom would say. It was too dangerous to put himself in situations that required physical exertion and were so far away from medical help. What if help didn’t come in time? It was too dangerous.
He’d lived with those words and fears drilled into his head.
He tried to understand why she was so hypervigilant and worried about him at every turn.
He could imagine how she must have felt those times she’d had to rush him to the emergency room because his airways were closing, his lips turning blue.
How helpless and scared she must have felt.
But the longer he lived in the shadow of her fear and hovering, the harder it had been for him to breathe.
It hadn’t been the asthma that suffocated him—it had been existing under the weight of ordering his life with the consideration of what she would think of each of his decisions.
When he’d finally shucked off the yoke of caring what his parents or his hometown or anyone for that matter thought about him was when he was finally able to take a full breath.
He recognized a similarity in Evangeline. Granted, he didn’t know much about her and hadn’t really spent a whole lot of time in her company, but he saw the shadow of it darkening her countenance. Beneath the cordial exterior, she was drowning just as much as he’d been suffocating.
Tai picked up the paddle and, with smooth strokes, steered the kayak to the pullout along the bank of the river.
He unhooked the spray skirt from the cockpit and stood.
The boat wobbled under him before he stepped out, hooked his hand in the opening above the seat, and flipped the kayak over to drain the small amount of water that had leaked in from the rapids.
He hefted the kayak onto his shoulder and marched up the knoll to the parking area where Hayley waited for him.
She pushed off the side of her yellow Jeep Wrangler when she saw him. “Good run?”
He nodded. “Just what I needed.” He fastened his kayak to the roof of her vehicle, glad she’d let him talk her into buying her a rack for this reason. She’d take him back upstream to where his own vehicle was parked.
“How was your day?” He unclipped his life vest and tossed it into a crate in the back of the Jeep. He grabbed the zipper string dangling down his spine and pulled, his wetsuit opening at the back.
Hayley’s mouth pinched to the side as she considered. “Good, I guess. Evangeline was acting weird earlier, though.”
Tai peeled the wetsuit from his chest and arms. “Oh? Weird in what way?”
“I don’t know how to describe it exactly. She kept muttering to herself under her breath. Usually she’s this unflappable, happy-go-lucky person, but today she had something stuck in her craw.”
Interesting. Could she be feeling off-kilter because of their conversation earlier?
He turned his head so Hayley wouldn’t see his smile.
It was silly, this hope that began to inflate in his chest. Evangeline had laid some harsh accusations at his feet that he didn’t deserve, including questioning his sincerity in asking her out, but if she’d truly meant and believed everything she’d said, why had she been affected by the conversation for the rest of the day?
There was something else she’d said that was driving him a little crazy.
That she didn’t date. Why? He had a feeling the answer to that was also the answer to the other questions that had crossed his mind since their exchange.
Now, though, he’d settled on one thing. The door that she’d tried to slam in his face had bounced off the frame, leaving just enough room for him to try to walk through again.
“You ready to go?” Hayley asked as she opened the driver’s door and slid in behind the wheel.
Tai shut the back of the Jeep and walked to the front.
A towel covered the passenger seat, and he made sure that it didn’t slide too much as he climbed in.
He hadn’t run the whole river, so it didn’t take long for Hayley to drive him back to the old beat-up truck he used whenever he needed to haul his recreation equipment.
The Challenger was fun to drive on the windy roads, but the truck worked better when he was going out kayaking or spelunking in the area’s limestone caves.
“I’ll see you later at your parents’ house.” Hayley waved before driving away.
Tai had just enough time to go home, put his gear on the racks to dry, take a quick hot shower, and change before heading out again.
His parents lived in the same house that he’d grown up in, a turn-of-the-century ranch-style home at the end of a steep drive on top of a hill covered in pine, fir, rhododendron, and mountain laurel.
There wasn’t a backyard to play in or really any grassy area because of the pitch of the land, but he and Hayley had had fun playing hide-and-seek among the wild, overgrown bushes in the summer and then building mounds out of fallen leaves in the autumn to jump in—when his mom wasn’t looking, of course.
As soon as he killed the engine, his mom swung open the front door to the house and stepped out onto the porch.
She was a diminutive woman in stature, but she made up for it in presence.
Even on the other side of fifty, there were hardly any wrinkles on her face.
Tai wondered if there was some sort of magic in their genes since her forehead should have deeply etched worry lines by now, given how much she fussed over everything.
He climbed out of the car and walked up the steps of the porch, pulling his mom into a snug embrace when he reached her. Her head fit under his chin, and he breathed in the scent of her secret mac and cheese recipe clinging to her cardigan.
When people first met Missy Davis and were invited to her house for a meal, they thought they’d be served fried rice and dumplings and were usually surprised to find a spread of southern comfort in the form of collard greens, pimento cheese, and fried chicken.
She may have been adopted from China, but she was Southern through and through.
His mom pulled out of his arms, and Tai stood tall, ready for her inspection. A thorough looking-over always came before he was allowed inside to eat. He held his arms out to his sides and smiled down at her. “Do I meet with your approval?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, then pinched his waist. “You’re too skinny. Are you eating enough?”
He let his arms drop. “Yes, Mama. I eat plenty.”
“How are your lungs? Are you breathing okay? Do you keep your inhaler with you at all times?” She peered at him with the same narrowed expression.
He dug his inhaler from his pocket. “Right here. Happy?”