28. Griffin
TWENTY-EIGHT
Birds chirpoutside of Eliana’s window as the sun rises. Her breathing is soft as she lays asleep beside me in her bed. Last night she told me she loved me, but she was drunk. I don’t know for sure whether she really meant it.
Why would she be leaving if she loves you?
All week I waited for her to tell me about the threatening messages and about her past, but today is the day of her flight and she hasn’t said a word about it. From how much fun she was having with the girls last night, I doubt she told them either. I’m not letting her leave though because I have a plan. Gabriel and I have been busy figuring out the best way to confront Meghan about her message and today is the day.
We want to make sure that we’re not only getting her to admit what she did but also to admit who gave her that article. It’s the only way to stop this from happening to Eliana again.
I slowly unwrap her limbs from mine and slide off her bed, removing my phone from the charger on her nightstand, closing her door behind me as I leave. I make my way down to the kitchen, finding Colton up and eating breakfast as he reads a book.
A book?
I approach him and pluck it out of his hands, turning it over so I can see the cover.
How to get the girl.
“You must be fucking kidding me right now.”
He rolls his eyes before he snatches it back. “Why are you even up this early? The Youth Surf program doesn’t start for another week, you should be sleeping in right now.”
He closes the book and flips it onto its face before sliding it away. I take a seat beside him as he sips his tea.
“I’m seeing Meghan in thirty minutes.”
He spits the liquid back into his mug, swinging his head toward me, his eyes bulging.
“Fin, please don’t tell me you’re getting back together with that witch.”
I smirk. “No, I’m actually going to try and get rid of her.”
I look at my phone and text Gabriel that I’m about to leave the house. He’s arranged for undercover cops as well as Meghan’s boss to hide out in the parking lot of the boat dock, where I’ll be meeting with her.
“Thank God,” he sighs a breath of relief, his hand pressed to his chest. “Can I help?”
“Yes, actually,” I stand from my seat and walk over to the front door to put on my shoes. “Can you call me if Eliana tries to leave?”
He raises an eyebrow as he watches me, but he doesn’t question anything.
“Of course,” he says.
“Thanks, see you soon.”
The drive to the boat docks is quick. I park near the back of the lot and look out of my tinted window until I spot Meghan standing near the water’s edge as she looks out at the boats. I put on my wireless earphones and call Gabriel.
“I’m three rows ahead of you,” he says as soon as he answers.
“Okay, everyone else is here?” I ask, sliding my phone into my pocket before I get out of my car and lock the doors behind me.
“We’re all here, recording everything, but be careful, Griffin. She looks fucking unhinged.”
Adrenaline runs through my veins as I approach her. She must hear me because she turns to look at me and boy was Gabriel right. It looks like she’s been crying all night, and then tried to cover up her swollen eyes with thick layers of makeup.
“Good morning,” I say gently, coming to stand beside her, hands in my pocket, “is everything okay?”
She sniffles, wrapping her shaking arms around herself, “I’m just having a hard time being without you.”
I bite down on my tongue until I feel a sting of pain. She didn’t have a hard time without me when I was in the hospital for six months. She didn’t even bother visiting me to explain herself, and now that I’m back she’s having a hard time? I almost laugh.
“Focus, Griffin,” I hear Gabriel say through the earphone.
I take a deep breath as I look down at her. “I’m sorry this has been hard for you,” I lie straight through my teeth.
She sniffles again, turning to face the water. “Why did you want to meet today?”
I clear my throat and shift on my feet. “I had a few questions that I thought might be best to discuss…offline.”
Her head turns to look at me so quickly it’s a miracle her neck doesn’t crack. Her eyes narrow as she studies my face and I know she’s trying to read me.
“Okay, ask away,” she finally says.
With a deep sigh I face her. “Did you kiss Colton knowing I would see it?”
She doesn’t answer at first, her eyes following a sailboat in the distance.
“Yes,” she finally admits.
My stomach churns as bile starts to make its way up my throat. I swallow about three times as my mouth salivates from the sheer disgust. She’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
“Why?” This is the question that’s kept me up at nights.
“My boss was offering a huge bonus for whoever brought in the best story,” she says, tucking her flyaway hair behind her ear. “I thought if I kissed him, you’d be too distracted to perform properly. I didn’t think you’d get hurt.”
“So, you kissed my best friend so that you could write about my poor performance?”
My hands start to tremble from the anger coursing through my body, so I stuff them into the pockets of my hoodie. I watch as she pulls out a pack of cigarettes from her bag, lighting one and taking a deep inhale. It was always one of the things I hated about her.
“Something like that,” she answers without any sign of remorse.
“And while I was recovering in the hospital, you kept writing about me? Using my injury as more content for your column?”
“I did, and I don’t regret it because it kept you relevant while you were gone.” Her tone is defensive.
I scoff. “You make me sick. How can you say you care about me and want to be with me when you intentionally hurt me for your own benefit?”
She visibly bristles, tossing her cigarette to the floor and stomping on it hard. “If it wasn’t for me, you would be a nobody by now. I kept you relevant and I keep you relevant even though you’re cheating on me with that Eliana bitch.”
I rear back as if she slapped me. “Meghan, I’m not cheating on you because we’re not together. You made that very clear when you decided to kiss Colton for your story.”
“You’re only saying that because you have a new little girlfriend right now but once she leaves, you’re going to come crawling right back.” she snarls, her hands curling into fists as she frowns at me.
There it is, my opening.
“Why would she leave?” I press.
“Because she doesn’t want you or your stupid little surf team to know about who she really is. Did you know her hometown nicknamed her The Bad Luck Charm? You guys are going to keep losing and keep getting hurt if she sticks around.” she says through barred teeth.
I laugh humorlessly. “That’s a load of crap, where did you even hear something that stupid?”
“I saw it in an article,” she says defensively, returning her eyes to the boats in the distance.
“She’s not from Saltwater Springs, Meghan, how would you have seen an article about her from another town? It sounds like you’re making all of this up.”
“I’m not,” she shrieks, turning to face me.
“Crazy mode activated,” I hear Gabriel mumble in my ear.
“So how did you get an article about her?” I push.
“Some guy that she pissed off, I think his name is Alex, sold it to me when I was digging up on her past.”
“I don’t believe you. Alex, who?”
“I didn’t get his last name,” she lies.
I sigh and look away from her, my frustration building. “Meghan, you’re a reporter. Remembering sources is literally part of your fucking job so don’t lie to me right now.”
“Fine,” she shouts, crossing her arms over her chest, “His name is Alex Young.”
“Got it,” Gabriel confirms.
“Well, Alex Young misinformed you, Meghan. You must have forgotten that she was at the last competition where we came in first place.”
“Because your good luck charm was there, you said it yourself.”
I frown at her in confusion, and she rolls her eyes before pointing to her chest.
“I was talking about her, Meghan. Not you. I could never say that about you because you are by far the unluckiest thing that’s happened to me.”
Her face crumbles into rage before she runs at me, pounding her fists against my chest. I block as many as I can until the police run up and restrain her, but she gets a nice blow to my face, my lip splitting from the impact.
She growls at me as the police hold her arms back, trying their best to cuff her wrists while she fights against them like a feral animal.
“I hate you,” she shrieks, “I hate you and your stupid fucking girlfriend. As soon as they let me go, I promise you I’ll tell the world what they call her. I’ll expose her until she has nowhere left to run to.”
“You can try,” Gabriel’s voice sounds from behind me, “But I can promise you won’t be getting out anytime soon.”
Her eyes go round as she watches him approach with her boss by his side.
“Stephanie,” she gasps, “I-I can explain.”
Stephanie holds up her hand, palm facing Meghan, and silences her instantly. “You are fired, effective immediately, and I can assure you no other paper will hire you if I have anything to do with it.”
She turns around and walks off, leaving a wailing Meghan in the hands of the police who escort her to their cruiser.
Gabriel and I watch them drive off with her, still screaming and crying in the back seat while her mascara drips down her face.
“That was one obsessed girl you had there,” Gabriel says, turning to face me as he eyes my bleeding lip.
I wipe away the blood with my sleeve before I smile at him and then wince from the sting. My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I tap my headphones twice to answer the call.
“Hello?”
“It’s Colton. Eliana left with a massive purple suitcase. I tried to stop her, but a black cab came, and she ran out of the house while I was looking out of the window.”
I callher number for the eighth time since Colton called me, but she isn’t answering and it’s causing my anxiety to spike to a new extreme.
“Do you think she’s gone?” I ask as Gabriel weaves through traffic on the way to the airport.
His knuckles are white as he grips the steering wheel. “No. Keep calling her.”
I try her number again, but this time it goes straight to voicemail.
She turned her phone off?
I’m certain I’m going to be sick any second but when I see a black cab pulled over a few cars ahead, my heart lurches in my chest. I watch as a girl with brown hair hunches over the side of the car puking.
“It’s her,” I say, struggling to get air into my lungs, “It’s Eliana. Pull over.”
I’m unbuckling my seatbelt and jumping out of the passenger’s side before the car comes to a full stop, feeling a sting in my leg as I run towards her just as she pukes again, some of it landing on my shoe, but I don’t care. I pull her into my arms and hold her trembling body.
“I don’t feel so good,” she mumbles.
“Shhh, it’s okay, sunshine.” I say, rubbing her back.
I watch as the cab driver pulls her suitcase and duffel bag out of the trunk sliding it towards Gabriel as he accepts a hundred-dollar bill from him. He jumps back into his cab and drives off, leaving us alone with her.
“How is she?” Gabriel asks, keeping a safe distance as he eyes the puke on the floor and my shoes.
“Extremely hung over,” she mutters, pulling away from me, “and car sick.”
He runs his hands through his brown hair, messing up the perfectly slicked back strands. “I’ll be in the car.” He grabs her bags, putting them into his G Wagon before he returns to the driver’s side, the car’s engine rumbling to life.
She looks up at me with her sad green eyes, her lip trembling slightly.
“Were you really going to leave me just like that? No goodbye or explanation?” I can’t hold the bite from my voice.
When I saw the ticket on her desk a part of me had hoped she wouldn’t follow through, or at least that she would talk to me about it before she did, maybe even ask me to go with her. But she had tried to leave without any sort of goodbye, as if I didn’t matter to her, as if she hadn’t told me she loves me.
“Griffin,” she whispers, a tear falling down her cheek. “It’s complicated. There are things about me that I haven’t told you.”
“So, tell me.”
A bitter laugh escapes her. “It’s not that easy?—”
“But it is, Eliana. It is that easy,” my legs shake from how weak I feel in the knees, “you could tell me anything and it wouldn’t change how I feel about you. You want to run away? Okay fine, but I’m coming with you. You don’t get to run away from me like what we have means nothing to you.”
I feel like I might lose her completely if I keep pushing, but I need her to know that no matter what she tells me it won’t change how I feel about her. I’m in this, good or bad, I’m not leaving her side.
“You mean everything to me,” she sobs.
“Then tell me.”
She shakes her head side to side, taking a step back to put some distance between us. “You’re going to tell me to leave once I do. You’re going to realize I’m the reason your leg is getting worse and you’re going to hate me for it. I can’t watch that happen, Griffin.”
I feel physically sick hearing her say that about herself, as if she believes the things they wrote about her in that article. My stomach churns as acid crawls up my throat. I want to hunt down Alex Young and everyone else in her hometown that had any part in making her feel like this.
“Nothing you say could make me hate you, sunshine,” I take a step toward her and run my fingers down her cheek, wiping away her tears, “because I love you.”
The words hang in the air, probably shocking me more than they shock her. I watch as uncertainty flickers in her eyes. I don’t blame her for being doubtful about my feelings considering I was trying to get rid of her weeks ago.
Her eyes widen. “You love me?”
I close the distance between us in two quick strides, not letting this moment slip away from me.
“I do. So, you can’t leave,” I brush away another one of her tears with my thumb, “not without me. So please, trust me enough to tell me. Trust that I love you enough not to run or push you away.”
She nods as more tears pour out her eyes. “Okay,” she inhales a shaky breath, “do you remember when we were in the lighthouse, and I told you about the accident?”
I nod, grabbing onto her hand and rubbing comforting circles on the back of it. I know what she’s going to say, Gabriel had filled me in on all the missing details, but I need her to tell me. I need her to trust me enough to confide in me, to come to me when things feel hard. To look at me as her safe space.
“When I was discharged from the hospital, I discovered that someone had spread rumors about me, claiming I was the reason my parents died.” She picks at the stitching in her jeans with her free hand. “Well, they were just rumors for a while but then someone wrote an article in my school newspaper blaming me for the school football team losing and my reputation as the bad luck charm became cemented.”
I want to pull her against me, to wrap her in my arms and tell her she doesn’t need to relive it anymore. It breaks my heart to watch her tremble in front of me, tears streaming down her face. But I force myself to keep quiet as I memorize the anguish on her face. I’ll never allow anyone to hurt her this badly again.
I’ll never let her carry this much pain again.
“Anyways, eventually the local paper got wind of my reputation and I got blamed for everything bad that happened in town. I got nicknamed The Bad Luck Charm of our town.” Her voice cracks at the end as she looks up at me with sad eyes.
I smile down at her, kissing her forehead. “And you thought I would believe that? Rumors aren’t facts, Eliana. Since you’ve come into my life, I’ve only had good luck.”
Her brows pull together in confusion. “But your leg?—”
“Is my own fault,” I interrupt, “my doctors told me not to come back, but I still did. My injury getting worse was inevitable from the moment I decided to go against their orders. It had nothing to do with you. So please, don’t believe any of the bullshit they wrote about you.”
She sniffles. “Someone is threatening to expose me. It’ll ruin the team’s image and bring those rumors to Saltwater Springs—I don’t want that.”
I gently pull her to my chest, burying my hand in her brown hair and wrapping the other around her waist. She buries her face into my chest, her warm arms wrapping around my middle tightly.
“I dealt with that already. It was Meghan and someone named Alex Young.”
I feel her tense in my arms before she pulls out of my grip and frowns up at me. “Did you just say Alex Young?”
I nod. “Meghan claims he sold her the article about you.”
“I’m guessing she never actually met Alex Young in person,” she says, frowning up at me, “because Alex Young is a girl, and my ex-best friend.”
“Well, whether Alex is a he or a she, Gabriel’s people are currently hunting them down and tossing them in jail. We’re going to finally put an end to these articles.”
“Not to rush this happy reunion, but my car is going to get towed if we stay here any longer,” Gabriel shouts from his car.
A giggle bubbles out of her, the sound so beautiful my chest squeezes in happiness as I take her hand and lead her to the backseat of his car, climbing in with her.
He turns to look at us as we buckle our seat belts. “If you puke in my car, I’ll have you train just as hard as the rest of the surf team.” He narrows his eyes at Eliana, passing her a bottle of water.
I watch as she rolls her eyes with a smile before taking the bottle from him and chugging it while we rejoin the rest of traffic.