Chapter Twenty
The name floated across the room into the kitchen. Peyton’s ears snapped back like a cat’s. Her limbs stiffened in response and every hair on her body stood upright.
Can’t be.
She dropped the spoon in the remaining pancake mix and turned off the gas stove, all the while a fuzziness settled in her brain.
Not the good kind after sex, or the kind instigated by alcohol flowing like honey through her veins.
And it wasn’t that delectable fuzziness that came with spending time with Josie.
But rather, it was the kind that made her head ache.
It was the fuzziness that shoved a lump into her throat and made her feel like she was going to vomit.
“Is she here? Is Peyton here?” came the voice from the doorway, louder now, as if the person owning the voice felt no shame in making herself known. Peyton had known a woman just like that. Besides, Peyton could recognize that voice like she could recognize her own mother in a lineup.
It was Sorel. There was no denying it.
“I’m sure she won’t mind if I just come in,” said Sorel, even louder this time.
Peyton thought about hiding. Maybe she could rush out the back door into the garden and jump over the neighbor’s wall. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get herself to do that. As much as she dreaded seeing Sorel, her longing to see her was even stronger.
Walking to the front door, Peyton couldn’t feel her legs, or her arms, or anything other than the drum of her heart pounding against her ribs. She felt distinctly detached from her body as if she were floating above, watching from a distance.
Peyton had felt that exact sensation when Sorel hadn’t walked along that aisle at exactly three p.m. on that Saturday afternoon in June.
It was the same feeling when she had stood there all by herself for another fifteen minutes looking like an idiot, and when she had seen the note left on the dresser.
There was nothing fun about floating when your limbs felt heavy, as if the earth was pulling you down but not succeeding.
When Peyton reached the short hallway, she spotted Sorel over Josie’s shoulder, and nearly gasped. She had felt like she had seen a ghost, and she lost her voice completely.
“Peyton!” cried Sorel, waving a hand in the air when she saw her. “I’m so glad you’re home.” She stepped past Josie, who was still blocking most of the doorway, and rushed into the hallway with her arms outstretched.
Peyton didn’t want a hug from Sorel, not even a light brush of skin on skin. Yet she did nothing when Sorel threw her arms around her, or when she kissed her on the cheek, or when Sorel stepped back and tugged at a loose wave like she always used to do.
All Peyton could do was watch Josie over Sorel’s slender shoulder.
The woman stood forlorn in the doorway. Peyton noticed the pucker of Josie’s brows, the sad twist of her lips, and the way she pulled her shoulders up and gripped her arms tight over her chest. Everything about that image pained Peyton, yet she could do nothing about it. Not when she was frozen on the spot.
“It’s so good to see you again, Pey. You look great. Amazing actually.” Sorel hugged her again, squeezing tight. The top of her head moved too close for comfort and Peyton smelled the ocean. Sorel had always smelled like the ocean.
“I think I’m just… just going to leave,” said Josie softly, her eyes nervously flittering to Peyton and down to her feet. “I’m babysitting Noah and Charlie this afternoon and I need to buy them each a toy.”
Peyton wanted to stop Josie, to tell her to stay, to tell her that Sorel was the one who had to go.
They had pancakes to eat and love to make and she didn’t believe Josie had to babysit her niece and nephew, since Peyton knew full well that Kelsey and Mark were out of town for the weekend.
But instead, she nodded and softly muttered, “Okay.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Josie said, walking past her, moving so close that Peyton could smell her flowery shampoo and feel the heat of her arm as it brushed past Peyton’s.
She nearly grabbed Josie’s hand and begged her to stay, but she ended up doing nothing of the sort.
She only listened to Josie’s footsteps bleed away across the oak floors.
“She’s nice,” said Sorel, glancing over Peyton’s shoulder. Her grey eyes darkened briefly. “Beautiful. Is she someone special?”
Peyton nodded.
Sorel tried to cover her surprise but failed. “I’m glad you moved on, Peyton. I was hoping you would, or at least a part of me was.” She flicked her chin toward the living room. “Can we go into the living room and talk?”
With her legs heavy, like she was battling vines wrapped around her ankles, Peyton walked into the room and was acutely aware of Sorel following close behind.
“Tea?” Peyton asked, spinning on the spot. It was never a good idea to have your back facing the enemy. Her voice was strained, as if she were under duress.
“Please. You know how I like it,” Sorel said, sitting down on the couch and stretching her arms over the back of it.
Sorel had the ability to make herself comfortable, no matter the situation, no matter where she was.
It came with the confidence she threw around like it was confetti, dazzling everyone in her path—including Peyton once upon a time.
“Honey. No milk—”
There was a click as the front door closed, followed by the sound of a car door slamming shut, and then Josie’s navy-blue Kia drove past the window.
For the first time in a long while, Peyton felt an inexplicable sensation of loneliness, as if she was the last woman left on earth.
Josie leaving felt more like losing a limb than anything else, and Peyton was responsible for the amputation.
She was the one who had gotten her leg wrecked in an unfortunate accident.
“Why are you here?” Peyton asked. She hadn’t yet moved to the kitchen and was instead staring down at her hands, noticing how shaky they were. She pressed both palms flat down on the front of her thighs and held them there.
“I wanted to see you. I’ve missed you.”
“Why are you really here?” Peyton didn’t believe her for even a second. If Sorel had actually missed her, then she wouldn’t have disappeared and stayed missing for more than a year without a single call or text message.
Sorel leaned forward and then smiled. “Will you believe me if I say I wanted to apologize in person? That I came all the way out here to do that.”
“No.”
Sorel chuckled, running her fingers through her golden hair. The woman hadn’t aged a day. Not even the sun, which had surely beaten down on her skin during her travels, had left any marks.
There was a time when Peyton had spent many minutes, hours even, studying Sorel’s smooth face, grateful it was hers to kiss for all eternity, but now she could hardly stand to look at her.
“You were never one to believe in just anything. But you’re right.
You’re not the only reason I’m in town.” She smoothed her palms against her bare legs, gazing down, and then she latched her eyes back onto Peyton.
“Francesca—Sorel had named her boat after her great-grandmother—sustained some damage near Monterey Bay. She’s now in for repairs and they estimate it will take a few weeks to fix the structural damage and replace some of the rigging. ”
That was the answer Peyton had expected, the absolute truth. The visit was just a byproduct of circumstance, a cursory apology, nothing but a formality to clean Sorel’s dirty conscious.
“That makes more sense.”
Sorel was up and standing in front of Peyton in a flash. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you. I do, Peyton. Please believe me when I say that I’ve missed you. So much. I think about you all the time. Every day.”
“You think about me every day, but you couldn’t bother to call? Not even once.”
Sorel dropped her gaze to the floor and Peyton used the time to study the tattoos on her arms. There was a new one, just below the inside of her elbow, right beside the origami crane, and above the hot air balloon: a water nymph. How fitting.
“I know,” Sorel said, looking back up. Her eyes locked sharply onto Peyton’s, holding them so tightly they burned. “I should’ve called.”
Once, long ago, Peyton had loved the way Sorel’s gaze had the ability to pierce right through her, her eyes like ice picks carving into Peyton’s soul. But now it just felt invasive and unsettling. Not welcome at all.
“You think.”
“You haven’t forgiven me yet, have you?”
The answer wasn’t easy. Forgiveness wasn’t simple.
There were days when Peyton experienced a calmness about the entire thing, a warmth-like feeling of forgiveness when Sorel’s name entered her thoughts—those had become more frequent since Josie had forced herself into Peyton’s life.
But there were other days, especially in those first few painful weeks, when Peyton had wished she had a voodoo doll of Sorel only to drown it in a bucket of water.
“What you did…” Peyton began, but cut herself off. Instead, she concentrated on the window, remembering the Kia that had sped off with the sweet, caring driver sitting within it.
Was it worth trying to explain her pain to the woman who had caused it?
“But what if I move back?” Sorel said, grabbing Peyton’s attention once more. “What if I retire Francesca? I’ve been thinking about it for the last few weeks. I miss home.” Sorel reached for Peyton’s trembling hands and entwined their fingers. “I miss us. You know what I thought a lot about?”
A lump sat thick and heavy in Peyton’s throat. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even swallow it down enough to breathe.
“Our life,” said Sorel. “I miss our life together. What it should’ve looked like.
I was selfish. Stubborn. I always thought I wouldn’t ever be truly happy without sailing the world first, but I was wrong, Peyton.
All this time, out there on the sea, I’ve been missing something... I’ve been missing you.”
Peyton blinked a few traitorous tears away.
She didn’t need this in her life, not now, not while everything was beginning to look so bright and beautiful.
Not now, when Peyton was finally at a point where she felt like she was truly living again.
She was embracing the wonderful people around her, free from the oppressive reminder that she was left at the altar.
Josie did that. Josie broke her bindings and set her free.
“I need you to go.”
“No,” said Sorel, shaking her head. “I don’t want to.” She then stepped forward, inching closer, reaching a hand up to Peyton’s neck. Her touch was both soft and calloused, both lovely and terrifying.
Sorel stepped in and pulled Peyton closer, their mouths mere inches away. But before their lips could touch, before Peyton could lose herself in the ocean breeze that was Sorel, the woman she had once loved so hard it had broken her to pieces when she had left, she came to her senses.
“I need you to go, Sorel,” she said, stepping back, putting as much space between them. “Now. Please.”
“Just think about it,” Sorel said, sighing softly. “I’m staying with Nick. You know he would love to see you again. You know how he always dreamt of having you as his sister-in-law? He’s never forgiven me for letting you go, by the way, and I don’t blame him.”
She waited another second, perhaps for Peyton to change her mind—which she wasn’t going to—and turned, heading to the front door.
Before she walked out, she turned to face Peyton.
“I still love you, Peyton, and I know you love me, too. We were always two halves of a whole. You can’t live without me.
If you could, you would’ve stopped that woman from leaving earlier.
You would’ve told me to go instead. But you didn’t.
You let her go and you let me in. Think about that. ” Sorel smiled softly and then left.
When the click of the lock sounded, Peyton’s knees gave way and her body crumbled to the floor.