31. A Plunderful Life
A Plunderful Life
SIX MONTHS LATER
“Laszlo?” Another knock sounds, and I burrow deeper into the blankets on my couch, shaking my head at a curious Sir. Maybe if I hide, if I stay silent, she won’t come in. “Laszlo, I’m using my key.”
Well, that was wishful thinking. The lock turns, and I hear Louise close the door behind her with a soft click.
“Sir!” she calls, shaking a bag of treats. “Aunty Lou is here with your favorite freeze-dried fish!”
“Don’t you dare,” I hiss to Sir as he perks up, his ears twitching. But oh, he betrays me, slipping out from beneath the blankets without a second thought.
“Who’s a good boy?” she coos.
“I thought you gave me your key?” I grumble.
“That was a copy of a copy,” she says, closer now. “I always make extra copies.”
Of course she does.
The soft footsteps stop beside the couch, and I tighten my hold on my cocoon of blankets, refusing to look. I don’t want to see the disappointment on her face or hear another argument about how I’m wasting away. I don’t want to hear any of it, because I know it’s true, and that hurts most of all.
“Laszlo.” She gently tugs a blanket away, letting it pool at her feet. I squint up at her, my vision adjusting. “I flew in from Georgia for tonight, could you please get up and go to your own book launch?”
I can tell by her expression that I look as much of a mess as I feel.
My eyes flick to the table littered with books and articles and printouts about the Golden Age of Piracy.
I’ve been searching for answers, for something to say that he survived, that any of the crew survived.
I know it’s pointless, that I should try to move on.
But I can’t.
Louise kneels beside me, taking my hands in hers. Her long, slim fingers hold me delicately, as if she’s worried she’ll break me. Too late, I think. I’m already broken. She kisses the top of my hands and smiles sadly.
“Laszlo, you can’t stay here forever.”
“Why not?”
She frowns and lets go, standing. “Your launch event is tonight. Don’t you want to go?”
I shake my head and turn toward the couch, burrowing in farther.
“I don’t want to leave.” I pull the jacket closer and inhale his lingering scent.
Who knows what I’ll do once it fades—if it’s already faded and I’m just imagining it.
I have photos and videos, sure, but this physical part of him, this tangible thing—it means the most to me.
She sighs before settling on the couch next to me.
Louise rests a hand on my side and taps my hip.
“Do you remember what Dad used to tell us?” When I say nothing, she continues, “He used to say that the only way to move on when we feel rooted in the past is to let go of the things keeping us there.” Slowly, knowingly, she pulls away the rest of my blankets, and I let her.
Her eyes take in the jacket. I know it is torn and damaged.
One of the buttons popped off ages ago, and I’ve restitched the hem with my clumsy fingers more than once to keep it from unraveling.
Though it is a ragged thing, it is the only thing still tying me to him, the only physical proof that I ever knew him.
“Laszlo,” she says with a sigh. “I might not know what happened out there, but you have to move on.” She pats my leg. “If you stay stuck in this state, you’ll never leave it, and you’ll be wondering for the rest of your life what you could have done differently.”
But that’s the problem, that’s what she doesn’t understand. If I let this all go, if I move on, I’ll never know if I could have found him again. I have to know if he’s alive, if he somehow pulled himself from that ship and lived.
I sit up and wrap the jacket tighter around me.
“I can’t, Lou. I know I should, but I just …
I can’t.” I tried to tell her about where I went, but in the end, I couldn’t.
What would she think of me? What would she say?
It is a fantastical story and a fantastical life I lived, and I know, despite how much Louise claims to love me, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that even she won’t understand.
To her, I went missing for a single day. To me, I lived out an entire life on that ship. I fell in love; I became a pirate. Wildly, I was a part of a story parents tell their kids at night, and how is someone who hasn’t lived it supposed to wrap their mind around it? Around time travel.
I pick up the stack of lyrics littering the coffee table, scanning the papers. “Willie Taylor” is a song, and I probably wouldn’t have known it if not for my adventure into the past. When I came back and I typed in each and every name I could remember, he had the most results.
It’s a song about Astra. It tells of a scorned woman, a detail that the songwriter used to romanticize the story.
It’s not accurate, and there are a lot of details that are vastly different from that day on the beach, but there are elements to the song that are true.
But Astra would have never shot Willie Taylor.
No, in order to get their revenge, they stabbed him, twisting their knife until they were certain he was dead.
“Come on,” Louise says instead, offering a hand. She tilts her head, stray curls falling from her updo. “There’s only a few hours until the event. And I fly back tomorrow. Do this for me? For your fans.”
I glance down at the lyrics. Did Tarly write this song?
Did he write it to protect Astra, craft their story into that of a vengeful pirate captain with a crew of their own to steer others from going after them?
And if so, does that mean they survived?
I set the papers back on the table and wipe my palms on the jacket.
Even I know Louise is right.
Glowering, I take her offered hand and stand.
I shower and shave, and when I wipe away the steam and look in the mirror, I almost resemble a past version of myself.
Except for the purple bags beneath my eyes, the tanned skin scattered with freckles, the small, puckered scars marking my many injuries aboard his ship, and the long, unruly blond curls that I tuck behind my ears.
I comb my hands through them, but there is simply no taming to be had.
When I’m as close as possible to the Laszlo the world once knew, Louise comes to stand beside me. She wraps an arm around my shoulders and smiles at our reflection.
“Whatever happened to you,” she says, patting my cheek, “you and I look more alike now than ever.”
“What are the odds,” I say, smiling weakly.
Switching off the light, I follow her out.
She grabs her purse and jacket, and my hands automatically reach for his.
My fingers graze the blue wool, toying with the brass buttons.
I can feel my chest aching, my throat tightening as I yearn to pull it on, to breathe in the scent of him. I’ve worn it every day for six months.
“Why don’t you wear this one instead?” she asks, holding out a long black coat.
It is so plain in comparison. I peer back at the blue coat, his coat.
I know eventually I’ll have to move on, hang it up in the back of my closet—or, worse, throw it out.
It physically pains me to step away from it, to take the black coat from Louise’s outstretched hand and shrug it on.
Sir settles down on top of the coat as if he knows I need to move on.
I scratch his head and follow Louise out.
This coat feels wrong. It is too light and too thin, and the fit of it is too tight.
And it smells like a closet, nothing like the warm scent of burnt sugar and tobacco.
And without his jacket, without the blue wool surrounding me, I don’t have the strength to face all these people, to see the world to which I have returned.
As if she can sense my thoughts, Louise slips her hand into the crook of my arm and steers me to the bookstore.
I’ve been to this store countless times for countless events.
The line of people waiting to be seated snakes out the door and onto the street, and there in the window display is my book, framed by blue tissue curled into waves, a boat folded from paper, and a pirate flag set in the background of the stand.
My new book. I still don’t know where the strength came from, how I managed to sit down and write an entire novel in two weeks, but I did.
I thought if I wrote about it, even if it severely departed from my original outline, it would help me heal.
And I thought I was getting better as I was editing, but when I finished it, it only sent me farther into a downward spiral.
Writing this book brought every memory back to the surface, and editing only made it worse.
But they sped up the process for me—a “crash,” as they described it.
I felt like I was drowning in the words, but I didn’t have time to stop and think, fully immersed in the work, but when it was done and I came up for air, I could hardly breathe.
Even now I’m struggling to keep my head above water, and as if the sky is mocking me, it splits open, fat water droplets spattering the ground around me, dripping down my back and making me shudder.
I stop before the display and press a hand to the glass, my eyes straying to the cover. To the image of a sinking ship, to his words as the title. I breathe shakily, curling a hand into my shirt above my heart like it will stop the pain.
But it never does.
“Lasz?” Louise prompts. “Let’s head inside before you get soaked.”
A store associate appears next to Louise before I can say anything. She’s a woman in her mid-thirties with clear frames and a badge on her collar with her name on it, and a small SHE/HER beneath.
The store associate holds out a hand, and I shake it. “I’m Chloe, and I’ll be introducing you before you start our talk. Are you ready?”
Louise stares at me over Chloe’s head. I glance one last time to the display before nodding and following them in.