Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Jade
Two months later
Central Park is brown and green and grey, winter leaching the colour from the city. I stand at the window of Myles and Zara’s penthouse, staring out at the murk. No brilliant blues here, no golden sand. I haven’t surfed since I left the island.
I was more messed up than I realised when I arrived in New York.
I flew there alone on Myles’s private jet, sending Manny home for a long-overdue visit with his family.
I don’t need a bodyguard at the moment; it’s not like I’ll be going anywhere.
Zara met me at the airport, beckoning from the back of an electric BMW with blacked-out windows, pulling me into an orange-blossom-scented embrace as soon as I got inside the car.
I think I cried all the way back to Manhattan. How fucking ridiculous.
Zara just held me through it, leaving my bags in the opulent foyer of their building to be brought up later, still hugging me as we rode up in the elevator, drawing me along the marble-tiled wide hallway to the kitchen which, despite its size and sleek luxurious fittings, still felt cosy.
I collapsed on a soft velvet sofa while Zara bustled around, making us both tea.
So English of her. Yet it perked me up, or at least stopped me crying enough to be able to talk.
But Zara brushed my choked apologies aside. “You can tell me whatever you want, whenever you want,” she said in her soft voice. “And this is your home, for as long as you need it. Myles and I are here for the next few months. I’ve set you up in the guest suite.”
True to her word, when I pleaded exhaustion and was taken to the huge bedroom with sweeping views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline, I found my clothes already hung in the wardrobes, my toiletries laid out in the stylish attached bathroom.
There was a huge bed, piled high with pillows and soft blankets, and a wing chair and footstool near the window, another blanket draped across it.
I fell into bed and didn’t come out for almost twenty-four hours. Not until Zara appeared with little Max in her arms, asking if I’d like to go to the park with them.
Since then, I’ve been trying to figure out what happens next.
Trying to make sense of how I could have fallen for someone so quickly, and why I feel so bereft without him.
I was with Zach for four years, yet never felt about him the way I do about Axel.
I thought perhaps the feelings might dissipate as quickly as they came, but being apart from him has only deepened my longing, his absence an ache in my chest I can never fully escape.
Zach is no longer messaging me. He gave up while I was still on Sembuh.
But he’s hurting, too. It seems a weekend doesn’t pass without a report of him doing something outrageous, whether it’s getting into drunken brawls or, on one memorable occasion, doing a striptease on a table in a nightclub, the bouncers only just stopping him in time before he bared all.
I miss him, despite everything. He was such a big part of my life for so long that it still feels strange not to be able to talk to him.
But I know I need to give him space, so he can figure himself out. And I need to do the same.
I went to Boston to see Jasper once I felt well enough to do so.
Met him at a coffee shop on campus, where we sat and talked and I told him about Myles.
My heart clenched in my chest at the hope in his eyes, and I had to hide my emotions in the giant latte he bought me.
He also figured out that something was going on with me, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him, so I just said it was down to the break-up.
Not a lie. Except I didn’t mean with Zach.
In the end he just ruffled my hair in an annoying slightly-older-brother way, then pulled me into a bear hug that had my eyes stinging with tears.
I also let him believe that my leg injury was the reason I wasn’t surfing at the moment, even though it’s healed now apart from some faint scars.
A week or so later he came to visit me and I introduced him to Myles, the two of them hitting it off almost immediately, talking for hours in a small café near his hotel.
Afterwards Myles told me, quietly, that he’s paid the remainder of Jasper’s tuition, and that I don’t need to worry about it anymore.
I cried again but they were happy tears, a weight I didn’t know I was carrying lifted from me.
Sol’s big relaunch hasn’t happened yet. I told him I need more time, and that I want to cut back on some of my sponsorships, the ones that no longer fit who I am. He was okay with it, for now, but I know he’s putting together some sort of strategy for me. I don’t have it in me to care.
Myles and Zara, though, have been amazing, supporting me with whatever I want to do.
I know they’re worried about me, despite the way I’ve tried to throw myself into work.
Zara and I are working with the design team, creating a small line of fabrics inspired by the batiks I saw on the island at the artisan centre.
I also pitched making bracelets, after Zara admired the ones on my wrist. I’ve not been able to bear taking them off, as though they’re somehow a link between who I am now and who I was then, in love and happy.
As though the little coin really is some sort of magic charm that can help heal my tattered heart.
It’s pathetic, I know. But I’ll hold on to anything that might take my pain away, no matter how tenuous.
I’ve also asked if I can be involved with the foundation.
I knew I wanted to be, since the moment I saw that image on Instagram, the one of the temple in the jungle.
Being able to help save The Cave of the Waters means a lot to me, not just because of how it helped Axel, and I’d like to do more of the same kind of work.
Even though my heart is broken, I’ll never regret my time on Sembuh.
It helped me remember who I really am and what I truly want. I’ll always be grateful for that.
It turns out the foundation’s social media posts are written by someone called Claire Baxter, who travels a lot with her partner, Bryce Maylands.
I know Bryce; he’s a great guy. I’m glad he’s found love.
Myles floated the idea of me going to join them on some of their travels, making surf content with Bryce for Ocean’s Curl, while also scouting for new sites to potentially preserve.
I’m okay with doing the latter, but not sure about the former.
I’m not sure if I can surf again.
I tried, once. Got Zara’s driver to take me out to the coast, where I stood on the shore, shivering in my wetsuit, watching iron-grey waves roll in. I stood there until my vision blurred, then I bent down and undid my leg rope and walked back to the waiting car.
It felt as though the ocean rejected me too, that day, just like Axel did.
My other solace, my other safe space. Yet when I took my anger and pain to her, when I took my damaged self into the waves, she wouldn’t let me surf, nor would she accept my death.
It’s ridiculous, I know, to think this way, but it’s part of what’s stopping me from going back into the water.
It was my refuge for so many years. It gave me everything I have, made me into the person I am today.
I felt at home in the water, felt welcomed, felt as though I could be someone more than just an abused kid on the California coast. But now I’m not sure where my refuge lies.
I’ve started seeing a therapist, to work through it all. I know there’s a lot of damage from my past that I need to sort out, as well as all the years I spent with Zach, years that I spent ignoring what I wanted in favour of what I thought he wanted from me.
But I never loved him the way I love Axel.
Despite how he turned his back on me, he changed me.
And I’m trying to hold on to the feeling of who I was before things went wrong, to really listen to what I want.
Even though all I really want is him. I have to accept, though, that he’s gone.
That the love I hold for him will remain unrequited.
So I’ll pour that love into things that make me feel good, as much as that’s possible, which at the moment is work and family.
I’ll get back into the water one day, I know I will.
I dream of it, sometimes I dream of endless blue, of paddling through curling waves with someone by my side.
Someone who completes me. For now, though, I need to deal with my grief, with all the damage from my past. In a way, Axel breaking up with me was the shock I needed to finally break free from it all.
To put myself first, properly, and face up to everything I needed to face.
A gorgeous baby giggle shakes me out of my reverie, accompanied by the rustle of tissue paper.
“Oh, Maxie!” Zara coos at her son. I turn to see him sitting on the floor, all chubby legs and rosy cheeks, his smile wide as he waves a sheet of tissue around his head, crinkling it in his plump fists.
He’s completely adorable, with his father’s dark hair and his mother’s wide brown eyes.
I grin, wandering over to crouch down next to him.
“All the toys in the world and all he wants is tissue paper, huh?”
“That’s kids for you.” Zara smiles fondly at him. “At least it’ll keep his hands off those dresses.”
A rack of gowns is nearby. The tissue is from some of the packing; we’ve already had to move the designer shoes out of Max’s reach. His teeth are coming in, and while he’s gorgeous, neither Zara nor I fancy having teeth-marks on our footwear for the evening.
Tonight is the big anniversary celebration for the MZM Foundation, a combination fundraiser and publicity event, covering all the work that’s been done over the past year.
I’m attending in my role as an official ambassador for the foundation.
I might not be able to surf, not yet, but at least I can do this.
“When’s the make-up artist coming?” Zara turns to the stylist, who is carefully inspecting the rack of gowns.
“She should be here soon,” the stylist says. “Mrs Brandon, have you decided which one to wear?”
“I think the red.” She shoots me a twinkling glance. “Myles likes me in red.”
“Myles likes you in anything.” I grin back.
Zara’s satin hair is already pulled into a smooth chignon, a diamond flower pinned at the side catching the light as she plays with Max.
She and I are both wearing soft fluffy robes, our nails freshly manicured.
My hair is pulled back from my face by two emerald combs, and falls loose down my back.
Zara loaned me the combs, and I didn’t have the nerve to ask if they were real emeralds.
I wiggle my hand at Max and he grabs one of my fingers, pulling it towards his mouth. “Oh no, you don’t,” I say, pulling it back before he can wreck my nails. I tickle him and he giggles again, wriggling his little body.
The door opens and Myles comes in, looking sharp in a classic tuxedo, tailored to his tall muscular frame. Zara’s face lights up and she stands, going to him. “You look nice,” she breathes as he pulls her into his arms, kissing her.
“You look beautiful,” he murmurs, his forehead on hers.
“Oh, I haven’t even had my make-up done yet.”
“Like I say: beautiful.”
I look away, not because it’s intimate, even though it is, but because I don’t want to be reminded what it was like, to love and be loved in return, unconditionally.
I miss Axel, still. I think I always will.