41. Jace
Jace
Islam the trailer door behind me. Flip jumps down the steps and presses against my left leg.
I walk straight ahead, fists clenched. Not toward the pier—the other way. I pass the Hayes house without turning my head and keep going north, toward the edge of town.
The sand gives under my bare feet. The freezing water bites at my ankles. I grit my teeth but keep walking. Getting away is all that matters.
She knew. She always knew. She chose to do nothing.
A bigger wave splashes up to my knees. Flip trots silently beside me. His nose brushes my hand now and then.
“Stop acting like you give a shit.”
She vanished for six years. Not a text, not a call. And now she’s playing innocent in my trailer, asking me what happened like she has no idea.
The sand’s firmer here. The water’s colder too, or maybe I’m just starting to feel it. My toes are numb. My calves ache. I don’t know how long I’ve been walking.
Flip sits down. He looks at me, head tilted, ears low.
“What?”
He doesn’t move. I come back to him, crouch down, and rub his head.
“It’s okay, big guy.”
His tail thumps twice. We start walking again, slower this time.
The sound of the waves is steady, almost mechanical. Luke’s words come back to me—in the water, a few days ago. He wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“She asked me why you never went pro.”
“She didn’t seem to.”
Didn’t seem to know? Bullshit. She was here, Luke.
I shake my head. She was in Coral Bay that summer. She lived in the house next to the surf school. The whole town knew.
A wave licks at my ankles.
Of course she knew. She just decided it wasn’t her problem.
I keep walking. Flip shakes himself off beside me, flinging droplets onto my shorts. The air is cool. My T-shirt has dried on me, stiff against my skin. I’m cold. I don’t care.
“She didn’t seem to.”
The words won’t go away. I shove them down under everything else: the anger, the humiliation, six years of silence.
Eventually I turn back. I’m spent. The anger’s still there, but it’s settled.
The lodge lights grow brighter as I get closer. The music’s a little louder now, but the party has wound down.
Summer’s gone, for sure. She put on her innocent act and went back to the lodge.
The trailer finally comes into view. The light’s on inside, behind the drawn curtains.
She didn’t even bother to turn it off when she left.
Flip speeds up a little, then passes me and bolts straight for the door. I watch him, hands in my pockets. He stops at the bottom of the steps and whines.
I freeze. A muffled sound, uneven, punctuated by silences, comes through the door.
Sobs.
Not quiet tears—deep, broken sobs that won’t stop.
Flip whines louder and scratches at the door with his claws. He turns and looks at me.
Summer’s still here.
But I walked a long time. She’s been crying like this… since I left?
“She didn’t seem to.”
Luke’s words again. Except this time, I don’t push them away.
Summer had blocked my number and Noah’s. That much I knew. She’d regretted taking things further with me, so she’d shut the door.
But if she blocked us the very next morning—before she knew about the accident—then Noah’s calls from the hospital… mine, for weeks, the phone ringing into nothing… the message I left on her voicemail at three in the morning, doped up on painkillers, just saying, “Call me back”…
She never got any of it.
Shit. She didn’t know.
The sobs keep coming. Flip scratches harder.
I see it again—the GoPro thrown onto the bed like a punishment. Not a word of explanation, no warning.
It was too cruel. I never should have put her through that.
I climb the steps and throw the door open.
Summer’s curled up at the foot of the bed, knees pulled to her chest, hands clamped over her ears. Damp strands hide her face, her dress clings to her skin… and she’s shaking.
The GoPro’s on the floor beside her, screen black.
Flip goes straight to her, lies down against her legs, and rests his head on her knees. She doesn’t react. Her shoulders jerk and heave. She’s gasping for air and can’t seem to get any.
Now there’s no doubt left: she knew nothing. Not the accident, not the hospital, not the rehab, not what it cost me.
She regretted sleeping with me. She didn’t want to be with me. It was ugly. It still hurts. But she didn’t cut me out of her life knowing what had happened to me.
I stay rooted in the doorway. The words don’t come. They were never my thing.
So I step forward and kneel in front of her. I hesitate, then take her wrists and gently lower her hands. She barely resists. Her eyes are red, swollen, and she looks at me like she doesn’t understand what I’m doing here.
I pull her into my arms, because I don’t know what else to do. Nothing romantic about it. She stiffens for a second, then sags against me and cries without holding back. With every sob, her fingers fist in my T-shirt.
Flip gets up and slips out of the trailer without a sound.
I don’t say anything for a while. I just hold her, that’s all.
“You didn’t know,” I breathe.
Summer shakes her head.
For six years, it all rested on that: she knew, and she left anyway.
Except she didn’t.
I tighten my arms around her.