Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Standing in front of me is the last person I wanted to see here…
or ever. Bodhi Westmore. His body is as tall as my doorframe, his blue eyes showing anything but friendliness.
I feel like a fish out of water, my mouth opening and closing, as he just stands there.
He doesn’t seem shocked to see me because he knew, when asked to come here, who he would see.
“I don’t think I want to work with you. Please have Mrs. Williams find me someone else.” While I say that last word, it hits me: her soon-to-be son-in-law is fucking Bohdi. I can feel my hands sweating, the back of my neck becoming slick with perspiration. I don’t need this.
I back up to close the door, but he reaches his foot out, stopping me.
“Nice shirt.” He doesn’t smile; there is no kindness in those eyes.
Right there and then, I want to die. I want to go with my parents. Because here I am, thirty years old, standing in my childhood beach cottage, looking at the man who broke me, who didn’t come after me, while I’m wearing his old shirt.
“Move your foot, Bohdi,” I clip out.
“It’s Bo, August,” he says with such contentment as his gaze looks right through me.
My eyes squint at him. He hated to be called Bo. “Why’d you cut a cool name in half?” He’d always said that when people called him Bo. “Well, Bo.” I draw the letter “o” out. “I’d like a different agent.”
“It’s only Kate or me, so you pick.” His eyes finally focus, but now he’s looking me over.
“Okay, then I’ll do this alone. It can’t be that hard. I’ll post the listing in some groups and see what I get. Now, move.” My stomach feels like there are butterflies in it, flapping their damn wings.
I can’t help the way my eyes trail his face, taking in every feature, even though my brain knows them all by heart.
But now he’s eight years older, his eyes don’t sparkle like they used to.
He looks tired, but he still looks like Bohdi…
just older. Dirty blond hair still haphazardly pushed back from running his hands through it.
Used to be one of the favorite things to do while we laid on the beach together.
He backs away from the door. “That’s fine, but it will not be that easy.
” He raises his eyebrow before turning around, and I gawk when I see what he’s walking to…
a motorcycle. Before the door could fully close, he had it started and was revving the engine, speeding off.
I can hear his tires fighting the gravel.
I slide down the door, knees to my chest, and cry. Cry for that boy I used to know, cry for being so fucking stupid. Cry because I need to cry.
Moving my hands to my hair, I pull, screaming as loud as I can, needing a release.
“What the fuck am I doing?” I questioned the empty house.
Without a second thought, I lock the sliding glass door before running and snatching my box, throwing everything in it I wanted to take with me.
Grabbing my phone and purse, I walk out of the house.
Locking the door behind me. I want to turn back for one last time, but I don’t.
I keep walking to my car. Start it and reverse out, my eyes staying on the ocean the whole way up the drive.
Making my way through town trying to do the speed limit, my eyes won’t stop crying. Driving past the Sea Shack, I wonder if Bay is there. I want to stop. To tell her everything, but I don’t. I keep driving to the ferry port, hoping it’s already on its way back to dock. Needing out of here now.
I wait over twenty minutes, car idling all the while my red eyes sit behind too big sunglasses.
This feels like the night I left, same feelings, same waiting. It’s like déjà vu, but the heartbreak isn’t that bad this time.
The ferry horn blasts, jostling me out of my memories. Looking into the cupholder, I pull out the seashell and automatically rub it. Remembering the ring that sat in it, just for me.
I laugh maniacally, pulling up onto the ferry. The man directing the vehicles looks at me like I’m nuts, and maybe I am.
Putting my car into park, parking brake on, rolling all the windows down and turning it off, I unbuckle, but don’t move from my seat. I hate the ferry; I’ve never been fond of it and definitely hate it even more now.
My mom was getting the cottage ready for my twenty-first birthday.
She was coming back on the ferry. Nine years ago, they didn’t have the metal gate they do now; it was just a rope that went across the exits, like that would stop anything.
She was too occupied by something and forgot to put her car in park.
She hit the gas pedal, and it was too late; she was in the ocean before she could stop.
My mother drowned to death, unable to get out of her seat belt and all her windows rolled up.
She suffered, scared and alone. That summer, everything changed.
Changed me in ways that I can’t form back into.
The thirty-something minutes it takes to get across and disembark is just me panicking the whole time. This isn’t the same one my mother was on; that one was put out of commission. Despite that, each ride reminds me of her, of what was lost. And how quickly life can change.
I don’t start my car back until we're at the port and the gate is down. Once finally off, I can truly breathe. I have to drive another forty minutes to my town. I got as far as I could from Driftwood Bay, but not too far for my father’s sake. I needed space between myself and them.
I don’t even turn on my music on the way back to my apartment; my mind is spinning too fast to focus on words right now.
Luna greets me when I open my apartment door, meowing so loudly, acting like I abandoned her. Bending down, I rub my fingers through her tortoise-colored fur. “You’re fine,” I coo to her. Luna is my only companion.
Tossing the box onto my counter, I can’t get out of my clothes fast enough. Stripping on my way to my bathroom, I drop everything wherever they fall.
The shower is welcoming. Hot, I don't have hot water here. One perk of an apartment.
Cleaning my body with a loofah. I look at the tattoo on my hip, a starfish that matches Bay’s.
We were freshly eighteen and didn’t give a shit what our parents said…
at least that’s what we claimed; I can’t help the little giggle I let out.
Those days were the best. Free, no worries, happy, in love, and having parents.
You never know what you have until it’s gone, and all that is now gone.
My body isn’t tiny like it used to be; I now have meat on me.
My stomach is soft and my breasts full. I haven’t had a relationship since I was twenty-two.
I wanted to protect my heart and protect it I did.
I didn’t let anyone get close. I just focused on work and would hook up with randoms sometimes. Too scared to feel anything again.
There is a lot you can do with two batteries and plastic. I haven’t been with anyone for about two years, since my dad got sick. My sole focus was on him and work.
Throwing on a big T-shirt, my hair wet, I pad into the living room where Luna is laying sprawled out on my sofa.
My stomach growls from not eating today.
Opening the icebox, I spot three-day-old pizza and roll my eyes, it’ll do.
Tossing two pieces onto a plate and into the microwave, I let the hum fill the quiet as I pour a glass of wine.
My mind needs to decompress. Lumbering to my oversized sofa, I fall onto it, carefully minding my wine glass, and turn on my TV to a random show.
Sitting there, I eat robotically while sipping my wine in between, paying no mind to what’s on.
My brain is replaying the moment I saw Bohdi again.
Bohdi, my first love, my first everything. We were inseparable. If you couldn’t find me, just find him and vice versa, but that wasn’t the Bohdi I knew today.
Only able to get down one slice, I decide I can’t let the bottle of wine just sit.
Forgoing my glass, I snatch the bottle, heading to my patio.
One chair and a bistro table adorn it. Nothing else.
For a woman who loved all things, my apartment doesn’t show that’s who I used to be.
It’s sterile, minimal, and boring…and that’s who I become.
This isn’t the woman I thought I would turn into.
There isn’t a view of the ocean here, only views of light pollution and sounds of cars honking. It’s never quiet. It’s the total opposite of Driftwood Bay.
Luna comes and jumps on my lap, purring loudly as I pet her. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Lu,” I whisper to her, like she’ll help me.
Making a mental to-do list, I need to post the cottage and have someone go out to fix the back doorsteps. And hire someone to go in, take everything out that isn’t furniture, and get rid of it.
I can’t keep my mind on what needs to get done; it keeps flashing back to Bohdi at the cottage door.
He’s the last person I thought I would see, and if I’m honest with myself, the only person I wanted to see.
I loved him so deeply that it hurt. We didn’t start dating till we were eighteen.
Before then, he was a friend. Someone I would hang out with, but as we got older, those feelings started to bloom.
I was so happy, unbelievably happy. Summers were ours, and I got a few perfect ones with him.
If things hadn’t happened like they did, I would have stayed in Driftwood Bay; it would've become my home. That’s where I saw myself being when I was old. Now, I don’t see myself anywhere. I can’t see the future. And I don’t know what that means. And that’s scary.
I’m thirty, single, and just sad.