Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
“What do you mean?” My voice sounds a little manic to myself.
I can hear her blow out a breath. “I had Bo go over and take some pictures and finish what I didn’t, but he walked into a mess.”
I’m so confused. I rest my arms on the counter, looking at the time; too early to drink. Nice.
“A pipe burst in the main bedroom. Flooding engulfed the whole room, and the roof collapsed. It’s bad.” Mrs. Williams pauses. “I’m sorry, August. I know you were ready to get this done. But this is a huge step backward. We can’t list until we fix the room and figure everything out.”
“What should I do?” I ask her with a groan because, honestly, I need help.
I hear her rustling, knowing she’s laid up somewhere. “I’d recommend getting to Driftwood, taking a look, and then finding someone to come fix it. We do have a contractor, Kai Westmore.”
Rolling my eyes, because great, of course Bohdi’s brother is the contractor on the island. “Okay.” What more is there to say? If he’s the only one there, then I have to use him. Opening my mouth, the words don’t want to come out. “I’ll head that way here soon,” I finally manage to say.
“Again, I’m sorry about this, August.”
“Thanks,” I force out.
We hang up, and I stand in my kitchen, absolutely annoyed and in disbelief.
I was so close to being done. So damn close.
Tossing my head back, I mutter, “Seriously.” Tears come to my eyes, but I hastily wipe them away.
“Not now,” I scold myself. We have shit to get done and being a baby about it isn’t going to help me.
I do everything in record time, pack an overnight bag. I grab for my bikini, but stop. Second-guessing, but I pick it up and stuff it in my bag. Maybe, I tell myself.
After making sure Luna’s food dispenser is full, she has plenty of water, and her litter box is cleaned, I bend down and pet her. “I’ll be back. Be a good girl,” I coo at her as she rubs my leg.
The entire ride to the ferry, I try not to think of the cottage and what I’m walking into. So, I roll down my windows and blare music, needing to engulf myself in something else. When Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter shuffles on, I scream the words, having a solo car concert.
Pulling onto the ferry, I do my normal routine. Park, undo my seatbelt, set the parking brake, all windows down, doors unlocked and car off, and try to calm my nerves for the ride to Driftwood Bay.
Busying myself, I scroll on my phone, going back to Driftwood Marina’s Instagram, clicking the pinned post. Kai is tagged in the photo, so I hit his username.
His page pops up, and I can’t help but smile.
He looks so happy. And there are so many pictures of Baylee; you can tell he’s obsessed with her.
After I left, I blocked everyone, and my page went private. I didn’t want anyone to be able to check in on me.
He has Baylee tagged in his bio, so I click her name. Hers is private. Of course, it is. I giggle. My finger hovers over the follow button, but I immediately go back to Kai’s page.
Curious, I check if Bohdi is tagged, but he isn’t. Searching Kai’s friends, I don’t see a page for Bohdi.
Scrolling down Kai’s pictures, I get to the year I left.
Squinting, I see myself in the back of the picture from that summer, and it’s on that night.
You can see I’m talking to someone, my head bent down as I stand over them. The picture doesn’t show them, only blurriness, but I know who it is; it’s Bohdi.
That night I was so angry. I honestly didn’t know what to do with myself.
Grief overtook me, and even a year later, everything was still so screwed up.
Bohdi did his best, but his best wasn’t good enough for me.
He finally talked me into going to the bonfire on the beach, and I agreed after he begged.
Once we got there, I didn’t stop drinking.
I was taking anything and everything people were handing me.
Bay tried to get me to stop, but we got into a fight, too.
“You want to drink your sorrows away, August? Do it. I’ve tried to be here for you, but you keep pushing me away.
I don’t think you want help. You want to be fucking miserable.
” Her words were laced with hurt and venom.
And they stung because she was right. But also, that wasn’t my best friend speaking to me.
Baylee was battling her own shit, but I was only focused on myself.
I didn’t think I deserved to be happy anymore.
And at that moment in my life, if I wasn’t in a good headspace, then no one should.
I was young, stupid, and hurting from the loss of my mother.
“Fuck you, Bay,” I scream at her before storming off down the beach. The bonfire became just a glimmer in the distance, and I kept walking. To where, I didn’t know or care.
“August!” My name being yelled down the shore stops me for a moment, but then I take off running.
“Go back, Bohdi. I’m done,” I yelled out, flinging sand with each push of my legs until they burn, and I fall onto the sand, heaving. Each hand picks a fistful of it up, throwing it at him as he gets closer. “Just go,” I cry out, falling onto my back. Staring up at the stars.
He stands over me and slowly bends down. But I roll over onto my knees, picking myself up. Sand all over me, my hair stuck to the tear stains on my face.
“I wish you would just let me in, August,” he pleads, but I don’t want to hear it.
“I can’t,” I cry to him.
“You can, and I would help you. I just need you to want me to help. I’ve been doing this for the last year and,” he pauses, walking toward me, “I’m tired.” Those two words came out in a whisper.
My hand connects with his bicep, pushing him. "No one told you that you had to be here, Bohdi."
The moonlight casts enough light for me to see his face, his downcast eyes. The hurt marring them.
I feel the ring digging into my finger. And without thinking, I take it off.
“I don’t want to do this anymore.” I toss the ring at him and he barely catches it.
I watch as he places it in his board shorts, zipping the pocket; he won’t look at me.
I can see a tear rolling down his cheek.
And I know I have to do it. I have to. I can’t bring him down with me.
He deserves more than a grief-ridden fiancé.
He deserves the world. And at the moment, I’m burning mine to the ground.
“I don’t love you anymore. I haven’t loved you in a long time, Bohdi. It was just normal, and I don’t like new. But I can’t lie anymore.” I lie to him; it’s breaking my heart, but I love him so much I can’t drown him with me.
His head snaps up to look at me. “You’re lying,” he says with so much confidence.
For him to let me go, I have to hurt him. “I haven’t loved you in a long time, Bohdi. You were just here, and so was I. It felt like I was supposed to do this. But I’ve realized I don’t. I don’t have to do anything; I don’t want to do.” I lie through my teeth.
He scowls, concentrating on my face, the words slowly entering his brain and being planted.
“I would have let you take me down to the depths of despair with you, August. I would have let you keep hurting me and still loved you in all the ways you needed. I still would.” He turns away from me, walking back the way he came, his shoulders falling.
I watched him until he was just a ghost in the moonlight. My heart hurt; my soul crushed.
Falling to the sand, I sat there for I don’t know how long, talking to the waves, telling them the truth.
That all I've ever wanted was Bohdi, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever get the August back I was before I lost my mom.
And that truly scares me. The way death can change absolutely everything.
Everything it touches is never the same; we just learn to remodel our life with it.
I cry until I can’t cry anymore, picking myself up and forcing my legs to take me back from where I came.
The wind has gotten stronger, blowing my hair all over.
The fire is still hanging on for dear life, but barely lit. Once I get closer, I don’t see as many people as there were when I left.
I veer to the water, letting the waves lick my ankles, trying to stay out of sight so I could walk back to August Cove and be undetected.
My eyes scan the people, and I can’t see Bay or Kai, but I stop when I recognize the back tattoo. I stand there in a daze as I take in Bohdi making out with someone pinned up against his jeep.
I try to breathe, but it doesn’t feel like I’m getting any oxygen as I stand there and watch him as he turns around, spinning her with him.
I can’t see her face because her back is now to me.
His hands are all over her body before he lifts her up, and she wraps her legs around his waist. My feet feel like they're in quicksand; I can’t move.
I’m stuck as tears run down my cheeks, falling into the ocean, getting swept away into the sea.
A car turns on, its light highlighting me, and that’s when someone calls his name. In seconds, he has her on her feet and is walking fast to me, but I keep backing up. “I don’t want you near me,” I cry out to him as I stand up.
“August.” His words are slurred and he trips. But that doesn’t stop him from making his way to me. I don’t want him anywhere near me.
I keep walking backward until I’m waist deep in the water.
“Get out of the water, August,” he yells, but I keep moving further away from him.
We lock eyes as I’m using my tippytoes to stay above water. My body becomes a buoy. But I think we both feel it at that moment: something isn’t right.
Faster than I can blink. I’m pulled under a wave, getting sucked into an undertow.
I can’t find up or down. My head bobs out, and I suck in a quick breath, and taken back under.
I’m panicking; nothing I’ve been taught comes to me, but survival to get out of this.
But my body is slammed against the ocean floor and yanked farther out.
Breaking the surface, I scream, but it’s cut off when I suck in water, choking and sucked back under.
I can’t do this to my dad again. The ocean can’t take his other girl. Is all I can think of when I feel fingers around my ankle pulling. I stopped thrashing immediately, but everything turned black.
I hear words, but they're muffled. My body coughs up the water I swallowed, and then I’m puking.
“August. August, please.” The voice is pleading, and when I open my eyes, Bohdi is leaning over me, his hand on top of my chest, his finger lightly clasped around my nose.
I stare at him, trying to remember what happened, then it floods back in.
Me lying, him with someone else, and me getting sucked into the ocean.
My hands come up in defense, pushing him away from me. “Get away,” I cough out. I can’t catch a full breath.
There are a few people standing around us, gawking.
“Please, let me help you get back home.” He pleads, but I ignore him, stumbling to my feet, but I fall. My body feels like it’s jello; the panic and fight I put up have absolutely drained me.
“Go back to what you were doing, Bohdi.” I look around, wanting to get a glance at whoever it was, but I can’t; my eyes burn and everyone blurs together.
I watch his face morph. “It doesn’t feel good to be hurt, does it, August?” he spits at me and my heart breaks.
Standing on my shaky legs, I have sand stuck all over my body. “Bye, Bohdi,” I whisper-cry, turning around, leaving him standing on the beach.
I use everything I have left, which isn’t much, and run to August Cove, collapsing on the back porch, scraping my knees on the way down.
“Goose!” The back door slides open; my father runs to me. “What’s wrong? What happened?” His hands roam over my body, looking for any damage, but he can’t see what’s broken.
I cried harder than I ever cried before; I didn’t cry this hard when I lost my mom.
“Oh, Goose.” My dad hooks his arm behind me, brings me to him as he sits on the wooden porch, rocking me as if I’m a baby again.
“Shhh,” he repeats over and over again.
Between wrecking sobs, I say, “I hurt him, Dad. And he hurt me.” I don’t have to go into detail; he knows. He doesn’t speak, just rocks me.
I’m not sure how long we sit out there, but he looks at me. “Let’s go in, go get cleaned.”
“I need to leave.” I say it like I’m begging for his permission as I wipe my face. And maybe I am.
“Go get cleaned up first, and if you still want to, I’ll help you load up.”
My hair drenched from the shower, I drive out of the driveway, not looking back at August Cove. I knew at that moment I wouldn’t be back.
Thankfully, I’m able to catch the last ferry.
I force myself to get out of my car and watch Driftwood Bay slowly get farther away.
And I cry for him and everything I’m leaving. Everything I ruined.
The ferry horn sounds, yanking me out of the past. I hurriedly wipe my eyes before grabbing the seashell in the cup holder.
Bohdi proposed to me with the ring in this seashell, while we drifted on a boat in the middle of the bay, with no worries in the world. Screaming yes, before we made love.