Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
NOAH BARRETT
W e climb into the car, the streets wet from the storm that swept through for the last hour. As I drive through town, I see a few tree branches that have blown down, one even sitting on an electrical wire. “That’s not good.”
Savannah pulls out her phone and swipes her finger over the screen. She fiddles with the phone for a moment. “Looks like power is out on Willow Shade Island.”
I turn onto the main drive toward the bridge. “I have flashlights and candles. You can borrow some if you don’t have any.”
“Thanks.” Savannah slides her phone into her purse and sits there, looking out the window as I drive. She’s been acting weird since we talked inside the bookstore, and I don’t understand what happened.
I glance her direction. “Are you okay? Do storms bother you?”
“I’m fine,” she says. She doesn’t sound upset, but her body language says the opposite.
I let it go. It’s late, and maybe she’s tired. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed her pulling away from me. Hopefully things will be fine between us tomorrow.
I click on the radio, and we listen to music for a while. The weirdness starts to evaporate between us, so I start up a conversation.
“Do you want to go downtown for the pancake feed in the morning? It will benefit the Senior Center.”
“Sure. Sounds fun.”
I put my hand on the center console, needing to feel Savannah’s touch, and hoping she will take my hand. “Remember that night we were walking by the ocean, and it started to rain?”
She smiles at me for the first time since the bookstore. “I remember you stepped on some prickly seaweed, and you thought you got stung by a jellyfish.”
I laugh. “I’d forgotten about that.”
She dissolves into giggles. “You kept shouting for me to pee on your foot.”
I can barely catch my breath. “I heard that’s supposed to help.”
“It’s a myth.”
“Well, I know that now.” I cough and try to regain my composure. “You know how embarrassed I was after I found out a jellyfish hadn’t stung me, and the whole pee thing wasn’t even true?”
Savannah pats my hand. “I’m so sorry for making fun of you.”
I shake my head and thread my fingers through hers. “No, you didn’t. You were just poking fun. There’s a difference.”
“It was really funny to see this tough teenage boy jumping around and screaming.”
I slow down as I come to Willow Shade Island. Savannah’s right, all the homes are completely dark. The closer I get to our street, the more downed tree branches I see. Trash cans are scattered about, and one stop sign is even blown over. We drive by a couple of streets that are flooded.
I turn on our street and gasp as I see Savannah’s house. The large tree on the side of her house is uprooted, the branches through one of her windows, with possible roof damage. “Oh, no.”
“What?” She peers out the window and sucks in a breath. Her face goes white. “That looks bad.”
I squeeze her hand as I pull to a stop in front of her house. “Let me come in with you. I want to see how bad the damage is.”
“All right,” she whispers.
We get out and walk up the sidewalk, jumping over the large stream of water running down into the street drain. Savannah’s hands shake as she takes out her house key. I put my arm around her. “It will be okay.”
She doesn’t say anything. She opens the door, and we walk into her house. We both turn on our phone flashlights and shine them around the room. Things look normal in the living room. We walk through her house to the back where the tree hit.
We stop at a closed door. Water streams out from under the door and Savannah sucks in another breath. I open the door and carefully walk in assuming there’s glass on the floor.
A large tree branch juts into Savannah’s bedroom from the window. There’s an inch of water on the hardwood floor. Water drips from her bed, which sits under the window. Glass shards cover her bed and floor. I scan the ceiling, and there’s a large water spot where the roof is probably leaking.
Savannah lets out a soft cry, and I pull her to me. “It’s okay. You’re safe. If you had been in your bed when the tree hit, you could have been hurt. It’s a good thing we were out of town.”
She buries her face in my chest, and I rub her back while she sobs. “I can’t afford this,” she finally says into my chest. “Even with my homeowner’s insurance, this is going to cost way too much.”
My heart breaks for her. She sounds so scared. I could easily pay for the repairs, but I haven’t yet told her about my money. It’s a weird thing to tell someone, and I’m not quite sure how to do it without messing up things between us. “It’s okay. We’ll get through this.”
She pulls back from me and wipes at her face. “You’re right. I will get through this. I can … maybe get a loan or something.”
It didn’t go past me that she took out the “we” from my sentence. But now isn’t the time to nit-pick.
“Yes. We’ll think of something,” I say, putting the “we” back.
Her eyes widen as she looks at the time on her phone. “What am I going to do tonight? I can’t sleep here.”
“Come to my house. You can sleep there.”
She shakes her head. “That’s too much of an imposition.”
I gently lift her chin, so she’ll look at me. “Helping you is never an imposition.”
“But…I don’t know how long this will take to fix.” She glances around. “Look at all this damage.”
“We can mop up this water tonight. That will help the flooring and hopefully it won’t need replacing. The rain is done, and we’ll need a chainsaw to cut through the branches, so that can wait until tomorrow. Come on. Where’s your mop?”
Savannah sighs and goes to retrieve the mop from the closet. As we’re working on getting the water under control, the power flicks back on. “Oh, good. I’ll go get the shop vac. That will suck up this water quicker.”
By one-thirty in the morning we’re exhausted, but at least all of the water and glass is taken care of. I dump the shop vac outside and come back in. “Are you ready to call it quits for tonight?” I ask.
She pushes her hair from her forehead and nods. “Yeah.”
Savannah quickly packs an overnight bag while I run over to my house to get it ready for her. I tear off my sheets and put on a fresh set.
When she arrives, I grab a blanket and pillow from the closet. “You take the bed, I’ll sleep here.” I point at the couch.
She frowns. “No, I can’t kick you out of your bed.”
I roll my eyes. “This couch is comfortable. I’ll be fine.”
She leaves the room, then comes back a moment later. “You’ve got a king-sized bed. There’s more room in your bed than that little one on the yacht. I think we can both be adults here.”
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“What makes you think I’d be uncomfortable?” She shoves me toward the bedroom. “I’m too tired to keep arguing with you. Let’s just get some sleep.”