“Idon’twant this.” She steps to the right, freeing herself from between me and the wall. “Things would happen… Things I don’t want.”
Does she mean me? That I would do things? I narrow my eyes at her. “Nothing would happen that you didn’t want.”
Her face is flushed, and I can’t tell if it’s from arousal or anger. Or both. Hell, right now I feel both.
She shakes her head, eyes a blazing blue. “Trust me, Luc.” Her voice has gone throaty, and she wears a bitter smile I’ve never seen. “You don’t want this either.”
Before I can open my mouth to tell her she knows shit, Millie is gone.
And I am in this new world alone.
Chapter Fourteen
MILLIE
Before Saturday,there were two things I absolutely refused to think about. The last moments of my parents’ lives and the last day I was pregnant.
Before Saturday, my memory cooperated. It kept my brain, and, therefore, my heart, safely cocooned away from those stories so I could deal.
But I fucked up.
I tried to add one more memory to the vault—the look on Luc’s face when I pushed him away—and I broke the whole damn thing.
I bolt up in bed. Wide awake at 2:37 a.m. Heart racing. Pits sweating. Sure I’ve heard Mom calling Dad’s name.
And even though I’m awake, I’m right there. Smack dab in the middle of my personal nightmare.
The best the Fort Myers Coast Guard could tell, based on Dad’s injuries and the blood spatter onThe Eloise II, the boom caught him on the back of the head and sent him overboard. Unconscious. In the middle of a thunderstorm. With night falling. And seventeen-foot seas.
The investigative team said they weren’t sure how Mom ended up in the water, but I am. She went in after him. I have no doubt about that. She didn’t waste any time. She pushed the emergency button on the DSC-equipped radio and didn’t wait to talk to anyone. The Coast Guard got the distress call with their position—nearly twenty miles offshore—but by the time the crew from Fort Myers located them, it was too late.
Did you know you can drown while wearing a life jacket? It’s true. If you’re unconscious and face down, it doesn’t take long. That’s what happened to Dad. He wasn’t dead when he hit the water. The coroner’s report was clear about that. Water in his lungs proved he had drowned.
Just like Mom.
She hated wearing a life jacket. I suspect she only did it when any of us were on board to set a good example. Every time I remember her putting one on, she’d make a face like she’d eaten something sour. Half the time, she wouldn’t even secure the clips, saying that made her feel like she was being smothered.
Even after having the four of us, Mom was a gravity-defiant D cup. It probably did feel like being smothered.
But she had to have on her life jacket if she went in after him. It would have been crazy to jump in that water without it. I can’t believe she’d do that. I refuse to believe it.
Yet she wasn’t wearing one when the Coast Guard found her. Eleven hours after they found Dad.
It wasn’t on her, but her hot pink life vest wasn’t on the boat either. She couldn’t have jumped in without it. She didn’t jump in without it.
My guess? She didn’t have it strapped on. When she went in after Dad, there was no time. She was probably beside herself with panic. Jumping in. Calling his name. Watching his lifeless shape bob and disappear between every crest and trough.
This is what I can’t bear to think about. Her fear. Her helplessness. Her knowing that their lives were in her hands alone.
Did she take off the jacket, thinking she’d reach him faster if she could just swim unencumbered?
When I picture that, I can’t get enough air. The first time I did, the day after we got the news, I hyperventilated and started seeing stars. Carter made me breathe into a paper bag. It was from Meche’s Donuts. It smelled like sugar and Bavarian cream, and as soon as I could breathe, I puked on his shoes.
Carter had been grossed out, though he tried not to show it. He’d been wearing a weird tightness around his eyes since we got the news about my parents. I thought he was worried about me. About me and the baby. It wasn’t until weeks later—after the miscarriage—when he told me he was leaving that I realized it wasn’t just tightness.
He’d looked trapped.
One in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage. But only women who’ve lost a baby know that stat by heart. Another statistic is that miscarriage risks drop dramatically after a fetal heartbeat can be detected—at about six to eight weeks.
