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"Lieutenant Randall. A quick word," Olivia said as she hurried toward him.
"Ah, Conway. I'm actually a little busy," he began, not bothering to slow down as she fell in line beside him. "Maybe another time?"
"It will only take a second," she insisted.
"OK. But just a second. I really am... In a rush."
"I just wanted to double check that our... I don't want to say deal but, well that the understanding we came to is still in place?" she asked.
"Ah," Randall said. It may have been her imagination but he seemed to increase his pace, which was pretty impressive considering his size and physical fitness. "Well you see Conway I spoke to some people and it turns out that they really just don't want a female Navy SEAL in the program."
"Wait a minute," she said, reaching for his arm in an attempt to pull him up. Unfortunately he dodged her manoveur, continuing to speed ahead.
"Like I said, I'm in a rush and I really can't stand around talking all day."
"We had a deal," she said, trying to maintain her composure, but finding it very difficult.
"And I lived up to it. All I said was that I would try and help. Try and did that thus concludes my end of the bargain. I can't make miracles happen Conway. Some things aren't meant to be."
Olivia didn't
even bother arguing. As Randall increased his speed again, hurrying down the docks, Olivia slowed up, staring at the back of the man in disbelief. She had been played, as simple as that. Randall had wanted Clint prosecuted and all but lied as a means to ensure that it happened. And Olivia, in her ignorance, fell for it. Hook, line and sinker.
As she watched him go, she felt a few droplets of rain fall on her face. The sky above her was starting to turn. There was a storm coming. Appropriate, she thought to herself as right then she felt like she were drowning.
*
Clint's apartment was usually clean to the point of being clinical. He had little furniture to speak of, zero decorations lining the walls and flat benches and never, ever left mess out. Even the kitchen appliances were kept in cupboards until they needed to be used. Navy SEAL life had him trained.
It was only through knowing this, that one would be able to appreciate just how broken Clint was at that very moment. He sat in his apartment, flipping through TV channels but unable to keep anything on for more than a second. DVD boxes littered the ground in front of him, and in his kitchen a pizza box could be seen on the bench. Indeed, resting in his lap was a half eaten slice of cold pizza, and by his legs a discarded crust lay. There sat a broken man.
To describe the way he was feeling would be nearly pointless. From his actions alone it's clear that he had given up. He usually cooked his own food, never eating out. And he usually read rather than watched TV. His five o'clock shadow too was beginning to come in.
The phone suddenly rang, cutting through the silence. Clint stared at it without any intention of actually getting up to answer. The machine would get it, and if the call was important, which he somehow doubted, then he would call back.
"Hey Clint? Are you there?" Olivia's voice spoke out from the machine. Clint's eyes flicked to it, pausing on the machine for a second before purposefully looking away. "I'm, I'm sorry, Clint. You have no idea how sorry I am." She sounded desperate, worn out, sad. She sounded nearly as broken as he felt. "I know you probably don't want to speak to me ever again. And that's fine, you don't have too. I'm about to get on the ferry to San Diego and if you never speak to me again... I'll understand. But, if you do decide to, please know that... that I want you to call. Bye." And she hung up.
Clint's eyes flicked back to the phone, again pausing on it. She had sounded hurt, Clint couldn't deny that. Really he never had. He didn't doubt that making the choice she did had hurt her. But that wasn't the point. The fact that she made that choice anyway was what stung the most. He couldn't forgive her for that. He couldn't.
He pulled his eyes away from the flashing light on the machine. Instead looking outside, the complete opposite direction. It was then that he noticed the storm coming. The sky was as black as night, with the odd flash of lightning exploding within the darkness. It crept closer and closer, ominous and forbidding. Soon it would be on them.
Despite himself, Clint suddenly thought of the ferry that Olivia was about to get on. Hopefully the storm would pass by then. But then again, Clint had hopped for a lot of things. None of which had come to pass.
CHAPTER TEN
The storm had only gotten worse.
The wind howled, angry and vicious. It whipped at trees, sending branches flying as cars swerved across the road in an effort to keep steady. As the mayhem increased, the sky turned black as night, shrouding the entire island in darkness. Thunder shook from the heavens and the lightning was like fire in the sky. And although the rain hadn't come yet, Clint was sure that that was going to be beyond any downpour he had ever witnessed.
He had been watching the storm come for the last half hour, steadily getting worse and worse. As he watched it, he played over the voice message from Olivia too. Again and again he played it. Each time, despite himself, he felt himself forgiving her. And it wasn't so much her words that brought on his forgiveness, but her current predicament.
She was on a ferry, heading across the ocean in what Clint was sure was the worst storm he had ever seen. Despite himself, he just couldn’t stay mad at her when there was a chance she might be in danger. It was because of this that he knew he would eventually forgive her. It might be a week, it might be a month, but he knew that deep down he would come to forgive what she did. He just hoped that by the time he was ready, she won't have forgotten him.
But as he sat at home, watching the storm, Clint came to realize that maybe he was thinking a little too far forward. If this storm continued to increase at the rate that it had, there might not be a future to look forward too.
His eyes flicked to the machine one more time, before again looking out that window. At that moment a great palm tree across the road literally had itself torn from the roots as a huge gust of wind hit it. The tree then came crashing down, near shaking the floor beneath Clint's feet.
Clint was done sitting around. He was on his feet in a second, and out the door a second after that. He had somewhere he had to be.
