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I opened my eyes and looked up, but not at the sky. At him. He was watching the horizon as the day erupted from the clouds. I glanced down and ran my hand through the midnight blue, seemingly bottomless, water beneath me. It was becoming a deeper shade of indigo as the sun lifted into the sky.
“So, which beaches are your favorite? Hawaii, or the Pacific Northwest?” I asked. He looked back out at the vastness of the sea in front of us as he pondered the question.
“I feel like the easy answer—the expected answer—should be Hawaii. But it’s not. Hawaii feels like home to me. The ocean is alive there. There is power within it that I think can only really be felt by the people who come from it. When I’m on the islands, I feel like I’m withmypeople. I’ve never had an entire culture to call my own before. It wasn’t something I got to experience growing up with my dad. Living there allowed me to connect with something that was bigger than myself, and it just feels like a part of my identity now. It almost felt like a spiritual awakening. I think that’s why for some time I was afraid to come back here. The mainland has always been my home, too. It felt like my soul was split in half on different sides of the ocean, and if I left the Hawaiian side, I’d lose it. That was why I got my tattoo.”
I wanted to ask more about his tattoo and ask him to show it to me, but I could tell he wasn’t finished speaking.
“But sometimes when I think about how the world was created, I think that if there is a God, they made the Pacific Northwest first. When I think of what heaven would look like, I imagine sprawling cliffs and pine trees. Snow-capped mountains and flowing rivers. The way that the green of the forest collides with the blue of the ocean. Painting the entire world around you the color of peace. It’s the type of place I’d want to go when I die. It has its own kind of power. I remember hiking the cliffs along the coast for the first time as a kid and getting way too close to the edge. I stared straight down and watched the biggest wave I’d ever seen at the time come crashing against the rocks. The entire earth shook, and that was the first time I understood the power of the ocean.”
I nodded because I understood. I remembered Lena always yelling at him to back up. I never dared to get as close to the edge as he did.
He sighed. “I don’t know which I like more. I love both in different ways.”
“Something tells me you’d feel at home as long as you were near the ocean. There are waves within your soul. I think it’s just where you’re meant to be.” I shrugged. He broke his gaze from the water and looked down at me. I watched from upside down as his mouth curved upward slightly. I couldn’t make out much of an expression, but something brewed behind his eyes.
They looked especially green in contrast to the blue floating all around him.
“I think you’re right. Even though I’m here, and my mom—my people—are a whole ocean away, it’s comforting to know that I can stick my feet in the water here and it’s the same water that my mom feels when she dips her toes over there. Polynesians were voyagers, that’s how they found Hawaii. They knew how to leave their families and venture out but stay connected through their spirit. I think it’s ingrained in us to connect to each other through the ocean.”
I smiled at him. It was silent for a moment. I didn’t think there was anything I needed to say. I’d never spoken with him so deeply about something before, but it felt comfortable. I’d never realized that being alone with him could feel like this. It was easy, effortless, and natural. As if it was always supposed to be this way.
I glanced up at the sky, covering my eyes with my hand. “What time do you think it is?” I asked. He traced my gaze and lifted his head towards the sun.
“It’s probably getting close to seven.” He smirked. “Are you ready to ride one in?”
I shook my head no.
“That’s the only way to make it back, Pep.” He laughed. “Unless you’d like to swim?”
I squinted my eyes and looked towards the shoreline. We were at least fifty yards out. I realized for the first time that I had never been this far out at sea before without some kind of vessel keeping me afloat (I’ve now decided a paddle board doesn’t count). In all the time we’d been out here, I hadn’t accounted for sharks, riptides, or the Cascadia Subduction Zone finally faulting and causing the catastrophic tsunami we’ve always been warned about. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was completely enticed by the moment I was in. Unafraid of the potential consequences. Carter made me feel that way. Bold and brave, fearless and carefree.
It would either be my salvation or my destruction.
Chapter Ten
Carter
IDON’TCONSIDERMYSELFA VIOLENT PERSON.
I’m pretty levelheaded, even when I don’t like someone. Even in times I feel I’ve been wronged; I’ve never had an issue keeping cool. I don’t really get angry, even. I’ve been in exactly one fight in my life (even if it could even be called a fight). I made a threat of violence one other time, something I never intended to act upon. Both instances were in protection of women I loved.
Once, picking up my sister from school when I was seventeen and she was about eleven, I noticed a group of boys following her to the parking lot of the middle school I now work at. She was trying to ignore them, but they were pushing her as she walked in front of them, sticking their feet out to try and trip her, pulling on the straps of her backpack to make her lose her balance. Her face was straight and stern, but I could see the tears building beneath her eyes. She kept her head down and walked in a straight line toward my truck. My sister would never expect me to step in, she wouldn’t want me to. She was independent and stubborn. She was capable of handling herself, and if she wasn’t, she didn’t want anyone to know. Traits I think rubbed off on her from Penelope and Maddie’s influence. I watched them intently but made no motion to step out of my truck. That was, until I caught one of those boys slap her backside as she stepped off the curb and into the parking lot. Their little parting gift.
My chest bloomed with fury at the sight of any child, especially my little sister, being touched in such a way. Against her will. I’d always held protective instincts by nature. I think it was a product of my father. He was a lawyer, a prosecutor. He dealt with the worst that society had to offer. He frequently heard stories so horrifying that I knew they kept him up at night. They haunted him. Many of those stories centered around the abuse of women. My father was many things: meticulous, strict, distant. Much of the time, more focused on work than family. I always understood why, though. His life’s work is heavy, and hard. He takes on responsibility that probably shouldn’t be his to bear, but he does it anyway and with pride. I may not have inherited his work ethic, but I think I inherited his sense of responsibility. One thing my father ensured to instill in me was respect for women. Watching the way he treated his wife, his daughter, even my own mother after they split, set the bar high for me. That was on purpose. Calculated. He’d never allow me to end up like the men on the bench opposite him in the courtroom.
The ones who harmed women.
In that moment, watching my sister as she jumped at the shock from that boy’s hands on her body, the way she trembled and froze. It lasted only a second, but the look of utter horror was abundantly clear. I realized it was a look that my father must have seen dozens of times in a courtroom, when victims recounted their experiences and came face to face with their abusers once again. I wondered where it started, those cycles of abuse. I don’t believe that people are born evil. It always has to start somewhere. Maybe it starts from touching a girl’s behind in sixth grade and feeling a sense of power from it. Maybe it grows from there. It becomes more unwarranted touches, or unsolicited advances. Then, it becomes schemes to get a girl so drunk she doesn’t know where she is and take her home. Or maybe it becomes impatience with a girlfriend and remembering the power that came from touching someone against their will. So, it turns into hitting her. Beating her. Worse.
I didn’t know where it started, but I supposed it could start there. Start with the way he touched my sister. The next thing I knew, I was putting my truck in park and flying out of the driver’s side, leaving the door wide open. My sister’s cheeks blazed with embarrassment as she caught me walking towards them. I snapped at her to get in the truck and shut the door. All three of the boys in question stepped back several paces, shrinking beneath me with each one. I was still a kid then too, but I held at least a foot and fifty pounds on each of them. They stared at me with wide, terrified eyes that told me they had no idea Charlie had an older brother. I asked them if my sister gave them permission to touch her like that, they looked at me like I was insane before shaking their head no.
I straightened myself and smiled. I calmly informed them that if they ever touched my sister, or any girl like that again, I’d break every one of their fingers. I told them I knew their names (I didn’t), and I knew where they lived (didn’t know that, either), and that I had friends at the school who would tell me if they were messing with any other girls. They nodded slowly before sprinting in the opposite direction. Charlie and I drove home in silence. She was mad at first. I picked her up every day after school that year, and the year after. I never saw those kids again, never heard a peep from Charlie or anyone else about them. My threat worked, and though she never thanked me for it, I knew she was grateful.
My almost-fist fight happened when I was eight. Penelope spent her first year with the Mason’s being homeschooled by Jenna. They thought she needed time to adjust to her new life in a private setting. After that first year, she started third grade with me. Easton was in fifth grade and the fifth-grade classrooms were on the opposite side of the school. They had separate lunches and recess times too. Our mothers worked to make sure Penelope and I were in the same class so she’d have a friendly face. I took it upon myself to be her friend and her tour guide, but most of all, her bodyguard. We didn’t tell the kids she was adopted. Except that Easton went into fourth grade with only a two-year-old sister at home, and when he returned for fifth grade, he suddenly had a nine-year-old sister who looked nothing like him. It wasn’t difficult—even for children—to put two and two together. It didn’t help that we lived in a small town, and Penelope’s family was well known. Parents would say things like:that poor girl Dr. Mason adopted after her mother died in such a horrific way. Where is herrealfather? Her family? Why didn’t anyone want her?Failing to realize that their children would overhear them.
When Penelope started school with us, it was a nightmare. People asked her where she came from, who her real parents were. They made fun of her red hair and her freckles. They asked her if she was stupid. Asked her where her dad was and why he didn’t want her. After that first day, I went home and told our parents. I told them all the horrible things that were said about her, desperate to get her out of the situation. She told me to stop, that she didn’t want to be homeschooled anymore.
So, instead, I started telling people to shut up. I started defending her. Doing whatever I could to take the attention off her and put it on me. There was one particularly awful kid, Riley. He started taunting me as the first few weeks of school progressed. Asking me if I had a crush on Penelope, asking why I was defending her. I told him it was because she was like my sister, and even then, the words tasted weird in my mouth. I knew they weren’t right. Riley then asked me if I had a crush on her because she was like my sister, or because she was– well, a slur I’d rather not even repeat inside my head.
