Stepbrother Charming(79)

I can't get a handle on my guts 'til spring comes, and I'm able to get outside. There's work to throw myself into, and I work like a fucking dog with my first fishing crew, learning everything I can from the grizzled vets I've brought onto my ship.

We're out there for weeks, making hay while the precious summer sun shines across the cold Pacific. I get hooks in my hands and swept overboard a couple times. I've finally found something that makes my muscles beg for rest, and it makes me fucking stronger

Except it's not strong enough to burn away the memories of how we loved and fucked last summer.

I fight not to drown in this crazy new business, pitting men against nature's worst. And I muster everything I've got not to fucking die in my own lonely anguish, killed by my own black heart curdling my blood on those long, dark nights when we're sailing through the rain, exiled from everything I ever cared about.

I'm lost. Out there with backbreaking runs and constantly shifting waves, I start to question whether or not she was even real, or if it was some shit I just imagined so I wouldn't go insane leaving behind my billion dollar family fortune.

But there's no doubt about the last thing I've brought from my old life. The ring was in my pocket the morning we got our savage wake up call. It followed me to jail, and then to Alaska, haunting me like a goddamned vulture because it's everywhere except on my woman's hand where it belongs.

Fuck. Fuck.

Fishing season ends and we're about done counting our cash. It's no billion dollar empire income, but it might be seed money for a few new clubs in Anchorage, assuming I decide to go back to the night life and don't kill myself alone on those hellish waves.

I'm sitting on the dock late evening, holding the little black box in one hand. My grip's so damned tight I think it's gonna snap, assuming I don't flip my shit and hurl it out to sea first.

Not that it'll do me much good if I did. I know damned well I'll dive into the cool water and swim after it. I'll fucking suffocate beneath the Pacific before I surrender the last thing I've got that ties me to that woman, to the summer I'll never forget.

I can't believe how much time's passed, and how much it doesn't matter. It's one whole year since I left the lower forty-eight forever, and it's still slitting me wide open. I've fought like hell to forget her, and I can't anymore.

I do the only sane thing left.

I walk home and hit the website of the fanciest Alaskan airline I can find. I place my order, print out a ticket for a one week trip in her name, and then I'm at the post office, scrawling a quick note before I stuff everything in a big flat envelope.#p#分页标题#e#

My boys said she still lives with her ma near Tacoma, and I've got the address. Hoping their info's right is all I can do.

So is hoping she doesn't just tear the envelope open, see what I've sent her, and throw it in the nearest trashcan. I sure as fuck would if a big, stupid man left me high and dry for a whole year, without even a note by pigeon.

Actually, I know that's a load of bullshit. If she's been hurting a fraction as bad as I have, then I know she'll want to see me one more time, if only to slap me across my face.

And I'll fucking let her too. Anything's better than suffering in silence, living this dead, dull mystery I try to call my life. I'll turn the Alaska shores red with my blood, my rage, my explosive need to have her under me again before I give up.

I drop it in the mail and punch the old blue box once, telling myself it's only a fucking week. It might as well be another ten years.

I've given her my hand, and I hope to fuck she takes it. But if she doesn't, you'd better believe I've got another ticket with my name on it, straight to Tacoma, or wherever the fuck else I need to be.

I'll chase her to the ends of the earth, anything for closure, whether that means tasting her lips on mine again, or listening as they cut me to tatters.





XI: Reset (Claire)


One year.

One complete course of the sun across the zodiac, burning me alive, leaving me in darkness. The Taser hurt me so bad I'll never forget it, but losing Ty numbs my body a thousand times worse, and it lasts far longer than the sting of lightning coursing through my skin.

For an entire year, his loss, his silence, hurts. I can't let go until the next summer starts to fade, marking the onset of the chill that's bound to last a lifetime.

I'm so ready to let go. I'm all set to slowly, painfully forget him after hundred hour conversations with Dana during our phone calls and weekend getaways to Portland. Mom's gotten her crap together too, and the stuff she learns at her long meditation seminars flows to me, encouraging me to hold onto my sanity through the heartbreak.

She talks all about Zen this and Buddha that and yoga breathing exercises. It's refreshing not to hear a thing about politics, except when she apologizes and beats herself up over the stupid marriage to Gary, the one that was going to help send her all the way to the White House someday.