Where Sea Meets Sky(118)

I look up and see the sketchbook on the counter. I have no use for it now.

I pick it up, feeling its weight in my hands just as Gemma comes running up to the door.

“What are you doing?” she cries out in horror.

“Everything I owe you is in the drawer.” I shove the sketchbook in her hands. “This was supposed to be your Christmas present,” I tell her. “Feel free to toss it in the fire.”

Then I’m brushing past her and heading over to one of the buses loading wet and weary sightseers. I climb on board, and with a wad of cash and pained eyes, convince the driver to drive me as far as he can.

I take my seat at the back and avoid looking out the window, at the faint outline of Mr. Orange as the rain against the window blurs the image.

It’s over.

It’s not until the bus gets farther south and the sky turns blue again that I start to cry. It’s beautiful again.

And it’s all over.

I’m going home.





Chapter Twenty-Three

GEMMA

“Excuse me miss? Are you all right?”

I barely hear the voice. I only clue in when someone touches my shoulder. I slowly raise my head and see a Department of Conservation officer staring at me quizzically. He appraises me and then folds his arms. “Do you need help?”

I do need help. I need all the help in the world.

The gray, stormy sea beckons me. I wish to be a dead soul, to have a soul, to slip through the roots and shed this world behind me.

I’ve broken Josh’s heart.

I’ve smashed my own.

The pieces are jagged and lodged deep in my chest. My heart needs a tourniquet. Every breath I take hurts. The pain is so physical, so real. It’s like when my father died and I was just this lost, wounded creature for days, weeks . . . years.

At the time, I only had my friend Robin, who later became my boyfriend. He was there before the accident and he was there after, but he never changed. I changed. I let the pain define who I was. I let pain ruin me, hold me down to the earth with an iron fist. I let pain scare me.

I thought burning my paintings would help. And it did. For a time. I wouldn’t let myself grieve for them, though, for the art. What was the point? Why should I let myself feel over and over again when I have the choice to not feel anything at all?

I never understood why anyone would choose to go out into the world without armor on, to feel all the stabs, punches, and stings of life. That’s not how I wanted to live. I wanted to be free from pain, from loss, from broken dreams.

Art was a dream—but it’s fine, I don’t want it anymore.

My father was everything to me—but it’s fine, I don’t grieve him anymore.

Life isn’t what I want it to be—but that’s fine, I don’t deserve a better one.

That’s everything I tell myself, just to keep going on each day. I’m good at stressing, testing, building my body, so I do that instead. Being a personal trainer is a good job. It’s fine. It’s okay. It’s good enough for me. With this armor, I can’t do much more than the things I’m already doing, things I don’t care that deeply about. I can’t involve myself with people other than the ones I don’t care deeply about.

It’s not living—I know that. But that’s the point. It’s not living.

It’s a wall.

And now I’m standing at Cape Reinga, long after the crowds have gone home, frozen to the bone, staring at the sea. My wall has come down. And I threw the bricks at Josh. To maim, to kill.

It worked. He’s gone.

He’s gone.

I burst into tears.

The D.O.C. officer doesn’t know what to do. “Miss?” he says, softer now, and that bit of pity, of empathy for someone like me, does me in.

I start bawling.

He awkwardly puts his hand on my shoulder. He’s probably frightened to death. But I don’t care. I don’t deserve comfort, but any amount will do. I lean into him and sob on his department-regulated uniform.

I never deserved him and he never deserved to be treated the way I treated him. But it was all the truth because he doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t belong with me. He called me a stone cold bitch and it hurt because it’s true. He needs to be with someone less selfish, more open, warmer, nicer, better.

He needs someone else.

But I need him. I need him to keep pushing me. To keep believing in me. I need him to make me better.

I need him.

I lift my head off the officer’s soaked chest and look around. It’s nearly dark. This is a wild, heavy place. The mist is thicker, faster, swallowing things whole. The wind is stabbing. It matches my mood, my bleeding heart. But I can’t stay up here. I can’t do this all over again.

“Sorry,” I mumble to the man, wiping my nose on the sleeve of my jacket.