Where Sea Meets Sky(121)

I nod. “Plans changed.”

She chews on her lip and says, “Okay. Well, I’m glad you’re home.”

She turns around, ready to head to her room, but I speak up.

“Hey, um, do you want to have a glass of wine with me?”

I rarely drink wine and never ask her to drink with me so she looks a bit stunned. But maybe she reads something on my face because she says, “That sounds great. Let me just change out of my scrubs and freshen up.”

Moments later, she’s back and I pour her a glass, and with it my soul. I tell her everything that happened, from beginning to end, with painful emphasis on everything that went wrong with Josh. She’s speechless the whole entire time.

Eventually she says, “Well, I suppose I should tell you that Nick came by yesterday.”

I raise my brows. “What?”

“Yeah.” She gets up and grabs another bottle off the rack. Naturally, they’re mostly all Henare wines. She pours us both another glass and sits back down. “He told me about the breakup. He dropped off a box of your stuff. It’s in the closet.”

“Oh.”

“He said don’t worry about the stuff he left behind, you can keep it. And he said if you still want a job at the gym, you’ve got it.”

Now I’m really surprised. “Seriously?”

She shrugs. “It’s what he said. Now that I’ve heard your side, maybe he realized he had been an overreacting asshole.”

“Did he say he was sorry?”

She smiles. “No. But he looked sorry. Like a mutt looking for scraps. I was tempted to slam the door in his face since you know how I feel about him, but I was very cordial. You would have been proud.” She sips her wine while I absently twirl a piece of my hair. “So, are you going to take the job?”

Now I shrug. “I don’t know.” I had come to peace with the idea that the world had better things for me. If I didn’t take the job, it would mean I’d have to move back in with my mother. If I did take the job, it meant I’d stay here. And my life would stay the same.

But I don’t want it to stay the same.

I know what I want.

Realization slams into me like a heated fist. I nearly knock over my glass of wine before I quickly fish out my phone and Google the number of the hostel that I knew Josh was staying at before. Sky Tower Backpackers.

“What are you doing?” Nyla asks, but I ignore her.

I get a woman on the third ring. “Good evening, Sky Tower Backpackers.”

“Hi,” I say, feeling flustered. “I have a friend staying with you. Josh Miles. He’s Canadian. Can you tell me if he’s there right now or . . .”

“Oh, Josh,” the woman says brightly. “He was here. He left this morning.”

The words get caught in my throat but I choke them out. “To go to another backpackers?”

“No, he went to the airport. I called the shuttle for him.”

I shake my head violently. “No, no, no. His flight to Vancouver is on the tenth. It’s the eighth.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I guess he caught an earlier flight. He had to work in the kitchen the last night just to pay for his room. Maybe he ran out of money.”

Maybe he ran away.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, thank you,” I whisper and hang up the phone.

Now he’s really gone.

“He left?” Nyla asks.

“Yes,” I manage to say. I can hear the emptiness in my voice, like an echo in a dark room.

She reaches across the table and puts her hand on mine. “I’m sorry. Really, Gemma. That sucks.”

It does suck. I literally feel like my heart has been sucked from my body and there’s nothing but a gaping hole in my chest.

I nod, swallowing hard. “Thanks.” I exhale loudly, like I’ve been holding in air all day. “I think I’m going to go to bed.”

“Why don’t you and I go out for lunch tomorrow?” she asks, something else we’ve never really done together. I’m starting to realize we were living together without knowing each other. But how could she know me when I didn’t even know myself?

It’s not too late to change both of those things.

“I’d like that,” I say gratefully and manage to give her a small smile before I shuffle away to my room.

I walk over to my bed and collapse on it. Chairman Meow, as if knowing I need quiet comfort, lies by my head, curled up. I tell myself it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to break down, that I can rebuild. Maybe not a wall, but a window.

The tears don’t come, though. I’m all cried out.

The ache returns, and for days it stays. Empty, throbbing cold. Nyla and I start hanging out together more, which helps soothe the pain, and soon I start driving out to Piha Beach in the late afternoons. It’s the only thing I want to do, the only thing I think will help me. I sit at sunset and paint the horizon, where sea meets sky. I paint the infinity, the melding of the two elements. I paint the messy beauty that changes from day to day, from dark and dramatic to bright and colorful.