A Tragic Wreck (6 page)

His brain tried to tell his body to move, to run out of his suite and onto the beach. But he remained completely frozen, shock etched across his strong face. He stared as Olivia stopped running, looking in the direction that she had just come from. He could almost feel her smile as she stood gazing up the beach, laughing at something. Alexander followed her eyes to see a relatively tall man running toward her, obviously having trouble keeping up. He kept watching as she took a deep breath, the smile gone from her face. She slowly turned and looked out over the ocean.

And that’s when Alexander saw it. The sadness. The hurt. The loss. He knew that look all too well.

Because it was the same way he felt.

~~~~~~~~~~

Olivia looked toward the shore, waiting for Cam. As she watched a few small children run out from the back of the Ritz and into the ocean, their parents trying to catch up, she felt that familiar tingling sensation. Her eyes began searching the beach as if certain that
he
was there. But how could that be? She hadn’t told anyone where she was, and she had made it quite clear that it was time to move on. But there was an electricity in the air that Olivia hadn’t felt since the day she left Boston.

She scanned the beach, half expecting to see Alexander running up to her. She secretly
wanted
to see him, to run into his arms, have him swing her around and declare his undying love to her. But that only happened in the movies, not real life. And her life was as real as it got.

She looked out over the ocean waves, and the sadness took over. Her smile disappeared and that’s when she felt it…the emptiness. She thought she had felt empty before, but this was a new kind of emptiness. She realized how big of a mistake she made when she left Alexander, and she began to regret that decision. But there was no way he would take her back, knowing that the risk of her doing the same thing all over again was so high.

No. Olivia had made her decision and she would have to live with it. Those five little words still played over and over in her head…
It will destroy me, too
.

Hearing a child scream in excitement, she turned. People strolled along the white sand beach behind her. Tourists sat on their balconies of the Ritz, most likely enjoying their morning coffee. She wanted to cry when she thought about all those mornings she drank her coffee in bed with Alexander.

Her heart dropped when she noticed someone on the top floor of the Ritz, standing on a wrap-around balcony, staring down at her. It was too far away for her to make out who it was, but the stature was eerily familiar. Or maybe she just so desperately wanted Alexander to come searching for her, even though she had told him to move on.

“Jesus, you’re fast, Libby,” Cam said, finally catching up to her as she stared at the top floor of the swanky hotel, not responding, a blank look on her face. He wrapped his arm around her waist and gently kissed the top of her forehead. “You okay?” he asked, noticing her lack of reaction to him.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” She squinted, still looking at the man standing on the balcony, knowing there was something so familiar about whomever it was. She closed her eyes, trying to clear her head. She felt as if she was losing her mind. She needed to forget about Alexander. She saw him everywhere and it needed to stop.

Turning to Cam, she placed a gentle kiss on his lips, making him smile. “Ready to go back?”

“No,” he laughed. “But I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“Not really!” she shouted as she took off running, glancing back over her shoulder at the balcony on the top floor of the Ritz, unable to shake the feeling that Alexander was nearby.

T
HAT
BASTARD
!
A
LEXANDER
THOUGHT
as he watched the tall sandy-haired guy kiss Olivia’s forehead near her scar. It made him furious to think that someone else was touching her. His face flashed red with anger as he watched Olivia kiss him on the lips.
Those are my fucking lips!

He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. But mostly, he wanted to kiss her, to feel those soft lips again. He was losing control of everything.

As she started to run away, Alexander saw her look back, her eyes trained on his balcony. She was a long distance away but, in his heart, he knew that she felt the same electricity and turned to find the source. He was certain of it. Pacing back and forth, he needed to figure out what his next step should be. He was lost. She was within his reach. He could have shouted her name. Screamed it. Made her recognize him. Just seeing her made him feel as if he was breaking all over again, if that was even possible.

He faintly heard the door to his suite open and close. “Martin!” Alexander shouted, still shaken up over his first Olivia sighting.

“Yes, sir?” Martin appeared on the balcony as Alexander stood locked in place, watching Olivia run away, now just a tiny speck.

Alexander’s heart raced, thinking about how close she was to him. He very easily could have run out of his suite and caught up with her, but he had no idea what to say. No. Before he approached her, he needed more information.

“She’s here, Martin. I just saw her running on the beach. I don’t know what to do, but she ran north. She must live out there somewhere.” His eyes frantically searched Martin’s, desperate that he had a way of finding her. Alexander couldn’t think at that moment. He normally had an answer to everything, but he was so rattled after seeing Olivia that he was frantic, his mind racing over a thousand different scenarios.

“I’ll look into public records and see if there have been any transfers of real estate or anything else in the last month,” Martin responded calmly.

Alexander sighed, his brain function finally returning. “I highly doubt she would have done that. She didn’t want to be found. That defeats the purpose. No. I think our best bet is just to explore this little island. It’s not that big. It’s maybe three miles wide and ten miles long so let’s not rush this. Let’s not scare her off. I don’t want her to realize I’m here and then run again.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll look into rentals and do some public record checks anyway, see if I come across anything.” Martin disappeared into the suite, leaving Alexander alone with his thoughts, the sun now shining brightly over the Atlantic Ocean.

~~~~~~~~~~

Olivia saw her beach house appear as she rounded the corner and began sprinting, glancing back to see Cam far behind her. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that Alexander was on the island. But how? And why? Would he really track her credit card? Of course he would. She knew that.
 

Quickly retreating into her house, she grabbed two glasses, filled them with chocolate milk, and brought them outside, sitting down on her front steps. A few minutes later, Cam ran up, panting.

“Fuck, Libby. You’re an animal.” He exhaled loudly. “Remind me to never take you up on another challenge. Jesus…”

“It’s not as easy as it looks, is it?” she smirked.

“Whoever said it looked easy?”

Olivia shrugged, handing Cam a glass of chocolate milk. He eyed it suspiciously. “It’s chocolate milk,” she explained. “It will help your muscles recover. Trust me.”

“Okay,” he said cautiously, taking a sip of his drink. “I take it back. That’s actually really good after a run.”

“Told you,” she replied, bringing her own glass to her lips as Cam watched, sitting down on the front steps next to her.

Olivia looked out over the sand dunes, wondering why she had a feeling that Alexander was on the island. She had seen him everywhere but, this time, there was an electricity in the air, as if he had found her.

“I can tell the wheels are turning in that head of yours. You have that look.”

Olivia whipped her head back toward Cam. “What look?” she asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

“You know.
That look
. The one that, last night, I said was so fucking cute that I wanted to die. That’s your ‘thinking’ look, and it’s adorable. But I wonder what’s going through that head of yours. I know you’re not thinking about me, and that’s okay.” He grasped Olivia’s chin, bringing her face toward his. “But I really wish you
would
think about me, and forget about whatever or whoever did all this to you.”

“Did what?” Olivia asked softly, her breathing increasing along with her heart rate.

“This,” he responded quietly. “I know there’s a spirited, energetic, and passionate young woman in there somewhere, desperately screaming to get out. And I’m going to do everything I can to bring that person back.”

“Oh, Cam,” she exhaled, looking to the sky for her answer as she watched the seagulls swoop into the ocean, searching for their next meal. “I wish it was that easy. I think that girl stayed in Boston.”

“AHA!” he exclaimed. “Boston.” A huge grin crept across his face.

“What?” Olivia looked at him skeptically.

“Nothing. I’m just hungry for information about you, but I’m not going to press you. At least now I know where you came from, beautiful.” He winked.

“Yeah. Boston…”

“Do you miss it?” he asked.

Olivia thought about it. Did she miss Boston? Or was it something more? She shrugged as a truck pulled up along Ocean Avenue, a bunch of surfers getting out to catch some morning waves. Cam nodded a greeting. Of course he knew them.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Libby,” he said, turning his attention back to her.

“No. It’s okay. I mean, it’s hard to say if I miss it or not. When I got in my car with the few possessions I chose to bring, a strange feeling overtook me. I wasn’t just leaving my friends, but I was also leaving behind the girl that I was at that time in my life. Leaving Boston was so much more than saying good-bye to the city that I had grown to love over the last ten years or so of my life. It was also saying good-bye to the person the city turned me into.” A tear escaped as she thought about the girl she was back then.

When Olivia first moved to Boston right after she finished high school, she was shy and scared, her only outlet being music. She still remembered the day she met Kiera like it was yesterday. She had just gotten back from a run around the Charles River late one evening and there were quite a few people hanging outside the small three-story apartment building in the Allston section of the city.

Olivia lowered her head, trying to avoid eye contact as she made her way up the steps. “Hey!” she heard as she unlocked the front door to the building. “You’re the girl that just moved in, aren’t you? The new tenant in 1B?”

She turned around to see a petite girl with soft red hair, tons of freckles, and fiery green eyes. She looked far more sophisticated than Olivia. She guessed the girl had to be in her mid-twenties. Her smile was contagious and Olivia knew immediately that she could trust her. There was something about her that was so open and honest and she felt, for lack of a better word, comfortable.

“Yes. That’s me. I’m Libby,” she said, extending her hand to the redhead.

“Libby! So happy to finally meet you.” She wrapped her arms around Olivia, obviously not caring that she was drenched in sweat from a long run around the river during the humid August heat. “I’m Kiera!” she exclaimed after releasing her.

“Hi, Kiera. Nice to meet you.” Olivia retreated into the building, heading toward her apartment.

“Hey, Libby!” Kiera shouted, running down the short hallway to Olivia’s left rear apartment. “I’m having people over tonight, as you can tell. You should come, too. My boss sent a shit ton of liquor over, and I need someone to help drink it!”

“I don’t know,” Olivia responded, facing Kiera, noticing the hordes of people in the apartment across the hall.

“Oh, come on. Go shower, then come over. It’ll be fun. Plus, if your butt isn’t out of your apartment within an hour, I know where you live. I will come drag you out.”

Olivia rolled her eyes, turning to go into her apartment. “Okay. I’ll see you in a little bit then.”

“Goody!” Kiera said, jumping up and down as she rushed back out front to where a few people were smoking. “You know that shit will kill you dead!” she scolded her friends. Olivia laughed at her new acquaintance.

That night, she and Kiera had become friends. Over the next month, they had become inseparable. She even got Olivia a job at the bar on Boylston Street where she worked. It was Kiera who broke her out of her shell to begin with, but it was Alexander who opened her heart again.

“Hey, Libby. Come back to me, sweetheart.”

Olivia snapped out of her memory when she heard Cam's voice. She looked up to see him standing in front of her.

“There’s my girl,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her up. “Listen, I need to get back home. Can I call you later?”
 

Olivia looked down at her feet.

He noticed her apprehension. “What is it?”

“You’re going to laugh,” she said, meeting his eyes.

“Try me.”

 
Olivia shrugged. “I don’t have a phone. I left Boston and didn’t want anyone to be able to find me so my phone is still sitting in the kitchen of my old house, along with the rest of my possessions.”

Cam stared, curious as to what happened in Boston to make her want to leave everything behind. “Okay. Well…can I see you later? We’ll go up to the Ritz. They have a great bar. We can talk or just do absolutely nothing.”

She thought about it. Over the last several minutes as they sat on the steps to her deck, she hadn’t thought about Alexander as much as she expected she would. Maybe Cam was just what she needed to forget about him. Turning and kissing him gently on the lips, she smiled. “I’d like that.”

He beamed at her as he picked her up, playfully swinging her around. “Good because I’d be in a terrible mood if you turned me down.” He kissed her neck and placed her feet back on the sandy road. “Even after a long run, you still smell divine.” He jumped into his Jeep and started the engine, rolling down the window. “I’ll see you later, gorgeous.” He blew her a kiss and drove away, leaving Olivia feeling surprisingly content. For the first time in over a month, she felt okay. Not happy, but okay. And, for now, that was, well…okay.