Shipwrecked Summer (16 page)

I sighed and tried to shoot a dagger straight through her heart with my eyes. “Do you still have that letter from Jeff?”

“Why, yes, I do believe I do.” She reached into her bag and handed it to me. “See you later.”

The paper felt warm and comforting in my hands. I tucked it the beach bag I always had with me and pedaled home, thoughts of Prince Charming at the Treasure Chest dancing in my head.

Little did I know that tomorrow we’d come so dangerously close to losing everything we ever cared about.

It happened so fast.

No warning.

The clouds looked heavy, rolling, dark, ominous, promising pounding rain. Thunder and lightning would soon follow.

Radio reports buzzed with news of the impending storm forming just over the horizon. It would hit Fresh Water Island within the hour, no later.

The island bustled with chaos as word of the storm spread.

Shrill blasts of the lifeguard’s whistles filled the air as they closed the beaches.

The wind whipped the glass windows of our shore house. Pictures rattled against the walls. Grandma had gone to the beach an hour ago and Poppy and I needed her back to get the house ready for the storm.

I ran down the stairs so fast I almost tripped and face planted at the bottom of the steps, grabbing my beach bag as I flew out the door.

The atmosphere had changed in minutes on Gull Boulevard. People ran in every direction, hurrying to secure loose beach chairs, umbrellas, and toys, boarding up windows that faced the ocean.

I sprinted across the bridge and stopped before I hit the sand, scanning the beach for any signs of my grandmother.

She wasn’t very hard to spot. In her fire engine red bathing suit that almost perfectly matched the color of her hair, she stood talking with Anthony’s mother next to the lifeguard stand.

I sighed, not wanting to approach them, but knowing I didn’t have much of a choice.

“Grandma!” The wind carried my voice. “Grandma!” I ran toward them.

“Lexie!” She looked startled to see me on the beach. “Do you see those clouds? Don’t they look exciting?”

“Yeah, exciting, definitely,” I said. “Come on, Poppy needs your help. We’ve got to take care of the house.”

“I’m in the middle of a conversation here, dear. I’m sure you and--”

“Do you not understand what’s happening?” I cried. “That storm is going to make landfall soon. We’re right on the ocean!”

My grandmother gave Susan Killeen an exasperated roll of the eyes. “You’ll have to excuse me. It seems as though I’m needed.”

Susan glanced out over the ocean as if she was just now noticing the rapidly approaching storm. “Perhaps I better get back, too.”

“Ted dropped him off at the ridge this morning! He can’t get back out there to pick him up.” A lifeguard stood on the stand’s seat, scanning the ocean with a pair of binoculars.

“He loves the ridge, Jen,” her partner said, but he couldn’t completely mask the worried expression on his face. “Jeff’ll be okay, even if he’s got to stay out there until the storm blows over.”

Jeff? Jeff, a lifeguard? My heart sunk to my toes. There had to be another Jeff, they couldn’t be talking about my Jeff as if he was stranded out in the middle of the ocean in a storm that promised to be so violent.

Jen furrowed her brow. “He could die out there.”

“He won’t.”

Jen’s fears--and the worried expression on the other lifeguard’s face that he was trying so hard to conceal for her--sent me into a full-blown panic. Did Jeff even know the storm was coming?

“Sorry,” I said to them, unable to keep quiet any longer. “But are you talking about Jeff Blanco? The lifeguard?”

She turned to me and nodded and I was horrified to see the tears in her eyes. “Do you know him?”

I could only nod.

“He wanted to take his boat out a couple hours ago but his dad had already gone fishing this morning,” she said. “So Ted took him out. He just called up the shift manager and said he needed to get away for awhile.” She shook her head as if she couldn’t quite understand it. “Something about not getting any response from a letter he wrote, I don’t know. But it’s not like Jeff to just bail on work like this. Something’s got to be really wrong.”

If I’d been scared for him before, I was downright terrified now.

Not only was Jeff out there somewhere, alone, but it was my fault. The letter. It had to be the one he’d tried to give me, the one I’d finally taken from Gianna.

“Does--does he know about the storm?”

“We don’t know. He isn’t answering his phone. I’m sure he’s seen the clouds, but for all he knows, they could be moving in any direction. By the time he realizes it’s heading our way....”

“Where did he go?”

“White Cap Ridge,” she replied. “Ted thinks it’s too risky to try and get there before the storm blows in. There’s a chance he’d get stuck on the water and then he’d be worse off than Jeff.”

“How far away is it in this weather?” I knew Joey could get there in ten minutes if the conditions were right.

Jen shrugged. “Maybe fifteen minutes if you know exactly where you’re going. The storm’s expected to reach us in less than half an hour.” She studied me for a second. “You’re not thinking of going out there, are you?”

“I have to,” I said, suddenly realizing it was true. “He’s out there because of me.”

“You can’t! It’s way too dangerous,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter,” I replied. “He’d go out there for me.”

“That doesn’t mean he wants you risking your own life to save him. This isn’t some movie. It’s real life. And I’m sure the harbor master has a no-boat rule in effect right now, anyway.” Jen shot me a triumphant smile.

Ignoring her, I dug in my bag, suddenly frantic to find the letter. If I was going to do this, I had to know why he’d gone out there in the first place.

“What are you doing?” Jen demanded.

I tossed old lip balms and receipts to the sand, dropping to my knees to root around in my bag. Finally, my hands landed on the envelope. I pulled it out, holding it in my hand for just a second, before tearing it open.

It was a single page of loose-leaf paper written in his scratchy handwriting:

Lexie,

I hope you’re reading this no matter what you think about me right now. And I’m sure your opinion of me isn’t at an all-time high. I should have been there that night. I wanted to be there, you have to know that. I’m sure you don’t want excuses, but you need to know that I was getting ready to come see you, finishing up my shift for the day. Brittany cornered me on the beach. She wanted to talk to me about how things ended, said she realized she made a mistake and wanted me back. I told her that I didn’t need--or want--her anymore. That someone else had shown me what a real relationship could be like, what it meant to actually care about someone else. I told her she and I had never had that.

She wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t take no for an answer. I tried to leave. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough. But the truth is that I’m miserable without you, more miserable than I thought possible. Sometimes you’ve got to take a risk to find that one thing that makes you happier than you could ever imagine and that’s what I felt with you. And I don’t want to give up on that so easily.

Please, please, at least let me talk to you face to face. I need to see you again.

Jeff

I didn’t know that tears were streaming down my cheeks until I folded the letter and tucked it neatly back into the envelope.

I had to get off the beach.

Sprinting across the sand toward the bridge, I heard Jen call after me, desperate to know what I was doing, but there was no more time to waste. I’d already lost enough of it.

My bike leaned up against the side of the house exactly as I’d left it. I threw my bag into the basket and took off pedaling. There was no time to tell Grandma where I was going and she’d only try to talk me out of it.

I prayed that it would be there. I didn’t have a back-up plan if it wasn’t.

My legs burned as I forced them down onto the pedals, willing the bike to go faster with each rotation. I barely came to a stop at the intersection of Gull Boulevard and Central. I flew through the traffic light and down the bayside streets until the marina rose into view.

The Lady & the Tramp was docked exactly where I remembered it. Jeff’s father had returned from his early morning fishing trip thanks to the impending storm, which was what I’d been counting on.

I jumped off my bike, barely remembering to grab my bag, and ran. I flung myself into the boat, knowing that I needed one last thing to go my way before I could do what I needed to.

I hurried over to the bench where Jeff had packed our lunch last week and ripped off the lid. I dug through the contents of the storage container, praying that the plastic purple frog would be there.

Finally, my hands circled around something that felt right. I pulled it out and turned the frog bank over, taking the stopper out of the bottom and shaking the boat’s keys loose into my open palm.

I tossed the frog aside and ran for the controls, sticking the key into the ignition, trying to remember everything that Jeff had told me about operating the boat.

I pushed a few buttons, sent up a silent prayer, closed my eyes, and yanked on the throttle. The engine caught and my eyes flew open, a smile spreading across my face.

I managed to maneuver the boat out of its slip and out onto the bay.

I was pretty sure I knew where the island was, but as I glanced out over the ocean at the dark clouds, my stomach twisted. Could I really make it in time?

I drove parallel to the beach, surprised to see it completely deserted. Many of the ocean-facing homes already had wooden boards nailed to the windows. All the furniture had been removed from patios.

This wasn’t the Fresh Water Island that I loved.

The wind whipped through my hair, vicious and unrelenting. The clouds were closer now. I could just make out of the rising shape of White Cap Ridge in the distance.

And that’s when the rain began.

There was no drizzle, no warmup, no warning.

Huge sheets of rain pelted me as they fell from the sky.

I could barely see, barely hear. And, for a moment, as a big fat drop of rain fell into my eyes, I couldn’t remember why I was doing this in the first place.

Then I thought of Jen’s words: Jeff had done this because I hadn’t acknowledged the letter. And I thought of the letter, sweet, and cute, and perfectly Jeff. I had to know that he was okay.

White Cap Ridge wasn’t far now, just a few more minutes and I’d be able to dock the boat and find Jeff. There was still a chance we could make it back to the mainland before the worst of the storm hit.

The waves grew choppier, higher, making it harder to navigate through the water, but I somehow reached the dock, dropping the anchor. I jumped onto the wooden plank and tied the boat to a post before I ran to the sand.

Then I stopped.

White Cap Ridge wasn’t the biggest island, but it wasn’t all that small, either. I had no idea where to find Jeff, where to start looking.

“Jeff!” I screamed, but the wind carried my voice out to sea. “Jeff!”

And then I was struck by a horrible thought, an unimaginable horror. What if someone had come back for him already? Jen and the other lifeguard at Gull Boulevard definitely weren’t the only ones who’d known he’d been out here before the storm. Someone could have picked him up hours ago!

No, he was here. He had to be.

I began to run again, plodding through the wet sand, shouting his name, blinding rain and wind making it nearly impossible to see more than a few feet in front of me.

“Jeff!”

I spotted a hill a few yards away and ran for it, thinking that maybe I’d be able to see Jeff from a higher point.

As I struggled to climb the hill and secure my footing against the slippery terrain, I lost my grip on the ground and slid back down, crying out in pain as my knee banged into rocks before I came to a stop, slamming against a thick tree trunk.

I sniffled, afraid to look down at my leg, but my knee screamed out in pain.

The first thing I saw was blood. The gash in my knee oozed and I bit my lip. I remembered seeing a first-aid kit in the boat, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get back there in the rain on my bum knee.

I laid there, wrapped around the trunk of a tree, bruised and bloodied, drenched by thundering rain. And Jeff was nowhere in sight. I couldn’t help it...I started to cry.

I could die out here!

Damn that Jeff and his sweet letter!

“Haven’t we done this already?”

I looked up, wiping my runny nose on my wet sleeve, and my eyes widened.

A soaking wet Jeff stood there looking down at me, hands on his hips, eyebrow raised.

I cried harder.