Sweet Alibi (28 page)

I sensed him sitting on the chair beside me. I didn’t turn, I didn’t need to. It was him, there was no question. We sat silently. I didn’t want to know where he’d been. I didn’t want to talk about what had happened between us. I didn’t even know if I wanted him next to me. I’d tried to blame him for causing my heart to crack wide open this summer, but it had been my own fault, and in all honesty it had probably been a long time coming.

“I’m sorry, Georgia,” he murmured after long minutes of silence stretched between us. He reached one hand out and caressed my skin with a tender fingertip. “I can’t be here anymore,” he said in a broken voice. My heart fragmented in my chest, cracks breaking open and causing fissures to splinter and bleed.

“No,” I whispered.

“I have to go, Georgia. This is destroying both of us,” he murmured.

“You can’t. I’ll… I can’t…” I was sure my heart was physically shattering into a thousand tiny shards. They were falling and shredding the organs inside me. My body was crumbling, and I was losing the man that had made me feel so much more than anyone else. He’d offered me the chance to forget. He’d pleaded with me to choose him, and still I hadn’t. I’d led him on and still chosen who was safe. I hadn’t been willing to gamble, even for Tristan.

“You chose him, Georgia.” Each word passed his lips on a painful breath. His eyelids at half-mast, he looked completely defeated. I had broken him. “I tried to get over you. I wanted so fucking bad to forget you. But every time I was with someone, it was you. Your hair, your eyes, your touch. You’re all I fucking saw. You have a choice, Georgia, but I don't. I don't have a fucking choice, I never did. It's always been you. You're it for me, but you still chose him. I’m fucking lost without you. You destroyed me. I’m not the person I was before I met you and I can't go back. Nothing works anymore without you.” His words seared a pathway to my heart. Like fire raging inside me, burning me from the inside out. The pain I’d put him through I felt acutely in my chest.

“Tristan,” I whimpered.

“Don't ask me to stay, Georgia. I can't stay. I want to stay for you, but I can’t. I can't stay for me. This is crushing me. You’re not mine to want.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as hot tears fell down my cheeks.

“I’m sorry too.” He stood and was gone. His words replayed in my head as I gazed out at the ocean, seeing nothing but him, his words, his pain. He was leaving, and my heart had stopped beating for the first time since I was twelve.

* * *

TRISTAN HAD BEEN gone for days, and as each ticked by I stayed in bed. I hardly ate, hardly spoke. Kyle called me every day, usually when he was crawling into bed at night. He knew nights were the hardest for me, but even hearing his soothing voice before I turned the lights out didn’t help. Silas and Drew checked on me, played cards in my room while I watched them silently from underneath my bed sheets. But nothing made a difference; I’d turned numb.

I’d also succumbed to nightmares every night. The most horrific I’d ever had. I’d lay in the partial state between sleep and wakefulness. I knew I was dreaming, but I was powerless to stop the inevitable. I waited as terror caused my heart to race, my breath to heave painfully, my skin to prickle with fear and sweat. The nightmares were ravaging my heart like a tornado hellbent on destroying everything in its path
―
they took it all.

I grew terrified to sleep. Dark circles had taken up permanent residence under my eyes. My brown irises dull, my skin pale. I was exhausted, but each time I burrowed into my pillow and closed my eyes, the nightmares returned, converging with memories. I became a shell that my pain echoed through.

Silas lay in bed beside me, stroking my hair, pleading with me to call Kyle. Pleading with me to go home to D.C. I couldn’t bear the thought. Drew grew desperate and sent Gavin to speak to me. He begged me to let him call Tristan, said he was sure Tristan would come if I needed him, but I refused. I couldn't take any more from any of them. I’d broken them all. I’d done things to both Tristan and Kyle that were unforgivable, and their lives would be better without me.

I padded to the kitchen in the early dawn hours a few days later. Diffused rays streamed through the curtains. I opened the French doors and shuffled to the deck. I inhaled the humid ocean air, sucking it into my lungs and begging for it to heal me
―
to do anything to erase the pain that was suffocating me. I moved down the porch steps and made my way to the beach. I walked and walked, trailing my feet through the gentle waves that lapped at my toes.

I passed our cottage. Sparing it a single glance, I felt the pain of that night stab me in the heart. We'd shared a few beautiful, stolen moments, and then he'd moved on, just like everyone had warned me he would. The very last thing I could handle and he'd done it. The lightning bolt that had seared a path to my heart at the memory of our time together eased into a dull ache until it evaporated into numbness. A hollow, black hole of blessed nothingness. 

 I turned to keep walking. I walked until the beach house was nearly out of sight before I stopped and looked out at the horizon. I was sick of the nightmares, I was sick of hurting the people I loved, I was sick of being unable to make up my mind. I took a few tentative steps out into the gently lapping waves. Small strings of seaweed curled at my ankles. I kept walking. I walked until I was up to my thighs, the cotton, summer dress I wore dampened at the hem and sticking to my legs. I brushed my fingertips in the water and stood quietly. I watched a gull land and the ripple that trailed behind him as he drifted.

I took a few more tentative steps and then sunk down in the cool ocean, my white dress plastered to my wet body, the loose fabric drifting in the water around me. Floating on my back with arms outstretched, I looked up at the stark, white clouds passing above my head. I inhaled the ocean scent and closed my eyes, a constant burn behind the eyelids from the tears I’d shed over the last several days. I didn't know what I wanted anymore, didn't know who I needed, before realization hit me. I needed myself, whoever she was, I needed to find her and nurture her. I needed to make her worth loving before I could love anyone else. An invisible weight seemed to lift as I floated. With ears submerged, I drifted in the water and lost myself in the world that existed around me.

My eyes clenched tightly together when I heard muffled rumblings. I was desperate to block out the intrusion. My body swayed, my mind lost in thought as waves surged around me.

“Georgia.” Strong arms curled around me and held me so tightly I could hardly breathe. I refused to open my eyes. I wanted to stay in the world I’d found for myself. The world where the pain subsided for just a little while.

“Georgia, thank God.”

I nuzzled into the body that held me and took a deep breath.

That scent.

His scent.

Tears jumped to my eyes as I snuggled in desperately. I wrapped my arms round his neck and my fingers curled into his too long hair. The hair that I loved to thread my fingers through and tug gently. The hair I dreamed about, the beautiful golden strands I saw on the kids in my daydreams.

“Tristan,” I whispered as he hauled me out of the water. He sat down, his clothes drenched, me in his lap. I curled around his body, locked my ankles behind his back as he held me in an iron grip. He held me forever and he didn't ask any questions. He knew I didn’t have the strength for words.

“I came to see you. I wanted to have coffee on the deck. I missed our mornings together. I couldn’t stay away anymore.” He rocked me back and forth, soothing me against his chest. Our wet clothes plastered to our skin as we sat tangled in each other. I took deep, calming breaths of his intoxicating scent. Stubborn tears trickled down my cheeks.

“I love you,” I said so quietly I wasn't sure he’d heard me. I didn't care. I hadn’t said it for him. He heaved a big sigh, and I felt his heart hammering in his chest, my own meeting his, beat for beat. His fingers wove into the hair at my nape.

“Georgia,” he breathed. He held my head tightly in the crook of his neck.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

“For what?” His husky voice breathed in my ear.

“Coming to me,” was all I said
―
all I could say.

Twenty-Seven

Georgia

TRISTAN STAYED AFTER he found me floating in the ocean. Weeks passed, the waves crashed, the wind blew, the summer slipped by, and all the while, a silent understanding existed between us. We didn't talk about what had happened, what had been said, but we'd been affected. I’d taken off Kyle's ring, but I hadn't told him yet
―
at least all the things I needed to say. I didn't know if I had the strength to break up with Kyle, but I knew I had to tell him. He deserved honesty, I was sure of that at least. He’d ceased calling every day; he’d apparently grown sick of my one-word responses because we were back to calling and texting a few times a week. I knew he was busy, and it was easier this way. Whenever we spoke on the phone, guilt for cheating on him tightened my chest and choked the words in my throat. It was easier to not talk at all.

The days flew by and Silas and Drew tried to pull me out of myself. They talked about house renovations and dragged me on outings to pick out paint colors or shop for furniture. I made decisions when necessary, but I didn’t feel the excitement I once had. Gavin and Tristan worked each day, and Tristan spent a lot of time on his boat, but every night he came home, and every morning we sat on the porch over coffee. Not much was said and we hadn’t slept together again, hadn’t even touched. The easy smile I’d fallen so hard for at the beginning of the summer had disappeared from his face. We'd broken each other. I knew I’d done most of the breaking, but regardless, we were both broken. I was living inside my head
―
working through my life, sifting through the rubble, making sense of what was left.

Soon we found ourselves in the middle of August. We were officially into hurricane season and a storm was predicted in the coming days. Drew had scheduled a construction company to come in and refinish the second story bedrooms, but with the approaching storm, they’d recommended we put the work off until it had passed.

Hurricane Isla was predicted to make landfall up the coast and while we wouldn’t take a direct hit, the effects could be severe and damaging nonetheless. Many in the area were boarding up and evacuating. I was determined to stay until I was forced to leave. Over the summer this house had become my home. We were making progress on the remodel, and I was as stubborn as I was smart, so I wasn't willing to pack up the one thing that had become essential to my existence over the past few months.

As the winds picked up and the days grew more overcast, more houses along the beach were shuttered and vacated. Silas was with Justin, the guy he’d been dating on and off all summer. They’d gone inland to weather out the storm at Justin’s house, and Gavin and Drew drove back to Jacksonville for a few days. In the end Tristan told Drew that he would stay with me until I left, or until they could make it back. I rolled my eyes at their entire conversation, as if they were talking about a child or someone who was sick; I was neither, I had just succumbed to the pain and the guilt that’d been chasing me. Finally Drew and Gavin had driven off after she’d hugged me tightly and had made me promise a thousand times over to call her if I needed her. She promised she would come rushing back. I knew that she would, and I promised her I would call if I needed her, knowing I wouldn’t. She also whispered in my ear to not be afraid to lean on Tristan. I nodded, but I knew I wouldn't do that either. She left with a pained look on her face as they pulled away.

That left Tristan and me alone. He’d refused to leave me by myself, even though I’d insisted I didn’t need him to stay with me. Things weren't even awkward between us. Awkward was a feeling, and I’d run out of those.

I made a list of things we'd need for the storm, and Tristan and I drove into town to stock up. Things were picked over, but we managed to get batteries, flashlights, a weather radio, bottled water, and plenty of canned goods. I made breakfast for dinner that night
―
eggs, bacon, and toast, and we sat quietly in the living room, television turned to The Weather Channel, watching the progress of the storm as we sipped white wine. We didn't talk much, but I was glad to have someone there, another body in the house.

I stood, wrapped an afghan around my shoulders, and stepped out on the deck. I sat on the porch swing and rocked it back and forth with one foot. I sipped my wine and tipped my head up to look at the midnight sky. The waves were rushing the shore in a thunderous, nearly deafening roar. A noise so loud it couldn’t be escaped. It left little room for the thoughts to take over my brain.

“Kyle texted.” Tristan stepped out on the deck and passed me my phone.

“Thanks.” I checked his message. He'd been texting more the last few days, asking me to come home before the worst of the storm hit. When I did answer, it was brief, and I promised I would keep him up to date. I frowned and looked at the most recent message before turning my phone off and setting it next to me on the railing.

“Have you talked to him lately?”

My eyes focused on Tristan’s. We didn't talk about Kyle. Not ever. Not since that day on the porch when he’d told me he couldn’t stay because I’d destroyed him. “No,” I answered.