Rebel North by J.B. Salsbury
Twenty-Seven
Gabriella
His story provides the missing pieces. My memories click together, placing one fragment next to another until the picture of what happened that night folds out before me.
“You must’ve stood up right as I made that sharp turn. You fell over, and the prop—” He clears his throat and swipes at the tears on his cheeks. “You fell under the propeller.”
I let the words linger in the air and the gruesomeness hang in the space between us.
“I looked for you. It was so dark. Then I saw the life jacket.” Tears stream from his eyes, and he makes no move to wipe them. Almost as if he can’t even feel them, having transported himself back to that night. “You were face down. There was so much blood. Fuck,” he croaks. “I still see it like it happened yesterday.”
I grip the wall to steady myself. The chaos in my head becomes clear, and I slide down the wall to my butt. I put my head on my knees and breathe as my lungs burn and fill with phantom water.
How do I reconcile the Kingston from before with the man I’ve come to trust? The man I thought I could love.
He sniffs. “I tried to visit you in the hospital, but your parents stopped me at the door. I told them it was my fault and that I wanted to pay for my part. They didn’t need or want my money or my penance. They told me the only way to make things right was to walk away from you and disappear from your life forever.”
“And so you did,” I hear myself whisper. “Why did you come back?”
“I thought I could walk away from you, but not a day went by where I didn’t think of you. I found out you were in a coma, that you went too long without oxygen.” He takes a shuddering breath. “I couldn’t stomach the idea of not seeing you again. I had to say I was sorry. But then I remembered that you didn’t even like me. You didn’t want to get on that boat.”
“My parents told me I’d been out on a boat with friends, but they only named Ainsley.” I stare at the blank wall in front of me as it reminds me of the state I was in when I woke up. Blank slate. I remember those lonely days of recovery. No visitors. Just me, fighting to get myself back, when I could hardly remember who I was before the accident. “Ainsley never came around to visit. I had to learn to do everything again while having several surgeries to fix my face. I didn’t have time to even consider that my parents weren’t telling me the whole truth.”
“I ruined your life.” His eyes are bloodshot and puffy. “Your dancing.” A tear tracks down his cheek. “I took all of that away from you.”
I hold my head in my hands to keep my thoughts in order. A whirlwind of new information leaves me nauseous and my head sore. I don’t know what I’m more upset about—the knowledge that he’s been keeping our connection to himself all this time or that I never once questioned the truth of that night.
“I need to go.” I scramble to my feet. “I have to get out of here.”
I push away his attempt to help me up.
“Don’t rush out of here upset.”
I race to the elevator and hit the button to call the carriage. I catch my reflection in the elevator doors. The lights illuminate the three white scars—one that slashes my forehead into my hairline, the other my cheek to my ear, and the last that cuts from my throat to my earlobe. His fault. All of this is his fault.
“Bee,” he whispers softly.
I meet his eyes in the reflection as he stands behind me. “Don’t.”
“I’m in love with you—”
“Stop it!” I turn around and glare up at him. “You’re a liar.”
He recoils a step.
“Look at my face!” I gather my hair and shove my scarred side at him under the bright lights. “You did this! You did!”
“I know,” he says through tears.
“I want nothing to do with you.” The elevator pings, and the doors open. “If you care for me at all,” I say and climb aboard the elevator, “you’ll stay the fuck out of my life.”