Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
39
Phoenix
The soft rocking of my body stirs me awake. As my eyes open slowly, I don’t remember where I am at first. But now that I can see, and all I see are dark skies, I remember.
I’m on the raft.
Adrift at sea. With Alaric.
I turn to find him. He’s looking out into the ocean from the opening of the canopy. What he’s looking for, I’m not sure, but he seems tense.
His shoulders are tight, and his jaw even tighter.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, and that’s when he turns around and looks at me.
His face has been on edge.
It’s pale. His eyes are large, and they seem hollow.
“What’s wrong?” I ask again.
Something isn’t right, but then something dawns on me. “What time is it?”
The sky is black, but there are no stars. There’s no sun either, just endless black clouds above us.
A storm.
“How long until it hits?”
As if Mother Nature answers us, a bolt of lightning cuts through the sky in the distance.
“Sooner than I had hoped.”
“This is bad, right?”
“This raft can withstand it,” he answers, but the monotone way he says it gives him away. Maybe when I first stowed away on his boat, I wouldn’t have heard it, but after endless hours of getting to know him, I hear in his voice everything he doesn’t say.
This is a very big deal.
“With our track record, it’s going to sink,” I deadpan.
“It won’t sink.” He is tight-lipped again.
“And you know this how?”
“Because I did my research before purchasing it. Just in case something like this happened.”
“And what did you find out?”
“The raft can survive the open sea.”
“Good to know. But for how long?”
“I’m not sure. The longest anyone has been on a raft like this at sea and lived to tell is seventy-five days … I imagine the rest died.”
“Well, that’s reassuring.” I shudder at the thought. “So … what you are saying is we should be fine.”
“Hypothetically speaking.”
I groan. “Oh lord, Alaric, just lie to me.”
“Do you really want me to?”
“No.”
We stare at each other, neither of us knowing exactly what to say. This storm changes everything. Although there was a good chance this plan wouldn’t work, the storm makes those chances even higher.
“I’m going to seal this up.” He points to the canopy on top of us, to the hole he unzipped for us to look out of. “It will protect us from the rain that will come.”
He moves to his knees and closes it. Soon, we are bathed in darkness, none of the gray skies showing anymore.
“Now what?” I ask.
“Now we wait. It could be hours, or it could be minutes. The water will get rougher.”
“Great.”
We both sit on opposite sides of the raft as we wait, each needing our own space to come to terms with what is about to happen. As time passes, I can feel the swells of the ocean getting larger.
The sound of raindrops hitting the covering echoes around me.
With each second, the sounds intensify, as does the beating of my heart.
The air in my lungs tightens until it seems it’s becoming nearly impossible to breathe.
Alaric must sense my distress because he’s up and next to me before I can even open my mouth.
“Breathe,” he orders. “Inhale deeply and then exhale. You are having a panic attack.”
I want to scream, No shit, Sherlock, but I can’t find it in me to voice those words, let alone find my voice.
“I have you. Breathe.”
He does, I know he does, but it still feels like a weight is sitting on my chest.
“Everything will be okay.”
But how? I want to shout.
How will it be okay?
As if the universe is playing a wicked trick on me, the raft thrashes around, each wave making us sway back and forth. When a big one hits, I find my voice in the form of a gasp or maybe a scream. I’m not sure what leaves my mouth.
Tears roll down my cheeks, and his fingers wipe them away.
“This isn’t just a storm, is it?”
I look up at him, and when he doesn’t answer right away, I know what he’s not saying. It’s not. It’s much worse.
“We’re going to die.” My limbs shake, and he holds me.
He holds me as I cry, as I tremble in his arms, and he tells me repeatedly that he has me.
All the things I’ve never done, all the missed opportunities, all the things I will never do play out in my brain.
And then, as my tears dry up because I have nothing left inside me to shed, I look at him.
I look at this beautiful, broken man. This man who has shown me more comfort and compassion in the past couple of weeks than anyone else ever has.
I never questioned my father’s love, but even when he took me in, he never took care of me like this.
I’m not ready to say goodbye to Alaric.