Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
“Right.” Where was she going with this? I braced my hands on the pier and held on to the edge as I listened, looking for any clue in her expression, but she was fully masked. Untouchable.
“And I understood the metaphor he was making, but I always thought that we were more like the pylons,” she continued, her fingers moving faster. “We were stronger together, more capable of taking the hits, holding the pier through storms, as long as we supported each other. But the longer I sit here, the more I realize that losing one pylon might damage the pier, but it doesn’t lessen the integrity of the others. They’re connected by purpose, not energy.”
She looked down as a wave crashed into the wood, the spray rising to just beneath our feet. “And now I think Dad was right. The four of us were a set, moving through life bound by an unbreakable force, at times unintentionally holding each other back so we could push forward together, not realizing the picture-perfect beach we were racing toward would break us one by one, and the others would be doomed to watch, powerless to help or prevent our own ruin.” The evening light brought out the gold in her eyes as she looked past me toward the beach and the breaking waves. “We aren’t the pylons. We’re the waves. Lina broke first, and in our own ways, the three of us are now careening toward the shore.”
“Allie, what happened?” A deep sense of foreboding sent chills up my spine, the feeling identical to the moments my tires had lost their grip on an icy road, and all there was to do was wait for them to find purchase—or wreck.
“That’s the problem. I don’t know.” Her eyes locked with mine, and the hair rose on the back of my neck. “But you do, don’t you, Hudson? Because you were there.”
“What do you mean?” My grip spasmed so hard I half expected to leave handprints in the wood.
“Gavin let it slip that he picked you up at the hospital”—she tilted her head—“covered in my blood.”
Oh fuck. My stomach crashed into the waves below, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to do. I froze.
“You. Were. There.” She spit it like the accusation it was. “At the accident. That’s the only way you could have had my blood on you.”
I wanted to run, to rewind time two days, two weeks, two months, and do it all differently. My ribs clamped down on my heart so hard it pounded in protest, but I’d never told Allie a lie, and I couldn’t start today. Except by omission.
“Yes,” I admitted. “I was there.”
Her eyes widened, and my heart screamed that I’d just cost us any chance at a future. “Were you in the car?”
“No.” I shook my head and fought the boulder of a lump forming in my throat. “I was behind you. We left the beach at the same time—”
“The beach?” Her brow knit.
“The cove where we kissed.” I grimaced at the way she instantly tensed. “Kissed now, not then. Then, I wanted to wait until we faced your parents, to do everything the right way, and then it all went so. Fucking. Wrong.”
“The cove.” Realization flared in her eyes. “I showed up that night?”
“You were late, but you showed up.” I nodded. God, I’d wanted to tell her so many times, and I should have. Damn the consequences. She never should have heard it from Gavin. “It’s the same road, so everyone just assumed you’d been coming back from the reception.”
“Did you see the accident happen?” Her hands clenched.
“No. You disappeared around the corner probably thirty seconds ahead of me. By the time I rounded the curve . . .” I looked away, my brain recognizing I was here on this pier, but my memory fighting to convince me otherwise, filling my vision with mangled metal and my lungs with smoke. “You’d hit the tree.”
“Was . . .” Her voice broke, and I snapped my gaze back to hers. “Was Lina alive when you got there?” Her lower lip trembled.
“Yes.” My chest tightened painfully. Her head had been turned toward Allie, her bloodied face flush with the steering wheel, but I left that detail out. Allie didn’t need my nightmares.
“What did she say?” Her eyes filled with tears, and my ribs threatened to break.
“She told me to save you.”
“But I was already safe.” Allie blinked, then shook her head. “Why did she go back to the car? What was she looking for?”
“Back?” My eyebrows jumped. “What are you talking about?”
“She went back!” She pushed up on the pier and stood.
I quickly did the same, a chill rolling up my spine. “You remember something, don’t you?”
“Yes!” she shouted. “It was my fault.” The wind gusted and she shoved the loose tendrils of her hair out of her face. “She pulled me out of the car, and then she carried me up the embankment to the shoulder of the road and sat with me.”