Restless Waters

  OTHER BOOKS BY JESSICA PARK

  Flat-Out Love

  Flat-Out Matt

  Flat-Out Celeste

  Left Drowning

  Clear

  Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Park

  All rights reserved.

  Lyrics reprinted with permission © Troy

  Visit my website at www.jessicapark.me

  Cover Designer: Damonza.com

  Editor and Interior Designer: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Note from the Author

  1: The Scars Are Many

  2: Lobsters and Absence

  3: We Ain't Running

  4: Come Home to Me

  5: Crash My Party

  6: The Impact on Landing

  7: Cowboy

  8: Hidden Riptides

  9: Martyr

  10: Bingo and Kisses

  11: Unicorns and Rainbows

  12: The Sweat of Your Skin

  13: You're Hurt

  14: Roadie

  15: Just a Song

  16: There Are Dolphins, There Is Death Valley

  17: Shaken

  18: Burn, Baby, Burn

  19: Same Shit, Different Day

  20: To Have Them Both

  21: Just Water

  22: Running Through Pain

  Acknowledgments

  Troy

  Lyrics

  For Troy, who beautifully and selflessly pours his soul into his music. It takes bravery to dig deep and share raw emotions, and he does that with incredible spirit, unfailing determination, and a voice that will touch even the darkest of hearts.

  This book would not have come about were it not for the ferocious loyalty of my readers, many of who have written to share their own stories and experiences after reading Left Drowning. The truths you shared, the excruciating realities of life, the strength that it took you to survive…I was left at a loss for how to respond in any way that felt to be enough. So, now, there is this book, in whatever testimonial it is to your survival.

  A month after Left Drowning’s publication, I started an outline for a second book. I soon realized though that it was too soon to start a second book. I wasn’t ready. It takes a certain emotional headspace to be willing to delve into some of this material, and I had to wait for the right time.

  I also had fears about following up that story because I knew I couldn’t repeat what I had already written. I couldn’t write Left Drowning again, right? I would need to do something different. So, I refocused. Restless Waters is less expansive and narrower in its story, and it was a pleasure to have the chance to hone in on the dynamic between Blythe, Chris, and Sabin.

  Troy was gracious enough to let me lift lines from his songs to open every chapter. He writes lyrics in much the same manner that I write books. He writes to explore what it means to experience life and all that comes from feeling everything as powerfully as we can. He experiences, he broods, he intellectualizes, and then he explodes with emotion. In many ways, listening to his music empowered me to continue on with these characters, and I will be forever grateful to him for that.

  As Sabin points out, trauma is the gift that keeps on giving. The start of healing that we saw in Left Drowning was indeed only the beginning. The characters you followed faced real-world challenges, and no one is done. There are flashbacks, repercussions, endless effects that will haunt. There is, however, survival. And there is bliss.

  Recovery is a process, a long one, and I send out love and support to all who are struggling and fighting for survival.

  I fight for you. I hope for you. I believe in you.

  I kick my feet in the cold ocean water and open my eyes for a fraction of a second before the sunlight blinds me, and I shut them again. The glare is still strong and heating my skin, deepening the tan that has built from my hours outside. The dock presses against my back, but the wood is smooth and soft from age, so I meld into it. My hand moves over the slats, and I trace the familiar texture. I will never tire of this dock. So much has happened here, been revealed here.

  Pain and truth, yes, but it’s also a place where friendship and love have been solidified.

  Maine has become my place of healing and stability.

  A breeze rushes across my body, and I inhale deeply, taking in the strong salty air. Late August here on Frenchman Bay in Bar Harbor, Maine, has brought ideal weather with sunny days tinged by a crispness that tells me fall will be here soon.

  I kick the water harder. For a moment, a sense of melancholy washes over me. Fall means that Chris’s brother Eric and their sister, Estelle, will return to Matthews College for their senior year, and my brother, James, will go back to Colorado for his. The twins should have graduated last spring, but both changed majors and had to register for additional required courses. I hate that they’re leaving soon because this summer has been a dream. The Shepherd siblings, my brother, and I have been under one roof, all safe, all finding peace.

  So, I brush my brief sadness away. I really can’t complain about anything.

  My calm reflections on peace, however, are short-lived when I am suddenly doused in icy water.

  “Sabin!” I scream, throwing my hands in front of my face way too late to stop the deluge of water that soaks me. When I wipe my eyes enough to see, I sit and look up. “You’re a prick!”

  But I can’t help laughing, even while shivering from the shock of the chill. Also, the swim trunks he’s wearing are covered in sock-monkey prints, and that does nothing to lessen my laughter.

  “You’re a prick!” I scream again.

  “But you love me anyway.” Setting down a large plastic bucket, Sabin smiles broadly with a bit more pride at his stealthy attack than I’d like to see.

  I do my best to glare at him.

  “Say you love me anyway!” he demands. “Say it!”

  I stick out my tongue and reach for my nearby towel.

  Sabin gets to it before I do and holds it above his head. “Lady Blythe McGuire,” he says all too seriously, “I suggest you say that you love me anyway, or this towel is going to sleep with the fishes!” He waves it around in the air. “Like a tragic victim of a mafioso vendetta!”

  I stand and start to jump up and down in a desperate attempt to grab it, but I’m no match for Sabin’s height or his incessant giggling. “Fine. I give up. I cave! I’ll say it! I love you anyway.”

  He cups a hand to his ear. “I’m sorry. What? Once more—with feeling.”

  “Sabin! I’m freezing!” I say, laughing. “I love you anyway! Sincerely! With as much feeling as a very cold person can muster!”

  “Victory!” he hollers, lowering the towel.

  I go to take hold of it, but he lands it on my head, covering my face, and then he wraps a big arm around me so that I can’t move. I feel him furiously rubbing the top of my head while I giggle and try to squirm free.

  “I’m going to kill you,” I mutter through my laughter.

  “You poor thing,” he says. “Sopping wet! Bitterly cold! Your moment of sunny solitude interrupted so callously! Who would do such a thing? Let’s dry you off.”

  He starts rubbing the towel over my face and then drops it to my back so that I’m pinned between it and him as he wildly y
anks it back and forth, spinning me from side to side. These days, he’s much too strong for me to even think about getting free, so I accept that I’m basically putty in his hands until he’s had his fill of goofiness.

  Finally, he stops, and I dizzily look at him.

  “Sabin?”

  “Yes, my lady?”

  “I see two of you.”

  “Lucky girl!” He leans his forehead down against mine. “Oh, whatever shall you do with two Sabins?”

  “I can barely handle one.”

  Sabin wipes the towel over my cheek. “Missed a spot.”

  I shiver, and he pulls me into his hold. A Sabin hug is always a good place to be. Today, his chest is hot from the sun, and it helps warm me.

  He’s lost a lot of weight over the past year, and I notice that I’m more fully against him than I used to be when he’d hug me. For a moment, I miss his big belly. Of course, he looks a lot better, but the absence of his soft extra weight is undeniable.

  About once a month, he’ll agree to go on a run, but he bitches and moans most of the way. Running a section of the Boston Marathon with me last spring was not, it seems, a catalyst for taking up regular routes. Yet I can feel that he’s getting more muscular and less flabby, thanks to the lifting that Chris has been pushing him to do and the work he’s been doing with James on the house all summer. My architect-to-be brother redesigned one of the bathrooms, and Sabin was totally on board with smashing tile, hauling out the old tub, and lugging materials up and down the second floor.

  I touch a hand to Sabin’s bicep and squeeze. “You’re getting all beefy, Sabe.”

  “I’m quite sexy, you know. It’s sickening how ripped I am. I don’t know how any other dudes can stand to be around me because my macho manliness is too much to bear.” He steps back and begins striking a series of clichéd poses in which he flexes his muscles.

  I shake my head in amusement, but the truth is that he does look good. His black hair flops around his face as he moves, and his green eyes twinkle. While he’s not exactly ready for underwear modeling, the change in his physique is obvious. He looks healthy, and even his face has slimmed down a bit. It turns out that Sabin had cheekbones under the fullness.

  After he finishes the umpteenth muscle stance, I step closer and touch a hand to his cheek, rubbing the scruff. “Are you ever going to shave this off, so we can see your pretty face?”

  “That would be too much hotness to handle. I need my scruffiness to minimize the impact.” He shakes his face against my palm and grins.

  I suppose the big sideburns and perpetual five o’clock shadow suit him.

  “You shouldn’t make jokes, Sabe. I’m really proud of you.” Now, it’s my turn to embrace him, and I slip my arms around his stomach. “I’m so glad you’re staying with us. I couldn’t stand to lose the twins, James, and you.” I squeeze him hard.

  He is such a source of solace and stability for me. Of that, I am constantly aware and constantly appreciative. I feel like I can’t explain that wholly to him, but I try to remind him of it as much as possible. It just never feels like enough.

  There aren’t the right words or right phrases to encapsulate how powerfully he’s become part of my being, how to convey how I worry about him, how I celebrate him, how I mentally fuss over every hour he is awake. Maybe it should feel creepy, but Sabin’s mother died years ago, and he doesn’t have a girlfriend or other close friends. He’s a young guy still, and I cannot help but feel that someone should watch over him, that someone should love and adore and hover.

  But I say what I can—for now. “You’re my best friend, Sabin. I feel like you always have been, even before I knew you.”

  He pauses for a moment and then rests his chin on top of my head. “And you’re my best friend. Of course you are.”

  I rub his back and move to his side. He actually has a waist, and I’m almost entranced by the way he’s changed. “You’ve done so much since rehab—”

  “Oh God, don’t call it rehab. That’s such a hideous word. Let’s just say, I was at a spa getaway, suffering from exhaustion, like a celebrity.”

  “Stop. There’s nothing wrong with rehab.”

  “It wasn’t really rehab. It was excruciating intensive therapy.”

  “Well, you haven’t had a drink since you left. That’s sort of rehabish.”

  “Alcohol wasn’t really my problem, sweetheart. That was a poorly thought-out coping mechanism, I’m told. A replacement for actual self-analysis and change. Boring psychobabble.” He pauses for a bit too long. “And can we not do this? I did what I had to do, and now, it’s done. It’s handled.”

  I didn’t mean to stumble into this conversation. Talking about his past, everyone’s past…it’s a bit of an unspoken rule that we don’t go there. There are details that he cannot bring himself to share with me, and I get that. I want him to have privacy and containment, if that’s what’s helpful.

  I know that Sabin feels ashamed, and I’ve learned not to dig too much with him. Whatever he’s been doing to free himself from his childhood trauma seems to be working, so I give him space. But I also want him to know that I acknowledge what he’s pushed through, and I’m proud of him.

  “Sorry. I just meant to tell you how much I love you, and I’m glad you moved in here.”

  We stay quiet and listen to the gentle splash of waves as the tide finishes coming in.

  “This fall, we can go apple-picking and jump in leaf piles and…and…do things with pumpkins.”

  “Do things with pumpkins?” he asks with a small laugh.

  “You know, carve them, make pumpkin bread, smash ’em up. Whatever you like.”

  “Okay.” He kisses the top of my head.

  “And, you know, you’ll perhaps disappear for the night with another tourist and crawl home in the morning. Then, I’ll make you pancakes while I avoid hearing lurid details and lecture you on how stupid one-night stands are.”

  “And I’ll tell you how sexy and awesome they are and how I’m just adding to my glowing reviews on Yelp.”

  “Shut up. You’re worth more than a Yelp review. You’re more like Zagat’s.” I hold his waist in my hands and squeeze. “Seriously, look how lean you’re getting.” Then, I put my palms on his chest. “And these pecs!” I throw my arms around his neck and tightly hold him. “God, my best friend is gorgeous.”

  “Blythe…stop…” Sabin starts. It’s unlike him to look embarrassed, but he does now.

  “Mmm?”

  “Blythe, don’t…” He sets his hands under my arms and eases me back. “It’s just…you can’t…”

  I look up and see that his face has a more serious expression now. “What? What is it?”

  He half-smiles and tucks a stray hair behind my ear, but he doesn’t say anything.

  “Sabe, what is it?”

  Suddenly, he twirls me around and then yells, “You can’t stop me from doing a cannonball!” Then, he lets me go and leaps from the end of the dock, tucking his knees into his chest, before pounding into the water.

  Just because he’s dropped some pounds doesn’t mean that he’s a small guy by any means, and the splash he makes when he crashes through the water’s surface soaks me again.

  My dog, Jonah, barks sharply, and I turn to see him running, soon passing me, before flying off the dock to reach Sabin.

  Even though I’m not a fan of the freezing water, I still do laps every few days. Jonah though has logged more hours swimming than I have. That’s mostly because Sabin spends at least an hour a day playing with him, throwing a tennis ball into the water over and over for Jonah to retrieve. There’s nothing my German shepherd loves more than swimming with Sabin, and it tires Jonah out almost as much as going with me on my runs.

  I hold a hand up to my eyes and watch as Jonah paddles to reach Sabin, who is now floating on his back while lazily kicking his feet and sweeping his hands through the water, letting the gentle current determine his drift.

  A voice carries my way. “W
ith a little imagination, that white bathing suit is practically see-through.”

  I laugh. “It is not.” I pivot on my feet and try not to look as stupidly in love as I feel. I’m sure I’m failing, but I’m all right with that.

  Chris walks slowly down the steps from the house to the beach area. Part of me wants to rush to meet him, and the other part wants to just watch him. It doesn’t matter that we live together, that I’m with him every single day. I have the same strong reaction, the same unyielding surge of love that rips through me, every time I see him.

  I don’t feel the cold on my skin that should be amplified by the breeze. All I can feel now is that Christopher Shepherd is my home and my heart.

  The late-afternoon sun hits his face, and even the sound of Jonah’s barking and Sabin’s whooping can’t distract me. Chris is even tanner than Sabin, and the loose white button-down he’s wearing with jeans is damn hot. His hands are tucked into his pockets as he looks at me almost shyly.

  Most of the time, he exudes nothing but confidence. Chris is entitled to any self-assuredness and sense of capability he has. I adore that about him, and I rely on it. Still, even after all our time together, Chris has moments where his stance when he’s around me is almost nervous, hesitant. There’s a questioning air in his approach, as if he needs to check that I’m still completely engulfed in him.

  The answer is always yes.

  The few seconds of insecurity he can’t control are not really about me. They’re flashes of his history, which did nothing to breed trust. In Chris’s blip of tentativeness, I see a little boy who is alone, who has made himself responsible for shielding his siblings from a sickly abusive father, and who is desperately frightened that he might fail. A boy who fears he might not be accepted and loved because he is not worthy of anything but savage outrage and psychotic delusions.

  I am still trying to glue together the broken pieces of this person I love. He manages his tortured side with remarkable skill, but even Chris, with his endless supply of strength and clarity, could not survive all that he did without scars.