I open my mouth, but he holds up his hand.
“A storm blew up. Quick, like they can on the water. Like today.” He wipes his eyes. “I tried… I tried to get back out there, to help her. But the waves, the currents were too strong. She… They found her a week later.”
“Oh god.”
“I shut down, then. Shut everything down. My business. My life. Who I was. All gone. Because I got angry, and I left her out there. And she died.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Everyone said that.” His face is pale as bleached bone, his expression bleak. “But I know it was. Just like today. I nearly fucking lost you, because I got angry again.”
“But I’m here. I’m okay.” I don’t reach out to him again, because I can’t bear it if he doesn’t respond.
“I can’t do this, Jade. We went too deep, too fast. I care about you too, but this just shows me how wrong it is.”
“How wrong it is? It’s wrong to… care about me?”
He shakes his head, his expression pained. I feel as though a weight is on my chest, crushing me.
“What’s wrong is how fast it happened. The reasons for it. I can’t… I’m not ready for this.”
“This is bullshit.”
“I’m not ready to go back into your world, Jade.”
“My world? Don’t we have a world together? A space where we can be just us?” I’m trying so hard not to cry. How is this happening?
“I don’t know.”
“Just go.” I’m so tired, my whole body aching. And I can’t do whatever this shit is. “If we’re breaking up, if you’re breaking us, then go. Fine. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” I turn my head away from him.
A moment later I hear the scrape of the chair, and then a door closing.
And I burst into tears.
Axel
How can someone I hadn’t even met a month ago leave such a gaping hole in my life? I keep telling myself I’m doing the right thing as I walk back home, as I sit on my sofa and stare out at the waves. Alone. Just like I wanted.
But later, I find a single frangipani flower on the ground. It’s crushed, the petals browning, yet it still holds a faint fragrance.
And I wonder why doing the right thing has to hurt so damn much.
ChapterThirty-Eight
Jade
Changi airport hasn’t changed much. I suppose I was only here a few weeks ago. Maybe I’m the one who’s changed in that time. Manny meets me at the gate, ushering me through the crowds, his bulk protecting me. It’s overwhelming to be among so many people again, to feel eyes on me.
I’m not staying here long, just a night to catch my breath, then a flight to New York early tomorrow. But as I glimpse the same poster of Zach and me in the shop window that I saw on my way through last time, I wonder whether I’ll ever catch my breath.
Thank god for Myles and Zara.
I called Myles as soon as I reached Bali, wanting to thank him for buying the land, for keeping the island safe. If nothing else, at least I was able to do that. But he knew by my voice that something was wrong. I almost broke down, but there were too many people around, too many possibilities that someone might see me, or recognise me. Luckily, Myles seemed to get it.
“I’ll send the jet. You can come to New York, stay with Zara and me. Or we’ll put you up somewhere, if you’d prefer to be alone.”
So now I’m back in the real world. At least I have some space to try and pick up the pieces, to work out what’s left of me.