Page 16 of Lost in the Current of You

The sound of the crashing waves and the sand squeezing between my toes broke through the silence. The party was just about to wind down when I left and the muffled boom of the music still echoed in the air, but the waves drowned out most of it. I dragged my feet through the shoreline as the water lapped at my ankles and I stared up at the darkened sky. Stars littered the sky without as much light pollution around, and I marvelled at the beauty I wasn’t used to seeing, surrounding the full moon.

I followed blindly down the beach with the location on my maps, squinting every now and then through the darkness hoping to find him. I had terrible eyesight at night, but with the combination of the moonlight and the dim glow of the street lights a few metres away helped me in my search.

It was another minute of wandering before I finally looked up and saw his shadowy figure lying in the sand with his hands propped behind him and his gaze lost in the darkness above. He hadn’t noticed my approach, seemingly deep in thought with his pinched brows and lips in a hard line.

It was only when I took a seat beside him that he blinked down at me with a look that almost brought me to my knees. I could only describe the look as… broken. He tried to cover it with a lopsided grin as soon as he took me in, but it was the downcast of his eyes and the redness rimming them that shattered that facade. He didn’t have time to build those walls to prevent me from seeing him like that.

I hesitated a little, wondering if I should have come at all. It felt like I was intruding. Like this was something I wasn’t meant to see. This was something bigger than random thoughts or silly little secrets like I was used to by the riverside. Bigger than I was prepared for when Jake came to me in panic or when I got Reece’s reply. But my chest ached at seeing him like that, and I couldn’t see it in myself to leave him like this. It only made my chest ache more, knowing that he was alone, left to stew in his own thoughts before I got there.

“Hi,” I whispered just a breath above the sound of the waves. It was like the bubble he had surrounded himself in had pulled me into its atmosphere and my voice couldn’t bear to utter any louder than that, scared to shatter the confinement.

I wondered for a split second if he even heard me.

“Hi,” he whispered back.

He watched me for a moment before returning his gaze up to the sky, leaning back against his hands again.

I watched him as his features pulled down, and he lost himself in his thoughts once again.

My feet were buried under the sand while my arms hugged my knees. “Are you okay?”

He never removed his gaze from the sky. The only tell that I knew he heard me was how he pressed his lips together and the furrow of his brows. He didn’t utter a single word as he mulled the question over before squinting and tilting his head from side to side as an answer.

I sighed, the urge to push more to find out what was going on with him too strong to ignore. “Why did you disappear and ignore everyone’s text? We were worried.”

The question finally brought his gaze to me.

Reece was the type of person to hide behind his charming smile and wit, yet in that fleeting moment, he laid bare this raw pain that I had never seen — a rare vulnerability just for me to see, whether intentional or not.

He didn’t even try to hide it with a smile this time and that made my heart break for him. His eyes were filling with unshed tears and the skin around pulled taut with restraint. Whatever was going on inside his head distressed him so much he was ready to break. It made me want to uncover whatever darkness and pain he was consumed by and help lift the heaviness that sagged his shoulders. To wrap him in my arms and protect him from whatever hurt him. I wanted to protect him from whatever made him feel so depleted and broken.

His brows bunched together. “Well, I texted you, didn’t I?”

I shot him a pointed look and he sighed.

“Today is already hard for me. It was getting too much and I just needed someone. That’s why I texted you. I just wanted to sit in silence and not talk about it. Can we do that please?”

It was something about his tone – pleading with an undertone of exhaustion – that had me reaching for his hand. I smiled and obliged him, mimicking his position before raising my gaze up to the stars and breathing in the cool air that brushed our skin.

It was like he had this wall guarded around any and all of his thoughts and emotions. I don’t think he had shown this side to anyone and that’s what made me want to shake him and scream at him to let it out. To stop bottling it all up and to scream at the ocean or at me. I didn’t care. I would have held him through it. I would have been the shoulder to cry on or the verbal punching bag he needed. I just didn’t want him to deal with it on his own.

But I conceded, knowing that the hint of pain that he allowed me to see was hard enough for him. He let me take his hand, which seemed to be enough to hold him through the inner turmoil he seemed to be going through, to take even just the tiniest bit of pressure off him by my presence and our interconnected hands.

It was silent for a while between us. I didn’t know how much time had passed. But every so often, I felt his hand squeeze a little tighter and I held it back just as tight in those moments as he fought through his thoughts with a furrow of his brows.

His voice finally broke through the silence, tight and gravel, like he was fighting to hold back all his emotions. “Do you ever wish you could go back in time and change things that have happened in your life? Like stop yourself from doing something stupid, do something you should have done, or even…” He stopped himself on a swallow as his face pinched in pain.

My eyes flickered over his face, like I could somehow transport myself into his head and see all he could see. But I couldn’t, so I clamped tighter around his hand.

“All the time,” I admitted.

I wished I had been better prepared for my future and decided what I wanted to do. I would have stood up to my mother and not let her try to control me for so long. I wouldn’t have gotten involved with Liam if I had realised before that I was too scared of having something real.

He sighed with a deep breath as he looked at me, the pain still so evident in his. “I would change so much.” His last word cracked as he whipped his eyes away from mine and wiped furiously at them with the back of his wrist.

I swallowed, my brows pinching as I turned toward him. “I’m right here, Reece,” I whispered desperately, begging for him to trust me enough to be real with me. To let me see the raw him. Let it out.

There was a long moment where our gaze never left each other. There was a war fighting in his eyes and I willed him to push those words through his lips. But he just let out a deep breath before leaning forward to tuck his head into my neck.

---