Page 44 of All The Way Under
I rub the chip under my skin, eager to press my finger down, eager to end this in all ways, because I can’t think straight.
Why wouldn’t she want to be in here with me? After the magical afternoon, I can’t see a couple of sentences from strangers about my past throwing her this far off course.
I replay the conversation at least a hundred times in my head before I finally allow my eyes to close. Sleep won’t come, though. No, not after the trajectory of the day unfolded in such a haphazard way. Maybe it’s good she’s not next to me for a night. I’ll be able to think clearly about the next steps I need to take.
Her body. Her lips. The way her laugh catches on a low note before it cascades into a melody that calms me.
Saylor has thawed my cold, dead heart. I feel the change, and it hurts as much as it injects me with excitement because these circumstances aren’t valid. This isn’t real. Our time together won’t transcend. This cage and this tropical swampland paradise will be a mere memory tainted by suffering and plagued by the unknowns.
She realized it. That’s why she wants distance.
I lost Jocelyn in a horrific way, and somehow, I understand losing Saylor like this will be worse than death. I’ll know she’s out in the world being loved by someone else who doesn’t deserve her. It’s an agonizing thought.
Think of the plan.It’s almost time, McBrode,I chide.
My brother comes to mind, and I let myself be sad and wistful while I go through the sand table plan that lives solely in my brain. I miss Nolan. He’ll be there for me when I get home, I remind myself. If I live through what needs to be done. This isn’t a situation of only the good die young. This is uncharted territory in a mission that has too many variables to predict what will transpire when I say go.
When sleep eludes me, I shuffle over to the wall adjacent to the toilet. I move a few rocks out of the way that I’ve carefully chipped away and pull out the gun I stole from the old parts-and-pieces junk pile.
They haul in new things every Saturday on the fishing boat, and I couldn’t believe my luck when I found the loaded gun and random bullets inside what looked to be a dismantled glove box. It probably came off one of the boats they stole, and no one opened it up to see the contents.
I hold it in my palm, feeling comforted by the familiar weight and shape. Eight bullets. If the gun doesn’t misfire, I have eight lives to take if need be. I didn’t anticipate having this luck, butnow that I have no idea where Saylor is, I don’t feel as fortunate. I want to use it now to get what I want.
I tuck the weapon back behind the rocks, adjusting them so that, to the naked eye, nothing is amiss. Saylor knows I have the gun, but has no clue I know how to use it well.
Lying back down with my hands behind my head, I try to drift again, but this time I’m haunted by the car accident.
Jocelyn was in the passenger seat of my dark green 4Runner. She was wearing a bright red dress because we were heading back to college after dinner out to celebrate our first anniversary. It was a big deal. I bought her a necklace with a diamond inside of a water drop to represent the fact that we met at a naval college. It took me a month to pick it out—I agonized over what would be a perfect gift. Too much and I’d scare her away, but too little and she might not know how much she meant to me. I was a careful driver, always following the rules, never taking chances, especially with her in the car.
Jocelyn was telling me how she picked out the wallet she got me, a wallet I still use to this day. She said the man at the leather store told her his whole life story and his divorce drama as he was engraving the brown leather with my initials. She debated putting her initials and mine, so I’d always remember this was an anniversary present, but decided on just mine in caselife had other ideas. She still wanted me to use it.
I looked over at her, my eyes directly on hers, and replied, “Life only has the ideas I give it, Joci. And any life I live will have you in it. I promise.”
She smiled, lips glossed, and a megawatt smile shining. That’s when the headlights transformed the side of her face.
Her green eyes turned to the windshield at the same time mine did. A large delivery truck swerved into our lane, and I decided right then I’d carry this regret for the rest of my life.
I jerked the wheel right to try to avoid a head-on collision, and the passenger side of the car slammed into a large oak tree. The mail truck hit the tail of the left side of my SUV, ripping the 4Runner in half.
I don’t remember anything after the collision until I woke up in a hospital, Nolan leaning over me with worried eyes. My parents were there too. Jocelyn wasn’t.
Nolan knew what it would do to me. I think that’s why he wasn’t the one who told me Jocelyn was dead. It was my dad who said it very bluntly because that’s the only way to deliver news that doesn’t seem real. You have to say it outright in as few words as possible.
“She died on impact. The delivery driver had a blood alcohol level six times the legal limit. He lived…barely. You escaped with some scrapes and bruises. A concussion too. The delivery driver shouldn’t be alive for how much alcohol he had in his system.”
“It’s my fault,” I whispered.
Dad shook his head. “It was the delivery driver’s fault, and he’s going to pay for deciding to drink and drive for the rest of his life.”
He didn’t pay. He killed himself in prison after his trial. That’s why it made broad headlines.
“The tree. I should have pulled left.”
It was all so crystallized in my mind and still is. I could have saved us both if I had jerked the wheel the opposite way. I visited the site of the accident dozens of times over the years, thinking about how things could be different if I’d saved her and made a different decision that night. Maybe if I wasn’t so fucking in love with her, I would have kept my eyes on the road. Maybe I could have thought more clearly.
It was an open casket service, and she didn’t look anything likemyJocelyn. The makeup was too heavy, and they had to do some weird patch jobs on her face because of the damage fromthe crash. Her parents buried Jocelyn wearing the water drop necklace. I saw it in a new light as I stared into my first love’s coffin. It was indeed a fucking teardrop, not water. Fuck the diamond. Fuck everything that meant anything.
When I said goodbye to her that day, I said goodbye to the last remaining good part of myself. Sure, I was surly and dark as a child, but losing Jocelyn solidified my nature in a way that twisted into disdainful in a cruel way. There wasn’t anything I could do to fix it except become a SEAL and save people. As many as I could. It will never be enough to make up for that night, but for every life saved, I keep her in my life. Like I promised Jocelyn.
