Page 44 of True Sight
Iroll my eyes at his message and toss my phone down. Leave it to Kolbi to mention how he has trackers on all of us for our “safety.” Theydidcome in handy though a few months ago when Malcolm was in trouble. I sigh and look outside through my living room windows. It seems like a nice day. A day very similar to yesterday. But yesterday was nice for more reasons than just the weather.
After Kolbi mentionedthe storm that’s heading our way a few days ago, I’ve been tracking it ever since. Hurricane season generally lasts through the end of November so it isn’t a big surprise that there is one coming ourdirection. From what I can see, it has the potential to do some damage if it continues to speed up. The news is calling for high flooding in the lowest parts of downtown, gale force winds, and several inches of rain. Looking out the window, I can see the storm clouds rolling in off the waterline through the window. Annie, who’s under foot like always, perks her head up at me.
“Yeah, we should probably go now,” I sigh before pushing back in my chair. I suit her up quickly and throw my raincoat on in case the skies open up while we’re gone.
As we walk down the street, I can see that several stores have their sandbags out and many of the older homes on the water have closed their shutters. Police blockades are being put up to block streets that are notorious for flooding and several parking garages have their barricades up for people to park their cars on higher ground for free. This is how the city always reacts when a storm comes in so seeing it like this doesn’t really shake me. I’ve lived in Charleston since I was eight years old and have made it through my share of hurricanes and tropical storms. More often than not, the city reacts worse than the storm actually ends up being.
We round the corner and start for home as the sky gets grayer and grayer. I can see it rolling in off the coast and feel it in the wind as it starts to rip through the city. Holding my jacket tighter around me, I duck my head against the wind and pick up my pace to get home. As soon as we hit the lobby of my building, the sky opens up and heavy rain starts to pound against the sidewalk.
“Thank Christ we missed that,” I snort towards my dog who’s looking up at me with a disappointed look on her face having cut her walk short.
I lead us up the elevator and back into my apartment, unleashing her and taking her out of her harness beforehanging it up in its usual spot for the rest of the day. It is only mid-afternoon and typically on Fridays, my friends and I head to Malcolm’s restaurant and hangout for the evening, but looking outside I don’t think that’s going to happen. I check the radar on my phone and see the growing rainbow of colors just off the shore and spinning towards Charleston before shooting a text off to our group chat to tell the others to be safe.
Heading back to my desk, I take a seat to put my head down to finish my workday. I have plenty to get done between Henry and other clients I picked up for smaller jobs to where I can’t just wait out the storm on my couch. As the hours pass, the weather outside only gets worse. Dark storm clouds roll in along with wall-shaking thunder and lightning. Unbothered by any of it, I put my headphones on to drown out the noise and keep pushing forward with my projects. That is, until the lights flicker twice and go out permanently. I slump down in my chair when my computer goes dark and hope to whatever god there might be that what I had been working on can be recovered. I had my auto-save on which gives me a little bit of hope but I’m already calculating how I can make up the work over the next few weeks if it’s been lost. When the lights don’t come back on, I let go of the dream that they might flicker back on and look outside, taking in the growing storm.
The sky is nearly black and the rain is relentless. Glancing down towards the street, I can see how the wind is forcing trees to bend and how angry the ocean looks. The streets are already starting to flood like they do during a bad storm and I can see some poor suckers who have gotten caught in the rain running down the sidewalk for shelter. Storms never bother me but they definitely aren’t my favorite thing, especially when they’re this bad.
‘I’m horribly terrified of bad storms.’His words hit me as I stare out the window, watching the storm grow in power. My eyebrows furrow as I remember our conversation from Saturday. ‘So much so that there have been times where I’ve been found curled up in my bath trying to hide from the thunder and lightning.’
Shit.
I hurry for my phone that’s sitting where I left it on my desk and open up our text thread.
Hey, I just wanted to check in with you with this storm.
I send the message and pace around my living room waiting for a reply. When he doesn’t answer after a few minutes, I send another.
It’s just a tropical storm, it will pass. Do you have power?
Again, I let my feet carry me in an anxious circle around my coffee table as I wait for him to answer.Maybe he is busy? Maybe he’s at the studio in a meeting or something. He could be teaching a class, I try to reason with myself.
Or maybe he’s holed up in his bathroom afraid for his life like he told me he gets during bad storms.
Texting him is getting me nowhere so I opt to call him but that doesn’t get me anywhere either. I call him over and over, each time getting his voicemail and each time getting more and more panicked by his lack of a response. I can feel my heart starting to race not knowing if he is okay or not.
Because he’s a friend.
I’m worried about him because he’s a friend. Nothing more.
When he doesn’t answer my fourth call, I give upentirely and decide that trying to get him on the phone isn’t enough. Looking out the window again, I purse my lips, annoyed by the plan my brain is formulating and more annoyed that I know I’m going to do it no matter how much I don’t want to go out into this stupid storm. But he doesn’t have anyone here and if he is truly as afraid of them as he said he was, I’m not going to let him ride this storm out alone.
“Annie, let’s go,” I call out to her and she comes running. I slide her harness around her and pull my rainboots and jacket on before stepping out and locking the front door behind me.
20
HENRY
I’ve been tracking the storm ever since I heard one of the guys working on the studio calling it a tropical storm on Wednesday. I knew hurricanes were a potential threat when I chose to move here but I didn’t think that I would be living through one within my first two months here. I don’t care what the news is saying, they might be saying it’s ‘just a tropical storm’ but to me, it is a full fledged hurricane and I’m treating it as such. I did all my food shopping, got bottled water, and made sure to fully charge all of my things in case we lost power. I seriously considered going back to London for a visit just to escape the storm but I was needed too much at the studio to do that. But now that the storm is here, I wish I had booked the very expensive plane tickets I found and left town.
I’ve hated storms ever since I was a boy. As long as I can remember, any kind of storm larger than a rain shower frightens me to my bones. I’m not sure why, maybe I have some sort of traumatic experience with them that my brain has blacked out like it has so many other memories from my past. There’s just something about the uncontrollable powerof a storm that makes me want to hide under my covers until it passes. I know, reasonably, that I’ll be fine once it’s all over but during, I’m always a wreck. I always feel silly being afraid of storms but then again, there are other people out there who are afraid of much sillier things.
Like balloons.
Or butterflies.
My irrational fear could be far worse.
After looking at the forecast last night, I texted Alex to let her know that I’d prefer her to teach her classes from home today if she had the space instead of driving into the studio. Hardie called me last night to let me know he was closing the jobsite down for the day so his people could stay home. If big, burly Hardie wasn’t coming in, neither was I. So instead, I woke up before the sun like I had been for the last few weeks, rearranged my furniture to make room, and taught my classes from my laptop perched on my TV stand. Thankfully I have the best students who were totally understanding of the last minute change of venue. But that was hours ago and now there’s nothing more for me to do except stand in front of my window and watch as the storm creeps closer and closer to shore.
