Page 10 of The Space Between
She jumps at my tone, clearly startled but she starts back toward shore. “I—what?”
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” I rage, storming into the water and grabbing her arm. It takes both of us to get back to the shore. As soon as we reach the bank, I drop her arm like it burned me.
She flinches as I glare at her. I’m soaked, my jeans are plastered to my legs, and my breathing is escalated. I snarl again, “Are you stupid?”
She jumps like I hit her and backs up like she thinks I’llactuallyhit her. Her eyes are wide and terrified. Instead of reigning it in, it enrages me further.
Does she think I would hit her? That I would hit any woman?
I’m so close to the edge of snapping, but I finally realize how scared of me she is. Stepping back, I exhale through gritted teeth. “Do youknowhow many people drown in this river every year because they think it looks calm? You go in alone, without a float, without telling anyone, and you think that’s fine?You don’t go into the river alone!”
She jumps again, but her back straightens. Her eyes meet mine. “I wasn’t trying to— I didn’t know the current was so strong. I can swim.”
My eyes widen and I coldly say, “So could my wife!” Her face pales, but I don’t let her speak. “You didn’t know! That’s no excuse. This is a damn river. A force of nature and you weren’tthinking! Jesus Christ, I?—”
My voice wavers. I turn away, jaw tight, chest heaving.
She doesn’t speak.
When I finally look back, her eyes are wide and glassy, and her bottom lip is trembling. She’s deathly pale and shaking.
Shit.
I take a step forward. “Shit! Blakelyn… I didn’t mean?—”
“No, it’s fine,” she says, her voice thin and tight. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know this river. I shouldn’t have gotten in. It was stupid.”
Shit! Damnit to fucking hell.
“Blakelyn—”
“It’s fine.” Her voice is toneless, flat. She stands there for a second, water dripping from her, her bikini top clinging to her like a second skin, but she doesn’t wrap herself up or try to hide. Instead, she turns on her heel and walks right past me, back to her cabin, soaked and silent.
I hear her door close solidly behind her and I stand there, heart hammering, fists shaking, and unable to move. I wasn’t yelling ather. At Blakelyn. I was yelling at the ghost of my wife.
At the scream I never got to make.
At the image of a different woman slipping beneath the river’s water and not coming back.
The moon isfull and reflecting on the water as I sit on the dock.
Alone.
The river hums beside me, low and patient.
I don’t hear her approach, but Ifeelher.
She sits beside me without asking. She doesn’t look at me, though I have a feeling she’s watching me the same way I’m watching her. Through the corner of her eye.
“I’m not trying to die,” she says softly.
I stare straight ahead, holding my breath.
“I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know this water. I knew better, but I didn’t even think about it—” she adds. “I was trying to escape… for a minute. I just… wanted to feel weightless. For a moment. Wanted to float without carrying anything. I just wanted tobe.”
I don’t respond because I understand that feeling too well.
After a long silence, she finally murmurs, “You lost someone in the river. Your wife?”
