Page 7 of Truth Be Told
The world pauses. My mind pauses. The car disappears completely under the water as the wave rushes over us, tossing and turning me further and further away from her.
When I open my eyes again, I’m at the water’s edge. Everything is quiet. To me, the water is strangely still. I stand, determined to go back in, when someone behind me grabs both of my arms and holds me where I am.
“No, man,” a man’s voice says. “It’s too dangerous. No.”
It may be too dangerous, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t notice the sudden increase in wind, and the even larger waves that are now visible on the horizon, the ones that are coming straight for us.
I twist in the stranger’s grip, but it only makes him hold on tighter. “Let me go!” I turn in his grasp and lift a clenched fist, aiming straight at his face. I want him to know I mean business, and he’d better let me go if he knows what’s good for him.
It works. He does. He lets me go and holds his hands up…and I take all of two steps toward the shoreline before I collapse to the ground. The last thing I remember is the sensation of soppy wet sand between my fingers. It oozes through that fist that I clench again, this time out of sadness instead of anger. I watch the bright stars twinkling above me, so quiet and peaceful in comparison to everything that’s going on beneath them.
Then I’m back in front of my house, standing with the girl. Her arm is still raised, pointing.
How is she here with me, alive?
“Wave,” she says again, more gently this time. Her voice echoes in the rain.
I wake with a gasp.
My heart pounds against my chest. I shakily breathe in and out, my lungs pumping to catch my breath. There’s a layer of cold sweat around the collar of my loose tee shirt.
This is the worst I’ve felt since the night it happened. I force myself to sit up and click on the light next to my bed, then I rub my face.
What of that was real, and what was a dream?
The light illuminates the room. Finally being out of the darkness helps me return to reality, and I start to breathe normally again.
I throw the covers off and swing my legs over the edge of the bed, resting my elbows on my knees. I’ve never hadthatdream before. That woman has never before come to me in any form – not in my memories, or my dreams. Until now, they’ve always just been brief flashes of the car or the water. I’ve done a pretty good job not rememberingher.
I think the fact that she came to me tonight is because of the girl at the club.
In the bathroom, I splash some cold water on my face. For a long time, that used to make it worse. I couldn’t wash with anything except steaming hot water, because if it was so much as lukewarm, it would bring me back to what it felt like that night to be submerged in the freezing cold ocean with her. But I prefer not to think about that.
I splash my face one more time, then rub my face and hands dry.
It’s obvious from my reflection that I’ve been letting myself go. I’m in need of a good shave, for one. Leaning closer, there are traces of dark circles under my eyes. I’m still fit, I notice as I step back, since my workouts aren’t something I’m ever willing to give up. They’re my therapy, the one thing keeping me sane. I don’t show any sign of the occasional drink I still indulge in, even despite my gradual increase in age.
Speaking of drinking, I didn’t even drink enough to warrant a hangover at the club earlier tonight. I barely drink anymore, actually. I left my second beer unfinished at the table and flat out left because I’d had enough.
I make my way back into the bedroom. The clock next to my bed reads four thirty. So much for sleeping tonight. I’m up. This is all too familiar to me. Hours such as these are my loneliest, but they also tend to be my most productive. I use this time to plan out my day, schedule meetings and go over everything that needs to be done. And there’s always a lot to be done. Managing your own business can be profitable, and in the case of my business,veryprofitable, but it’s a lot of hard work.
Thatcher Enterprises is my business. My father left it to me after he passed last year. I was glad to accept it, seeing as it’s always been a passion of mine (my family always said a love for that business is in our blood), and it’s left me well off. So well off, in fact, that if I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t have to work anymore. I could retire right now, and comfortably at that.
I quickly log into my bank account using the app on my phone. I always try to keep a close eye on my funds, but I make sure to do it without obsessing. Obsessing is all too easy to do when you reach this level.
The spinning wheel signifying loading disappears, and my accounts pull up. My eyes run across the six digits in the checking account. My savings, on the other hand, fills the screen with at least nine digits.
Before I know it, the sun is up. Time always flies when I’m busy at work on my computer. I stretch, then put on some clothes and head downstairs.
“Hey,” sings a female voice from the kitchen when I’m halfway down the staircase.
That’s Olivia’s voice.
Shit. I forgot she comes on Saturdays. Hell, I even forgot today was Saturday.
Olivia is my sister. She’s the only person who comes around since I went through my little revelation a few months ago and told most everyone who worked for me that I didn’t need them anymore. Which, of course, is simply a nice way of saying I laid them off. I only kept around one member of security, and that’s because I had to – when I hired him, I signed a contract with his agency that obligated me to keep him on through May of this year, and tried as I might, I couldn’t get out of it.
Olivia keeps coming around because I’m a mess when it comes to housekeeping, and she knows I was going through shit there for a while. When it comes to bookkeeping and management, there’s no one better, even in the middle of a crisis or, in my case, a trauma. I buckle down and get it done. Cleaning up after myself after I’ve had a late night and there’s a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, making their way onto the counters and sometimes creeping into the living room? No one’s worse.
