Page 12 of The Girl I Once Loved

Although I struggle with all travel, there's nothing quite like being on the water. That fear I’d had since I was a little girl… It had never gone away. Even now, just waiting at the dock, while the waves lick at the shore, I want to run in the opposite direction. It's really too bad that the only way to get to Thatcher's Bay is by boat. Just another reason in my never to return column.

We load onto the ferry and I normally would huddle in the inner cabin of the boat. But today, there's too much anxiety biting at my heels. If I don't get some fresh air, I'll end up puking everywhere…or passing out. The anxiety rises up inside me like fresh bile, and I curse its existence. I keep thinking that one day I’ll wake up and not hate the water, but apparently almost drowning as a little girl leaves an indelible mark.

It's a crazy thing, the effect our childhood has on our lives. Just a brief few years can stretch through an entire lifetime.

It's ridiculously unfair if you think about it.

That a moment in time can change everything.

But I guess I know all about that.

The wind whips my hair into my face and I brush it back, taking big inhales of the salty air as the ferry takes off across the water.

Seven years.

Seven years of making excuses.

Seven years of not answering phone calls.

I'd been to Falmouth to spend some holidays with my dad. And Daisy and Mom and Curt had managed to pop in for visits whenever I was there, visiting Boston a few times as well.

But not once had I set one foot back home.

Home.

I hate that word now. I hate that it somehow still belonged to a tiny island instead of the places I'd chosen to live all these years.

I just hope like a fool that this trip will cure me, and I can finally move on.

The water is a stormy gray color, the day dreary. It seems fitting. You shouldn’t have to hate a sunny, perfect day. I already had plenty of those to hate in my memories. Blissful, seemingly perfect days, with clear skies that stretched on forever.

I slump over the railing, forgetting for a moment how much I hate the water. How was it that seven years later, the memories could haunt me as if they happened yesterday? And not just the bad ones…The ones that really got to me, that kept me awake at night…were the perfect days. The ones that I’d never wanted to end. The ones I’d never been able to replicate with anyone else no matter how hard I tried.

Last night I’d imagined Gael, tangled in the sheets with another woman.

And it had stung.

But it hadn’t wrecked me, not like it did every time I allowed myself to think of that night with Noah. Or to think of any nights since then.

Fuck.

I want to scream at the sky, at the water, at everything.

And my mood doesn’t get any better as the island rises out of the mist, like a glorious specter.

My knees threaten to buckle, but somehow, I manage to stay upright, clinging to the railing as the island gets closer and closer.

And suddenly, I'm here. Thatcher’s Bay.

It feels…anticlimactic. Nothing catastrophic happens. I'm still the same person as I was across the Bay.

Noah hasn't leapt out from behind from the dock…everything is as it was.

The dock is weathered just like it was seven years ago, like it's been caught in time and it's no better and no worse than it was before. There’s still the same moss clinging to the rocks along the shore, the same salty, musty smell in the air. Up ahead is the town and it too looks like it's been preserved in time.

Seven years feels like forever in my mind, but staring around, it's like it's been nothing more than a day.

"Sky!" I hear Daisy scream, and I glance down the dock where she's literally sprinting towards where I'm getting off the ferry. I brace myself as she gets to me, throwing her arms around me so tightly it feels like she's not just hugging my body, but my very soul.

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