One Week of Summer (15 page)

“Yes, Maggie. Do it. Now.”

And my body bucked underneath my hand as I slid my hands in and out and the orgasm overtook me.  I rode it out, finishing just as the song ended, then panted helplessly as I attempted to catch my breath.  I was so weak that it took me three tries to prop myself back up so I could meet Teekay’s eyes.  He was looking at me, too, his pupils so dilated that his eyes were nearly black.  Without moving his intent stare from me, he flipped a switch on the helm, depressed several buttons, then jumped down the two steps that led to the bedroom.  I braced myself.

But just before he reached me, the boat shook, threw Teekay sideways, and sent my stomach to my feet.

13)

Teekay sprung to his feet, his hand on the back of his head where he’d bumped it.

“What the fuck was that?”

I had no idea, and even if I had a theory, I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it.

Teekay didn’t wait for me to answer anyway.  He strode back up the stairs, through the galley, and flung open the door to the deck.  He returned moments later, his face grave.  He slipped out of his jeans and t-shirt and pulled on a pair of swim trunks, which was at odds with his next statement.

“Maggie, I need you to put your clothes on.”

I stared at him blankly.

“Quickly, Maggie. Without panicking,” he added.

“Why, Teekay?” I managed to squeak.

“We need to go for a swim.”

No.

It was the only word my mind would form.  My whole body began to shake and my head swirled with visions of deep dark places and crushing pressure against my chest.

“Maggie.”

Why did he seem to be saying my name so often?

“Listen to me.” His voice sounded very far away and underwater.

Already.

I was shivering uncontrollably.

“I think we hit something – I don’t know what – a little offshore,” Teekay continued. “It’s probably okay, but I need to look at the hull before we can move any further. I don’t want to take a chance that something happens to you on the boat while I’m checking it out.”

No,
I thought again, this time followed by,
I can’t.

“Maggie,” Teekay said. “We’re only a few hundred feet from the shore of this little island. I can tow you in the jacket, but I don’t think you want to be completely naked underneath.”

Why am I getting dressed, when he’s stripped down to a bathing suit?

I made no move to put anything on, so he reached down and started the process himself.  With a patient urgency, he slid the lifejacket from my shoulders and put it aside.  He dressed me like I was small child, putting my head and arms through the t-shirt, then pulling me to my feet and hoisting on my borrowed boxers and the sweatpants.  As soon as he had me clothed, he zipped my lifejacket back up and began to fill a neoprene bag with dusty items from the cupboards.  I was too busy wallowing in my own fear to pay much attention to what he loaded up, but it looked like canned goods and bottled water.

Emergency supplies.

A tiny part of my brain tried to reassure me that his packing up like this was a good sign.  It meant he believed we were going to make it to shore just fine.  But a larger part screamed that he was underestimating my terror.

“C’mon, darlin’,” Teekay said softly.

He pushed me forcibly to the deck, and in the bright light, the water looked more dangerous than ever.  The shimmering distance between the boat and the shore seemed vast.

I stared down at my hands so I wouldn’t have to face it.

A few hundred feet, he’d said.

But it looked like miles.

“Maggie…”

My head snapped back up.  There was something in Teekay’s tone which filled me with a deeper dread.

He spoke in a rush. “I’m going to have to toss you into the water. I won’t be able to carry you down the ladder and I doubt you’ll get in on your own.”

I took a step away.  But Teekay was quicker than I was.  And far stronger.  His arms wrapped around mine, pinning them to my body.  As much as I thrashed my legs, he refused to let go.  He just lifted me straight up and carried me to the edge.

To certain death.

“Listen to me, Maggie,” he said into my ear. “When you hit the water, you might go under for a second, but I swear to you, the vest you’re wearing
will
bring you up. It
will
keep your head above the water. All you have to do is float for ten seconds.”

“T-t-ten seconds,” I repeated through my chattering teeth.

“That’s right. Ten seconds. Then I’ll have you again.”

He drew me toward him and pressed his lips to mine in a fervent kiss, then scooped me up and sent me overboard.

Hitting the water felt like hitting ice. 

It felt like the spiralling out-of-control world of a depressed thirty-eight-year-old father wishing desperately to end it all and trying to take his fourteen-year-old daughter with him.

It felt like dying. 

You asked for this,
I reminded myself.
You wanted him to take you out on the boat. You should have known.

And I couldn’t kick or flail or move or do anything but sink down into the water.

I held my breath as the blackness swirled around me, engulfing my whole body.  My eyes refused to close, though, and they stared straight up through the thick, salty liquid.  The beginnings of pinpricks of light hovered above me, and then with a gasp, I splashed to the surface and the world around me exploded in brightness.

At the same moment that I sucked in a breath of cool morning air, a splash echoed beside me, and then Teekay’s warmth was beside me.

“I’ve got you,” he called softly as his hands found my shoulders and he pulled me closer. “Just hold still, and I’ll swim us in.”

As if I could move if I wanted to.

Then we
were
moving, Teekay’s strong, sure kicks propelling us away from the boat.  In not more than five minutes, he was murmuring that we were there.  He dragged me from the water to a sandy beach, then jumped to his feet.

“Maggie, I have to leave you here, just for a few minutes, okay? I need to check the boat. Will you be okay?”

I managed a nod. 

“Is that the truth?” he pressed.

“Yes,” I whispered.

I did feel oddly all right.

“I won’t be long, Maggie. I’ll leave the bag here – there’s a blanket and a few other things if you need them. Water and whatever. Just don’t accidentally light off a flare.” He pushed his lips to mine, then took off at a light jog.

I forced myself to sit up, watching as Teekay dove straight into the water at the edge of the shore.  His body was fluid once more, splashing through the ocean in perfect time with its waves.  Strangely, it didn’t scare me. 

Could it really be that simple?
I wondered.
Could it really be that all I needed was Teekay, forcing me to face my fears to begin the process of healing from them?

I had no urge to turn away from the beach.  None at all.

And I wanted to capture the freedom in my heart.  No.  I needed to.

I snapped up the neoprene bag from the sand and dug through it, hoping to find something I could use.

Yes!

A tiny notebook – the kind with thick, water-resistant pages – and a stubby pencil were inside at the very bottom.

I flipped to the first page and began to draw.  Sand first, then waves.  The beach quickly took shape under my fingers.  It was good.  It was accurate.  But it didn’t satisfy me.

I flipped to the next page and squinted at Teekay’s boat, out in the distance.  I put the strokes down on the paper, and the sleek stern appeared, followed by the bow.  The waves crested at the hull, the sun glowed in the distance.  My hands worked furiously to get the scene down.

It still wasn’t enough.

I took a breath, folded the book to the next page, and closed my eyes.

What was I looking for?

I started to draw again, this time more slowly.  Even as the lines of
something
appeared beneath my efforts, I didn’t know what the something was.

I was drawing from memory, which I rarely did.  Almost always, my art was delivered from some object, some setting I was in right at that moment.  Not now.

I narrowed my eyes at whatever I was creating, unsure what it was going to flesh out into, but I didn’t stop.

I shaded and I sketched and I covered the whole page with swirls and whorls and I wasn’t finished yet.  I slowed my pace again, carefully forming some further, more intricate shape into the design.  I worked and worked until my hand ached and the page was so full that it spilled past the bend in the middle and onto the other side of the book.

And that’s when I stopped.

I held the notebook out and had to let out a surprised gasp.  The drawing wasn’t just one thing.  It was many.

It was the darkness that surrounded me when I was under water.  It was the light above.  It was the twilight sky and the clouds which obscured the sun.  And it was Teekay.

His face peeked out from it all, one side of his mouth turned up in that cocky smile, one eyebrow raised, and a twinkle in his eyes.  The portrait captured every bit of him, from the self-assurance to the niggling of self-doubt to the sexy-sweetness.  It was the best thing I’d ever drawn.

“Maggie!”

My eyes whipped up at the sound of Teekay’s voice.  He was loping up the beach in my direction. I quickly snapped the book shut just as he reached me.

“You still okay?”

“I’m good.”

“Thank god.”

He flopped to the ground and rolled to his back, breathing heavily.

With the exception of Teekay’s quick inhales and exhales, everything around us was silent and calm.  And I had to break it.

“He tried to kill me.”

Even though my voice was small and timid, it echoed through the air.

“No, darlin’,” Teekay replied. “I wasn’t trying to kill you. I was trying to keep both of us safe.”

“Not you.
Him
.”

Teekay rolled again, this time so he was facing me, and his face was as confused as it was concerned.

“Who?”

“My dad.”

“What do you mean, Maggie?”

I choked back tears. “The accident that killed him, the one that drowned him…It wasn’t an accident. It was suicide. They said he never got over my mother’s death. He was on meds. He had been for years. But they said he’d been violent and angry at work for the last few weeks, picking fights and coming in drunk and getting suspended. The last thing he said to me was that he loved me and that he loved my mom, too.”

Teekay cupped my cheek, but he still didn’t understand.

“Suicide…It’s not about hurting the people you love, Maggie,” he said. “Most often, people who do it are trying to end their own pain, and they think the people they love will be better off without them. Your dad didn’t want to hurt you.”

I shook my head. “No, Teekay. You don’t understand. He drove his car off a bridge and into a lake with
me
in the backseat. He said those things to me, and then went straight off the bridge. The water was all around us. My window cracked, just a little bit, and a piece of glass flew into me. That’s how I got the scar and also how water started seeping in through the windows and filling up the car. My dad banged his head on the steering wheel and he was out cold. But me…I was awake. Covered in blood. And stuck. My seatbelt wouldn’t budge and all I could do was watch as the lake made its way into the vehicle. I couldn’t smash a window because it would speed up the process. All I could do was watch. It didn’t take long before the water was everywhere. The last few minutes were a blur. I was cold and wet and I couldn’t breathe. Then I woke up in the hospital two days later.”

And I wasn’t quite done.

“The police and the grief counsellors said he never got over my mom’s death,” I repeated. “But she died giving birth to me, and I think really…He never forgave me for killing her.”

“There’s no way that’s true. Maggie, I’ve known you for two days and I’m sure of it.” He paused and swallowed thickly. “If your dad tried to take you with him, it was because he couldn’t stand the thought of going anywhere without you.”

Tears squeezed from my eyes. “My grandmother always said the same thing.”

“Because anyone who knows you for more than five minutes wants another five minutes,” he told me, his voice heavy with emotion. “And that next five minutes leads to wanting even more.”

Teekay bent down to kiss me fiercely.  And as he ran his hands down my face to my shoulders in a tender, caring gesture, I wanted to believe him.  But as he pulled away, I met his perfect eyes, set in his perfect face, and I was reminded of all the other perfect people who made sure I knew the truth.

“At school, they found out what happened. Even though I was a thousand miles away from it, they still heard about it. Someone knew someone who knew someone and…” I trailed off before forcing myself to go on. “They called me Ghost. Every day, they did it, until I believed it. And after a while, it became so true – I was so totally ethereal – that when they talked to me, when they saw me…it surprised me. It scared me. And it was never for something good. A ghost who doubled as a punching bag.”

I waited for an angry outburst, for Teekay to demand why I hadn’t stood up for myself or done anything about it.

Instead, he said, “I can’t change the past. I can’t go back and undo the things that were done to you, or unwind the hurt you’ve been through. But I’m going to make it up to you. I’m going to show you how valuable you are and how wrong those kids were to treat you like that.”