Surviving Us (8 page)

“Well, hello there, Bristol.” He laughs hard at my clumsiness. “I’m excited to finally meet you too.”

I toss my head back, giggling and slapping him playfully on the chest. “Shuddup, Kay. Don’t make fun of me. I’m used to drinking Natty Ice at frat parties, not fancy wine like you do with your sophisticated friends and refined job. It’s a bit of a head rush.”

“Any time you want to put back a twelve-pack of ‘Natty Ice’ with me, you let me know, baby girl,” his bright blue eyes dance teasingly, “and I’ll fly to Hicksville and share a case with you.”

“I don’t live in
Hicksville
,” I retort with a fake pout, releasing from his embrace.

As he moves to hug the patiently waiting Charlotte and Ashleigh, our little group finally all together in the flesh, I spin back around to grab my glass, when I notice Davis is gone from the table. Glancing around the dining room, I actively look for him, a little too tipsy to care if anyone’s watching me, but my search comes up empty. I shrug, swallowing back my dejection and rejoining my friends.

Half an hour and ten yawns later, I excuse myself to my cottage, the long day finally catching up with me. Kayden offers to walk me back, but I insist he stay and mingle with the others; the two of us can catch up later. After a quick goodbye to the remainder of the group, I begin the short walk back to my room.

My feet intuitively lead the rest of my body up to Davis’ place. The way he went silent and then suddenly disappeared from dinner gnaws at me, and I want to clear the air between the two of us. As I draw near to the door, I stop abruptly, the sound of voices
—a male
and
female—from inside freeze me mid-stride. I can’t make out what they’re saying exactly, but I can hear laughing and back-and-forth banter, obviously two people having a good time.

An onslaught of nausea overcomes me,
a combination of too much wine and embarrassed rejection clashing in my belly,
and without wasting another second, I hightail it away from there and into my cabin, emptying the contents of my stomach into the toilet. Once I’m positive there’s nothing left for me to throw up, I squirm out of my dress and shuffle over to the bed, collapsing in the middle of the pretty petals in only my panties with one simple thought echoing in my head:

He really is a Dick.

I SLEEP STRAIGHT THROUGH
breakfast, and if it wasn’t for Charlotte standing over me right now nudging and coaxing me to wake up, who knows if I’d have made lunch either.

“Bristol, doll, you have to get up and eat something,” she urges.

I groan and roll over, feeling the sheets brush across my bare breast.
Oh my God!
My eyes fly open and I instantly peer down at my body, confirming I am indeed lying here in front of my friend, yet still a stranger, in only my underwear.

Charlotte giggles as I hurriedly sit up and pull the sheets up around my chest, modesty getting the better of me. “Calm down, hun.” She sits down on the mattress next to me. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, but I’m sorry I startled you. We were all a little worried when you didn’t make it this morning, so I brought breakfast to you, along with some juice.” She points to a plate of food sitting on the coffee table. “It will make you feel better, I promise.”

“What time is it?” I ask groggily, rubbing my face, still trying to wake up. “And how’d you get in here?”

“You neglected to lock your door last night, and it’s a quarter past ten. Luckily, your morning session is with
yours truly
, and since I know most everything about you already, we can use the hour to sober you up. I covered for you with Isaac too.”

“Shit, I feel like ass,” I fall back into the pillows with a half-laugh, half-moan, “and thank you.” I hadn’t even thought to look at my schedule for today. At least it wasn’t Alex the Engineer beating on my door as I was passed out nearly nude. “What happened? I felt fine one minute, and the next thing I knew, I was praying to the porcelain gods. Then, I was just so damn tired.”

She laughs heartily, patting my arm. “You were tossing back the wine last night at a pretty steady rate, dear girl. When it’s good, it goes down easy, and then it sneaks up on you all of a sudden. I had a feeling you were pretty knackered when you headed out.”

“Did I make a complete ass of myself?”

“Not unless you did something after you left?” Her words are more of a dangling question than a statement of fact, which unfortunately brings back the memory of Davis being with someone in his room last night.

“No,” I close my eyes with a heavy sigh, “I came straight back here.”

“Mhmm,” is all she says as she hops off the bed and brings me the food and juice.

“What? You don’t believe me?” I scoff.

“Listen to this old lady; eat up, take some ibuprofen, and take a shower,” she ignores my question. “Then we can move out onto the patio. It’s too beautiful here to spend time inside. I’ll be waiting out there for you.”

I want to argue with her, demand she tell me what she thinks she knows, but I do as I’m told, gobbling up the eggs and bacon before scrubbing the previous day off of me in the shower. Less than twenty minutes later, dressed in my bathing suit and a cover-up, I join her outside on the wooden deck.

She’s swinging in the hammock, staring out over the cliff at the amazing view. “Have I ever told you about William?” she asks when she hears the door close, not turning to look at me.

“Not much, except he was your husband,” I sit down next to the plunge pool, allowing my legs to dip into the chilly water, “and that you lost him in the train accident.” I hate bringing up the tragedies we each went through, but I guess getting over that is part of the reason we’re all here.

“I met William when I was sixteen, working as a counselor at summer youth camp. He was one of the other counselors there, had recently moved to the UK from the US, and I immediately fell in love with his American accent and muscular arms,” she says fondly. “He apparently fancied me as well, and we quickly began a week long flirtation, sharing knowing looks and innocent brushes of the hand whenever we could. He even gave me my first kiss on a canoe—it was the most romantic thing ever. However, as we both knew it would from the first day we met, the seven days passed in a blink of an eye, and we parted ways, leaving me a sobbing, emotional, teenage mess for nearly a month straight.”

“Oh, that’s so sad,” I remark, hearing the sorrow in her voice, “but at least y’all reconnected and ended up getting married.”

Charlotte sits up and looks over at me, her expression thoughtful. “William and I didn’t see each other again for nearly twenty years, didn’t get married until we were in our late thirties—a second marriage for both of us.”

“Wow,” I murmur. This news surprises me. I’m not sure why I’d always assumed they’d been married a long time, by the way she’s always spoken of him, I got that impression.

“Do you know why I’m telling you this now?”

I peer up at her, shaking my head. “Not really,” I admit.

“If you find something or someone you want, go after it.” Instantly, I know she’s talking about Davis and the exchange she witnessed between us last night. “The thing I regret most about William’s death is all of those years we spent apart. I knew after one week he was the one for me, but allowed my mum and my friends to convince me it was a stupid, summer, juvenile crush. The two-and-a-half years we spent together should’ve been twenty-two-and-a-half, and now I have to live with knowing I didn’t try to make that happen.”

Touched by her story, but frustrated because she doesn’t understand my situation with Davis, I pull my legs out of the water, stand up, and walk to the ledge of the porch, gazing out at the shore down below. “It’s not that easy, Charlotte. Sometimes you want things that are bad for you,” my shoulders slump slightly as the reality of my words sinks in, “and sometimes the ones you want don’t want you back.”

“You’re a blind fool,” she scolds in a motherly tone. “One hour. That’s how long it took for me to know everything I need to know, Bristol. I don’t know what happened before dinner last night between you and that boy, but the minute his eyes found you, he lit up like the sky on New Year’s Eve, and he made a beeline to sit next to you.”

She pads across the deck to join me, softening her voice. “I’m not sure why he sat there quiet all night, but I know just like the rest of us here the boy’s got demons inside his head that torment him. However, when you jumped up to hug Kayden, the miserable, discouraged expression on his face was louder than a thousand screaming words. He stood up and slinked out of the room before you could see how much it affected him. Someone who doesn’t want you doesn’t act like that.”

“He was with someone else last night,” I blurt out, suddenly pissed and hurt at the same time, even though I have no reason to be either. “I heard them in his cottage when I walked back to my room.”

“You don’t know who it was or why they were there,” she interjects.

“It was him and a woman obviously having a good time. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t there playing Scrabble.”

Charlotte loops her arm around my waist, pulling me closer to her. “Don’t jump to conclusions, and don’t overreact. I’ve got a feeling that’s what he did last night when he saw you with Kayden.”

“You mentioned that earlier. Why with Kayden? I don’t understand. He’s like my big brother; that’s gross . . . and he’s old.” I scrunch my nose up with disgust.

“Hey now,” she lightly slaps my hip, “watch who you’re calling old, youngin’.”

“You know what I mean.” I rest my head on her shoulder, chuckling lightly. We both stand there quietly for a few minutes before I speak again.

“I came here to have fun and explore on my own, to finally meet old friends and make some new ones, and most importantly, to help myself heal from the losses I’ve suffered, not cause more heartache, which will be inevitable if I get involved with Davis McKay.”

She releases me from the embrace and smiles a sad smile. “Great love is worth great risk.” Turning to walk away, she calls out over her shoulder, “I’ll see you around later, Bristol.”