Take Me Back (7 page)

“It goes both ways,” you say, gazing into my eyes. “I’m a slave to everything you want and need. Always.”

It doesn’t feel like it right now, but I can’t deny the sincerity in your eyes and the soft honesty in your voice. “I have to pack my things.”

You stand and brush the creases out of the front of your pants. “I’ll get the helicopter ready and let Maddie know we’ll be leaving soon.” You stride toward the door and stop. “Rachael, we’ll be okay.”

It’s as much a question as a statement, like you’re asking and demanding me to make everything good again, to come back.

I just look at you in disbelief. What you want and the way you go about getting it are always at odds. How can one person be so terrible at relationships?

“I hope so,” I say.

It’s all I
can
say.

I find Mom and Aunt Jan standing beside the baggage carousel. Mom rushes toward me and crushes me in a big hug. “It’s been months! You don’t call often enough.”

“You’re already badgering her,” Aunt Jan says. “Let me in there for a hug.” She nudges Mom out of the way for her turn. “You look like a woman in love,” she says, but her brow creases and I know she sees the worry and hurt behind my eyes. Aunt Jan can always tell what’s going on with me. She and I are too much alike to hide my feelings from her.

“It’s so good to be home and to see you,” I tell them, but it sounds fake. It feels fake. I am glad to see them, but I don’t want to be here.

I spot my suitcase rounding the corner of the conveyer belt and lug it off. Mom hooks her arm in mine and we stroll to the exit. “Merrick said you needed to relax and unwind, so he booked the three of us spa treatments for tomorrow morning. Wasn’t that nice?”

I clench my teeth and smile. “Sure was.”

Aunt Jan scrunches her brows, silently questioning. I shake my head, not wanting to discuss anything right now, especially in front of my mom. She’ll become the protective mother hen, and you’ll become enemy number one if she knows I’m home because you suck at relationships and won’t communicate with me. If she knows you think I’m crazy because I believe in ghosts.

I can’t believe this is what’s come between us. After
everything
we’ve been through, it’s a ghost that’s tearing us apart?

Irrational
really is the right word for it.

“Do you need to call Merrick and let him know you got in safely?” Mom asks, starting the car and pulling out of the parking space in the airport lot.

“I will in a bit.” I’ll let you stew and wonder if I’m going to call at all. Maybe I’m punishing you. Maybe I just can’t hear your voice right now. Maybe I’m being stubborn. I don’t care.

“I ran into Shannon at the supermarket last night and let her know you’d be home. She said she’d call you.” Mom looks at me in the backseat through the rearview mirror, then gives Aunt Jan a concerned look.

“Your mom’s worried,” Aunt Jan says.

Mom clucks her tongue and flips on her turn signal. “I’m not worried.”

“Shannon said you two don’t talk anymore.” Aunt Jan shrugs, always the one to be blunt.

“I’m just worried that you’ve cut all ties to your old life,” Mom says, smiling like it’ll make her message come across better. “You’re so caught up with your new life now, and it hasn’t been that long. What if something happens? Who will you have?”

“Other than us,” Aunt Jan says. “You’ll always have us.”

“I know I will.” I scoot closer to the window, hoping to hide from Mom’s prying eyes in the mirror. “I’ll call Shannon and see if she wants to get a drink tonight.” That’s all I’m willing to discuss on this topic. It hits a little too close to home, and my nerves are way too raw to deal with Mom’s and Aunt Jan’s feelings on the subject.

It seems I’m the only one who isn’t seeing the end coming near. I’m the only naïve one blinded by love.

*

“Are you sure you don’t hate me?” Shannon runs her finger around the rim of her strawberry margarita collecting sugar, then sticks it in her mouth.

“No, I don’t hate you. It’s just hard when you say you don’t understand how I can be so wrapped up in Merrick and his life.” I break a tortilla chip in half and drop it on the small plate in front of me. I have zero appetite.

“Well, I don’t. I get that you love him, but it all happened so fast. You didn’t take the project manager job he offered, and the next thing I know, you’re down there and you don’t come back. You don’t talk to me about it. I don’t know how the hell it happened. I’m your best friend, and you pretty much cut me out of your life.”

“I didn’t cut you out of my life. You came down for the opening celebration.” The memory of walking in on you with Riley and Jesse flashes in my mind. How you and I watched. How she knows we did.

I grab my sangria and take a deep drink from the straw, averting my eyes from Shannon.

“But you disappeared that weekend. Merrick said you went to his dad’s house, and the next thing I know, you call me from there and you’re upset but you won’t tell me what’s going on. What am I supposed to do, Rach? You won’t talk to me.”

Oh my God. I’m doing it—I’m not communicating with people I love. I’m keeping secrets and pushing them away. “Shannon, there’s something I need to tell you. Something you have to promise me you’ll never breathe a word about to another living soul.”

Her eyes grow wide. “You’re pregnant.”

“What? No!”

“Well, what the hell can be so terrible that you’re acting like it’s a life-or-death situation?”

“It’s what I’ve been keeping from you since Merrick and I met. It’s how we got together.”

She scowls in confusion. “I don’t understand what could be so bad about meeting a guy that you couldn’t tell me. What’s the big deal?”

I take a deep breath and just let the truth out. “The big deal is, he kidnapped me.”

Shannon’s mouth hangs open in shock. I jogged her memory to the night we went out to the club. I told her how you drugged me and brought me to Turtle Tear.

“When I woke up and found out it was him—Merrick Rocha, who I interviewed with and turned down—I couldn’t believe it. How could someone so smart and successful do something so stupid, you know? But, I’ve learned how impulsive he is and how he takes the hardest and longest road to any destination.”

The look on her face tells me she fears for my sanity… and my safety.

“Shan, he thought it was the only way. He was desperate. He could tell from our interview how much Turtle Tear meant to me and he was looking for more than a project manager. I didn’t realize it until much later—much, much later—after we’d already… um… become more than friends, that he needed someone he could trust to keep the hotel from his father.” I’m heading down a rabbit trail and losing her by the second. “Trust me. As my best friend, trust me. I know Merrick. He never meant me harm. It wasn’t easy to let myself trust him, but he earned it.” The memories of our first weeks together spread warmth through my chest. “It was all worth it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She blinks at me, at a loss. “I don’t know what to say,” she says, and for her, that’s a miracle. Shannon always has something to say.

“All I want you to say is that you’ll never tell anyone. Ever. I trusted you with this because I want you to know what I was keeping from you and why.”

She shakes her head. “I won’t. I don’t think anyone would believe me if I did tell them.”

I can’t help it—I laugh. “It’s insane. I know.”

“I kind of want to hate him,” she says, playing with her straw, “but he got you to do what I never could—take what you want and stand up for yourself.” She shrugs. “Plus you love him, so I can’t really hate him.” She smiles and reaches across the table for my hand. “I can see the difference in you. You’ve always been smart and beautiful, but you’ve never had the confidence you have now. He gave you that, didn’t he?”

A flood of emotions overwhelms me and my eyes tear. “He did.” I dab the corners of my eyes with my napkin, trying to keep the crying at bay. “He goes about everything all wrong to make it right, like
taking
me down there to prove that was where I should be.”

Like doing the wrong thing by sending me here to make everything right again at Turtle Tear. “He’s such an idiot sometimes.”

“But he’s your idiot,” she says, grinning, with her lips around her straw.

I laugh. “He is my idiot.”

“And you love him.”

“And I love him.” I’m grinning, too. Shannon can always lug me up onto my feet again when I’m down and curled in the fetal position. “I’ve missed you, Shan.”

“I missed you, too. Don’t hide things from me.” She nudges me with her foot under the table. “I’ll keep all your secrets.”

Telling her everything gives me so much relief. I hadn’t realized how heavy the secret that I’ve been carrying around was. I’ll always keep it from Mom and Aunt Jan, but letting Shannon know has brought her back into my life. She’s the spot of happiness that I need.

*

“Have you talked to Merrick yet?” Mom asks. She’s either your biggest fan, or can sense that something is going on.

“Not yet.”

We’re lying in a row, me in the center of her and Jan, on massage tables on our stomachs covered in towels. The woman working the knots out of my shoulders has to be magic, because nothing has ever felt this good.

I take that back. Every time you touch me feels better than this, but as far as anyone else touching me—she’s magic.

“Well,” Mom continues, “be sure to call him after we’re done here and thank him.”

I glance over at Aunt Jan and roll my eyes. She makes a face. “I will, Mom.”

“My future son-in-law is such a gentleman.”

My eyes have to match Aunt Jan’s, which are the size of dinner plates. “Mom! Slow down. We’re not talking about marriage.”

Mom smiles at me while the woman working on her back karate chops her shoulder blades. “Honey, things are obviously headed that direction. You should’ve heard him when he called. He’s so concerned about your well-being, wanted to make sure you were relaxing and being pampered this week. It’s clear to me how much he loves you.”

Ugh. I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. I know you love me, but can we work things out? Can we talk to each other and find a way to get past this wall standing between us?

I can’t deny thinking about Ingrid in the past eighteen hours and going a little stir-crazy wanting to get back to the Weston Plantation to figure out how to get her to Turtle Tear.

I also can’t deny that being home in Cleveland and thinking about a ghost trying to get to an island seems crazy. Maybe I have cracked and the bricks were a delusion.

No.

It wasn’t all my imagination. Joan saw the writing on the window, and Joan’s the last person on Earth who would ever agree with me on anything. I saw how afraid she was. Ingrid’s really there.

I also can’t stop wondering how the last day of the anniversary party is going. The happy couple is staying for the week, but all of their relatives depart today. I’m so guilty for leaving everything to Maddie. But I’m not here by choice. You should be the one feeling guilty about me not being there to help.

“You have been working hard this year,” Aunt Jan says. “Renovating the hotel and now starting to host events. I’m sure it’s nice getting a break.”

“Whose side are you on?” I mutter.

“What?” she asks.

“This is a nice break.”

She gives me
the eye
. She’s on to me.

By two o’clock, I’ve been massaged to jelly, seaweed wrapped, and skin buffed to a pink shine, and I’m starving. Mom, Aunt Jan, and I just sit down to oversized grilled chicken salads, mine drowning in ranch dressing, when my phone rings with your ringtone.

I hesitate, but Mom and Aunt Jan are sitting right beside me, so I have to answer. “Hi,” I say. It sounds stiff and short, but it’s all I can get out.

“Hi. How was the spa?”

“Wonderful. Thank you.”

I hate the silent pause that follows, like we don’t know what to say to each other.

“How are things there?” I ask.

“Good. The guests are at the pool for one last swim before we’re off for the mainland.”

I scoot out of the booth, smiling at Mom and Aunt Jan. I can’t sit there and have every word scrutinized. “Well, congratulations,” I say, weaving through tables toward the door. “Your event sounds like it was a success.” Even I can hear the sarcasm dripping from my words.

“Rachael. This wasn’t my event. You did this. You and Maddie. I—”

“—made me leave. You made me leave, so congrats. I’m glad it worked out well.”

“Jesus. I don’t want you mad at me. That’s not what this is about. I just want you back, like you were before. When you didn’t feel like you had to run away and make up excuses. When you told me things. That’s all I want. You.”

Outside, I plop down on a bench in the sun. I can’t explain the rage threatening to let loose, but it’s there in my gut. “Well, if you want me, you fucked up, because I’m not with you, am I? Typically, when you want to be with someone, you don’t send them packing. I realize you’re stunted when it comes to relationships, but that’s one of the basics.”

I don’t expect to hear you laugh, and it equally fuels my fire and lightens my mood. “That’s better,” you say.

“That’s better? How is me being upset better?”

“Because you’re talking to me. You’re telling me you’re upset. That’s more than I’ve gotten all week. You’ve been lost inside your head. I didn’t know what to do to get you back.”

“Merrick?”

“Yeah?”

I take a deep breath and rub my forehead. “You’re right. I have been lost inside my head, but there’s a reason that’s valid to me. The problem is that you don’t see something important to me as valid. That’s why I shut that part off to you, why I snuck off and made excuses for going to the Weston Plantation.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was making you pull away from me.”

There’s another long pause that breaks my heart. I open my mouth to say something—anything—when you speak.

“I’m going to fix this, Rachael. I promise.”

It’s so like you to think there’s something specific that you can do to fix what’s broken, like it’s a mechanical problem and not an emotional one that has to heal with time and trust.