While the others chat about needs and plans at the resort, I check in with myself, searching for the source of the discomfort. I can’t nail it down, but it doesn’t feel like it’s coming from within me. It feels like it’s being projected onto me from something external, which I don’t understand. Everyone on this deck is smiling. The atmosphere is relaxed and upbeat.
“You’re doing it again,” KT says.
“What?” I refocus on her. “Doing what?”
“Your mind goes somewhere without your body. You should really zip-tie those suckers together, or you may lose one.”
“Ha.” I force my attention back to the group. “I’m just—”
“Excited,” Laiyla and KT say at the same time. “We know.”
Laiyla looks past my shoulder. “This might be Shannon.”
I turn to scan the crowd and instantly find the man she’s talking about. His back is to me, and he’s surrounded by women. His head is bent, his attention focused on something in his hands. Then he offers a book to one of the retreat attendees and takes one from another.
I turn and wait for a moment to approach. He finishes signing a book and hands it back to one of the women. Something about him plucks a familiar chord inside me, but I can’t pinpoint what.
Then he shifts his stance, and I catch his profile. An ice bomb of panic explodes in my gut and I pull in a sharp breath.
What the… No. No, no, no. It can’t be.
Denial hits like a brick wall. But he turns, facing someone else and giving me a clear look at his face. It's not Shannon.
It's Bodhi.
My heart flutters, and a flicker of real excitement warms my chest. But that only lasts a second. Maybe even a split second. And when everything hits—all the hurt, all the loneliness, all the loss, all the humiliation—ice burns through my gut. My breathing hitches. My vision hazes around the edges.
I turn my back on him, but I’m frozen in place. I’m so not prepared for this, and my mind has been shocked numb.
“Chloe?” KT’s talking to me, but her voice sounds far away. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
I feel Bodhi come up beside me. I feel him like I’ve always been able to feel him, like we’re physically connected. In that instant, when he’s close enough to touch, longing encompasses my heart like Saturn’s rings. At the same time, I recognize the danger he presents. Or maybe it’s the way I feel that represents danger. I don’t know. I can’t think. And all the feelings inside me pop and tangle until I’
m trembling.
KT, Laiyla, and Levi turn their attention toward Bodhi. They’re talking, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Their voices sound like they’re underwater.
Then all eyes veer toward me, and everything clicks on at once—my hearing returns, my gaze sharpens, my brain spins.
“Hi, Chloe.”
His voice is still smooth and soothing. It still grips my heart like a fist. The war of the century wages inside me—enough yearning to throw myself into his arms, enough fury to deck him.
I force my gaze to meet those familiar blue eyes. They still sucker punch me. So many emotions swim there—guilt, regret, hope. A couple of the bricks in my wall crumble. Loss pours through like a leak in a dam.
My gaze catches on every detail that used to enchant me—the scar on his chin from rock climbing in Nepal, the slightly lopsided smile, the barely-there nervous tic beneath his left eye.
God. We were the best of friends for so long. I loved him so completely at one time. His betrayal fileted me to the bone. Still, I can’t deny the atmospheric pull to forgive, and I can’t help but wonder if he is the clarity I prayed for, because he’s causing the exact opposite.
“Chloe?” KT steps in, putting her body between me and Bodhi, clearly unsettled. “Want me to get rid of him?”
I can’t answer because I can’t breathe. I used to have terrible stage fright. Speaking to an audience of even ten people would bring on a panic attack. That’s how I feel now, a decade after I cured myself of the immobilizing fear.
I fall back on muscle memory and force my lungs open, then force myself to meet everyone’s gaze—KT, Levi, Laiyla—and clear my throat. “Excuse us for a minute.”
I turn away from the group, away from Bodhi, knowing he’ll follow. I also know my friends are keenly aware there’s a problem, and the idea of having to explain this later weighs me down. I find a quiet space, and by the time I turn to face him, I feel like every thread woven into my psyche is unraveling.
He saunters toward me, his gaze falling to my body and slowly working its way back to my face. He’s wearing khakis and a tropical-print short-sleeved shirt open at the throat. My swimming head ironically focuses on the shirt’s dark blue background, making the pink palm fronds stand out. Pink.