The Rattled Bones(17)

My heart thumps against my chest as I hover my palm over the seat, terrified that I’ll feel something other than the frame of the chair. But there’s only wood when I press my hand flat against the surface.

Wood, and the unearthly cold that’s trapped there.

I pull my hand back, my nerves thundering.





CHAPTER SIX


It’s pre-morning dark when Reed leaves, sleepy and hungover, the smell of liquor clinging to him still. “See you out buggin’,” he tells me.

I nod, give him a kiss. It’s all he needs before slipping down the trellis.

I dress for a day on the water: leggings, T-shirt. I scan the room for moving furniture even as I tell myself that the icy cold of the wooden seat was stirred up from the fan cooling my room, the rocking of the chair pushed by an electric wind. Still, my brain won’t let go of some other possibility. Something not so easily explained away.

I don’t visit the old woman’s photo before heading downstairs. I don’t go to the window to see Whaleback Ridge or Malaga Island to the north. I don’t dare press my hand to the rocker. I focus on my day. The ocean. The things I know.

I open my door and trip over the body lying in the hall.

Her brown hair with its purple tips tumble over the rug in the hall, brightened by the glow of the stairwell light. “Hattie?”

Hattie sits up, rubs at her eyes. “?’Morning.” Her voice is throaty, scratched.

“What’re you doing out here?” I sit against the opposite wall and gather my legs against my chest. I feel the anger rising in that mixed tumultuous place where my love for Hattie has twisted recently.

“I came to see you last night, but Reed was here.”

“You slept in the hall?”

She nods, licks at her dry lips.

“Did you . . . ?” Come in my room? Sit in the rocking chair? It’s impossible to ask the question out loud. Because I know who I will sound like if she says no.

Hattie looks at me with so much suspicion, like she can see all the wrong in me.

“Why didn’t you knock, come in?”

“Honestly? I didn’t know if you’d want to see me. You haven’t answered my texts or voice mails.” Hattie looks tired. And thin. Like my absence has made physical pounds shed from her frame. I wonder if I look as worn to her.

“I let you have your space, Rills. But I miss you. Too much.” I hear the crack in her voice, the chasm of hurt that creeps around the curves of her syllables.

I miss Hattie too, if I’m being honest. Do I tell her how many times my thumb hovered over her name to respond to one of her texts? How much I wanted to reach out but couldn’t?

“I figured the only way to talk to you was to literally stand in your way. Or, lie down.” She gestures at the hall, sits up straighter. “I’ll sleep here every night if I have to. I’ll hold one-sided conversations. I’ll just sit out here being all stalkery. I’ll yammer on until you have to talk to me. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll talk only using quotes from The Princess Bride.”

A laugh rises in me, but I pull it back.

“It’s okay to laugh, you know.”

But is it?

“I’ve been really worried about you, Rills.”

“Why? What specifically?” Because she doesn’t know the depths of what’s happening.

“What aren’t I worried about? You’re out fishing all alone, and that shouldn’t be all on you. I know you’re freaking out about leaving for college, leaving your gram. But I know staying scares you worse.”

My chest stutters over a hard breath, the kind that rises from the relief and fear of someone knowing you so well.

“And I know you miss your dad more than I could ever understand. But I want to help, Rills. I’ll do anything. I could work with you on the boat, do whatever.”

I laugh. It’s a beyond absurd offer. “You hate fishing.”

“I do.”

“So why would you off—”

“Because I’d do it, Rills. I’d get on that smelly boat with you at the crack of every day’s ass. I’d drag those nasty creatures up from the bottom of the sea. I’d smile while I filled bait bags with rotting fish. I’d do all of that because I love you. And I’m here for you.” Her voice hushes with the weight of her promise. “I’d do anything for you, Rills. Anything.”

“You’d smile while filling bait bags with rotten herring?”

“If that’s what you need.”

“I don’t know what I need.”

“That’s fair.” She moves to my side. “I’m sorry, Rills. I’m sorry you weren’t with your dad that day.”

“I should have been.”

“I know.” She puts her arm around my shoulder. I’m grateful for the way her warmth spreads over me. “But maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“It might have.”

“Maybe. But you have to forgive yourself, Rills. What happened to your dad wasn’t your fault.”

Grief rises in me. “It feels like it was all my fault.”

“Your dad wouldn’t want you to feel that way.”

“I know.” But still.

“You need to find a way to forgive yourself.”