The Guilt Trip(88)
Chrissy thumbs through her sent messages and looks up ashen-faced. “I’m so sorry,” she says to Ali. “She’s sent it to everyone on my contact list.”
“Wait, Paige has done this?” asks Will, his face clouded with confusion. “Why would she do something like that?”
Ali looks to Rachel, as if seeking permission to tell him. Rachel nods.
“She’s not quite who you think she is,” says Ali.
His perplexed expression is wiped off by an icy spray of sea water that washes over the side of the terrace—an ominous warning of how high the tide’s come in.
Yet while he and everyone else yelps in shock, instinctively turning away, Rachel finds herself stepping closer to the edge. She looks into the swirling water just a few meters below as it batters the underside of the terrace. What had it done with the beach they were sitting on this afternoon? The caves they’d stood in? The staircase they’d walked down? Even the sign warning about falling rocks that had seemed so high when she was down on the beach is now about to disappear just below her. It’s as if, one by one, they’re being magicked away, lost in the depths of the choppy waters, only to reappear when the ocean feels ready to give them back.
She wonders if the waves have ever reached the restaurant, which is just a little higher, and, if they have, whether the lobsters in the tanks were able to set themselves free. She entertains the bizarre idea, as she knows it’s the only way she can hold off having to decide what she’s going to do about her husband sleeping with her best friend.
Because there’s no doubt in her mind that Ali’s telling the truth. Yet instead of feeling hurt or angry, Rachel feels stupid. How could she have allowed herself to be deceived by two people she thought cared for her? How had she lived the life she thought she should live, when deep down she knew she wanted the life she gave up? Now that she really asks herself the question, she thinks that if she hadn’t become pregnant so quickly, she and Jack most likely wouldn’t have lasted. But family is everything, and she’d vowed to do whatever she could to ensure they stayed together. But what was it all for? Why had she suppressed her feelings for the man she truly loved? Spent years beating those emotions out of herself, so that every time she saw Noah, she wasn’t taken back to that night, with a yearning that threatened to tear her apart. The thought that Josh may be Noah’s son, and they could have been together as a family for all this time, makes her want to throw herself into the swell of the waves. She’d done what she thought was the right thing to do by everybody. Why couldn’t Jack and Paige have demonstrated the same respect?
A tremendous bang makes her jump, as the night sky is set alight with a flash of pink and white. The million colored sparkles burst out from their cardboard rockets, reigniting again and again, before falling into the inky abyss.
As the sky falls black again, Rachel can see the streams of smoke weaving their way through the darkness, leaving floating gray wisps. But within seconds, another telltale whistle of a burnt-amber light soars up from what she can only imagine is a boat out at sea. It resembles a weeping willow tree as it explodes, reflecting in the water below.
In that split second, the ooooh’s that are coming from behind her turn into strangled screams that slice through the air. Rachel instinctively turns around and is blinded by a dazzling light that seems to be heading toward her. Her brain goes into overdrive as it battles to catch up with what others are already beginning to work out. The beam is definitely moving, and fast, but there are people in the way, she can see their outlines in the headlights.
Headlights? So it’s a car, and it’s showing no sign of stopping. She wants to scream, but it’s as if she’s trapped in a nightmare and no sound is coming out. She wills it to veer left, so that the restaurant takes the brunt of the impact, but she freezes as she thinks of the staff and DJ who are no doubt still inside.
The engine screeches, stuck in first gear, and Rachel prays that it won’t have enough power to reach the terrace. But it’s already here. She can hear the thud of bodies hitting the unforgiving metal, see them being spun up into the air. It’s all happening in slow motion, but yet she can’t seem to reach anyone before they’re hit; can’t save them from this faceless horror that is picking them off and taking them out, one by one.
The revving is deafening, competing against the roar of the waves, as the machine gets ever closer. What looked like a single beam separates into two round circles of light as it nears, blinding Rachel to anything beyond. She can’t see what car it is, what color it is, or, more importantly, if anyone’s in it.
It’s almost upon her now, but there’s nowhere for her to go, other than diving over the side of the terrace and into the sea. But it’s rocky and she’s likely to be taken by the ocean without trace if she gives it the chance.
She thinks of Josh, pictures his smiling face, and wonders how he’ll cope without her. She doesn’t want to leave him, miss out on seeing him graduate, get married and have children of his own. In that moment, she is comforted by the fact that he’ll still have his dad by his side, but then terror rips through her as she realizes that Jack might already be lying somewhere, mown down just a second before her. Where is he? When did she last see him?
She cries out in fear for Josh, more than herself, as the car reaches her. She moves, but not fast enough, to stop it from slamming into her, sending her spiraling out of control. It feels like she’s flying through the air, oddly serene as she floats above everyone else already on the floor. She’s sure she catches a glimpse of Noah’s pale-linen suit as she spins and she searches frantically for his face, knowing that if her eyes are going to be forever closed from this point, his face is the last thing she wants to see.