In that moment, everything in my life shifted focus. What I thought was important was trivial, what was last on my mind became first.

My dad died on the day I realized I loved Jamie Shaw.

Love pulled my soul one way and grief yanked it another, and so it ripped in two, split into jagged, irreparable halves. One floated high, calling me up with it, while the other sank into a bottomless black hole.

But I was too weak to fly.

The heavier half dragged me with it and I didn’t cry, I didn’t scream, I didn’t fight. I drowned easily, staring at the floating half on the way down, wondering if we’d ever meet again.

I FELT EVERYTHING ALIVE inside of me slowly slipping away as I stared out at the choppy water. A storm was rolling in, the gray clouds lurking off in the distance as the sun began to fade. It wasn’t as cold as the night before, and I stood where the water met the sand, my board under my arm, wetsuit zipped up high to my neck.

It was as if each time the water rose high enough to lick at my toes, it stole a little more of what was left alive inside of me, leaving dead driftwood in its place. My eyes grew hollow, my breaths grew steady, and my heart grew weak.

I could still hear my mother’s words, and they still didn’t make sense. A freak accident, she’d said. It sounded like a horror movie, or a newspaper article about a distant human being whom I didn’t know personally. It didn’t sound like my life. But it was.

My dad’s parents had a house on a lake in Central Florida. We used to drive up on the weekends to ride the wave runners and go swimming. Every memory I had there as a child was filled with joy. Mom said Dad was there for Nana’s birthday, swimming just off the dock like we always used to. He was just swimming, just enjoying a weekend at the lake, and then his life ended. Cords plugged into the dock and house boat had slipped into the water, electrifying it, and he’d suffered from electric shock drowning. I didn’t even know that was possible, and maybe that’s why I couldn’t process it.

Maybe it was a combination of everything in that moment — the guilt from what I’d done to Ethan, the ache of what I felt for Jamie, the shock of my father’s death. Everything had been thrown into a blender, dial set to shred, and now it was all I could do to stand near the edge of the ocean and not wish to drown in it.

I left Jenna in my room, packing my bags because I couldn’t, and caught a cab to the beach to try to feel. I just wanted to feel something — anything. I wanted it to sink in. I wanted to cry. I wanted the numbness to go away, but it was only plunging deeper, seeping into the cracks between my joints, settling into its new home.

“You can’t go out there.”

His voice was steady, low and oaky like always. My lip quivered at the sound of it and I nearly dropped my board. Fastening my grip, I hiked it higher, not turning to see him for fear of a completely different emotion sinking in. “I’ll be fine.”

“It’s about to storm, and it’s getting dark,” Jamie warned, and I felt his arms hook around my board from the other side. I gripped it tighter at first, but then my shoulders fell and I released my hold, letting Jamie take it away. I instantly felt empty as he set it easily in the sand, and I kept my eyes on the swell to avoid looking at him.

He stood beside me, gazing out at the water with me, and for a moment he let the wind and the waves be the only sound. His hand reached out, just barely, his pinky brushing mine before I slid my palm into his and held on tight.

“Jenna called me. She… she told me what happened.” I didn’t respond, but my thumb rubbed his.

Thunder rolled low and menacing in the distance, and I felt its cry deep in my stomach.

“Talk to me,” he pleaded.

A sickening ache spread through my chest and I fought against the sob. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t worry about it making sense, just talk. Just… get it out.”

I nodded, over and over, my lips between my teeth as I held his hand and watched the sun set behind a wall of storm clouds. I didn’t know where to start, but as the last sliver of gold fell behind the gray, I took a breath, sharp and unsteady, and then I spoke.

“I’m supposed to hate him,” I started, sniffing. “I was named after the freckles on his cheeks, the same ones on mine, and I’m supposed to hate him. He raped my mom,” I choked out, and the emotion started to surface, tears welling and blurring my vision. “And I never knew. I never knew that the hands that taught me how to ride a bike were the same ones that held my mom down the night I was conceived. I never knew the eyes that cried with tender joy the day I lost my first tooth were the same ones that watched my mom beg for him to stop hurting her.” I shook my head, and Jamie’s hand gripped mine tighter. “He was always there. He was the one to buy me my first notebook and pen and tell me to write. He was the one who took me on a shopping spree the day my childhood best friend moved away. He was always there,” I covered my mouth with my free hand, squeezing my eyes shut. “And then he wasn’t, because I pushed him away, because I was supposed to. I haven’t talked to him since the day I graduated high school. I ignored his phone calls. I told him not to come to Christmas dinner for the first time in my life.” My throat constricted, and I squeezed my eyes harder, trying to block out the truth. “I didn’t talk to him, Jamie. And now I’ll never talk to him again.”

The tears built up enough to spill, and I felt them hot on my cheeks as Jamie pulled me into his chest. My arms wrapped around his waist, cries staining his t-shirt as he held me tight. I felt the first drop of rain fall on my forehead, but I didn’t brush it away.

“It’s okay to love him,” Jamie whispered, and another deep roll of thunder sounded with his words.

“No it’s not,” I breathed, lifting my head from his chest. I met his eyes, their greenish-gold glow bringing me the strength I needed to say the next words. “Just like it’s not okay to love you.”

His nose flared, and his hand found my chin, tilting it up before sliding to cradle my neck. “You love me?”

I nodded, biting my lips together as a sob threatened to break through. A new stream of tears slid down the same path as the ones before them and he used his thumb to wipe them away.

“Why is that not okay?”

“Because,” I tried, my fingers playing at the hem of his t-shirt, but I didn’t have the words to explain. I couldn’t use letters and syllables and sentences to string together the thoughts in my head, the feelings in my heart. “I can’t be with you right now, Jamie. I’m going home tomorrow for the funeral and I just… I can’t promise you anything. I can’t…” My words faded off, because speaking them out loud hurt. I couldn’t promise Jamie anything because I had nothing left to give, not now that everything had changed.