Frayed (7 page)

“Heck, I’m so invested in her love life. I would cut a bitch if they break-up. I think it’s safe to say that we’re all living our fantasy through you,
Doll.” All three of us laughed at that.

This was really refreshing. I felt somehow hopeful
, again. I smiled and strode over to them
.
,
I eyed the
gourmet food
on the table
with interest. T
t
aking a shrimp by its tail, I took a luscious bite.
Fucking awesome
, I savored the delicacy.

We all turned around when we heard male voices. “
Trista, it’s good to see you again.” Bass came over and gave me a welcoming hug. Holy fuck, my heart started to palpitate. I gave him a smile after he released me from his arms.

“Good to see you
, too, Bass. You still look sexy enough to give a woman a heart attack.” Hell, I think I actually might have had one if he held me any longer.

“I did tell you my
friend has got a fever for you.” Bass laughed at Emma’s response, who simply gave him a flirty wink.

Lindsey and Taylor started to get their plates and forked out food from the table. “Who wants wine?” Emma asked as she poured Bass a glass of red and handed it to him.

“Thanks, agápi̱ mou,” Bass murmured and gave Emma a lingering kiss before they joined us.

“What the hell does that mean?” Lindsey wondered out loud, once we were settled on the circular table.

“It means my darling, my love, my beloved, my sweetheart.” Taylor provided her with quick answers.

“Damn, I need to find me a Greek god,” Lindsey said in between bites of her salad. I had no doubt in my mind that she would get her wish.

“I’ll join you on that worthy campaign.” I added
and
as I
high-fived Lindsey. Taylor simply shook his head, like we were both crazy. We truly were, he just didn’t know it yet.

“Ooh, this ought to be exciting!” Emma cheerily eyed her girlfriends.

Bass simply grunted on the side, disbelieving. “Trying to ditch me already, Emma? You should try harder than that!” Bass passionately eyed her
, a sensuous dashing smile plastered on his face.

Ha! I bet this dude would never forget the day that Emma
backpedaled and chose Carter over him.

Taylor choked on his food and started to cough, tapping his chest a few times before he cleared his throat. “You’re hopeless, dude.”

Maybe a good distraction was the best solution after all. Yeah, that’s a BIG FAT
maybe
.

Chapter 6

Trista

The night progressed in a laidback, easy manner. After a few more drinks, we were all throwing jokes at each other. Though Taylor and I barely conversed with each other, I was hyper aware of him, though. Pretty boy got to me after that cutting remark. He was right about everything he had said, and I despised him for it. 

Right about one in the morning, Emma and Lindsey started to yawn. “I’m going to bed. I have to wake up early tomorrow,” Emma
yawned. Bass got up with her and bid us all goodnight.

Taylor, Lindsey and I sat about quietly. We stared before us, across the vast expanse of the dark sea. “You guys want to check out
Ios Island tomorrow?” Taylor broke the silence.

Lindsey
stretched around her lounge, her fit body on display. It didn’t surprise me that Taylor noticed. “Sure, what do you have in mind?” Lindsey sparked up, her exhaustion almost disappearing.

Shit, two days with Taylor?
That was so not a part of my vacation plan.

“Well, those two will be busy and won’t be available until Saturday, anyway. We could go for a couple of days and come back here on Friday. Or we could meet them up in Athens on Saturday. A lot of the folks go back to the mainland during the weekend.” Taylor looked at us, back and forth. I barely shrugged at him.

I refused to be on friendly terms with him and had gotten the feeling that he felt the same way. If anything, we were simply being civilized with each other.

“Does the plan sound cool to you,
Tris? We could leave after lunch.” Lindsey stood up. She covered her mouth when another yawn came.

I nodded in agreement
because there was never any point in arguing when Lindsey was geared up to do something. “Yeah, sounds good.”

It was then
that Taylor’s cellphone chirped. He glanced at it. A small frown crossed his pretty boy features. Lindsey was mumbling something about the trip tomorrow, but I kept my gaze on Taylor. He didn’t seem pleased.

“Peace out, world. See you guys tomorrow.” Lindsey gave a lazy wave and strode back inside the house.

“Going to make a call and turn in as well, goodnight.” Taylor gave me a quick glance and disappeared inside.

Fishy…
did he make that excuse to avoid being left alone with me? Or to follow Lindsey inside?

I stood up, shook my sandals off
my feet, and strolled towards the beach. I made a pleasurable sigh when I felt the warmth of the sand in between my toes. I started to make my way to the shore and chose a spot to sit somewhere dry, but that was close enough to the water for my toes to reach the tide. Immediately, my thoughts dragged me back to my dark place. I wondered if I wouldn’t be as miserable if Harry hadn’t dropped me the way he did.

That feeling of betrayal, the gut-wrenching
sensation of being bared open that leaves this massive deteriorating hole inside me, coming right back at me as soon as I am alone. It’s like an infested monster. It eats, claws and pulls me in its shackles.

Tears flowed freely
down my face and I couldn’t be bothered to stop them. No matter how much I wanted to hate Harry, my heart wouldn’t let me. I was angry and I wanted to kick his balls, but I didn’t hate him.
Why can’t I hate him? It would make life so much easier.

I
didn’t know how long I stared at the sea whilst crying my eyes out. This was the first time since Tristan’s death that I had gone this close to the shore. I couldn’t really do it before. I somehow felt like I was betraying my brother’s memory if I allowed myself to enjoy the sea. Tristan was my champion, he looked out for me and in return, I worshipped my brother. He was the perfect son, and we all felt his loss. I missed him dearly. At times like these, I wished he was still alive to tell me what to do, to tell me that it’ll be okay.

Life
had a twisted and weird sense of humor. It makes you yearn for things, makes you fall in love, but it’s diabolical because it never fails to betray you. It stabs you in the back when you’re not anticipating it. Love kills. The love of surfing killed Tristan. Love killed me—
inside
.  Death gnawed inside me, until there was nothing left except emptiness.

I got up and carefully dipped my foot in the water
. I was delighted that
,
it felt warm
on my toes
. Out of the blue, I had this crazy urge to go swimming. With my dress on, I paced until the water engulfed half of my body. I huffed out a brave sigh and dived underwater. It was murky
as I swam deeper, until it was pitch black. I stopped swimming and slowly looked up to see if I could see any light from the moon, there was none. Darkness surrounded me. So, I swam a little further out until it was hard to continue. It was odd, but it gave me comfort.

The tight
, heaviness of my chest told me that I needed to swim back up to get some air, but the darkness called upon me, soothing me, a complete balm to my shattered soul. It slowly pulled me downwards…
drawing me in
… calling me.

I suddenly felt at peace.

The nagging voices in my head stopped. They couldn’t torture me anymore.

My mind shut off, rendering it blank. Empty. I think I formed a ghost of a smile before I utterly surrendered to it.

Chapter 7

Taylor

Megan
. My girlfriend of three years, now an ex, just gave me a missed call. She hung up after one ring. I didn’t know what to make of it. She and I parted amicably—or so I thought. We both decided that it wasn’t working out. That was six months ago.

Without much preamble, I dialed her number. After a few rings, I was sent to voicemail. I killed it before her recorded voice surfaced.
She’s been doing this a lot—a few missed calls here and there for the last few months. Each time, she never follows through, never picks up any of my damn calls
. I hated how she liked these idiotic mind games! If she needed to speak to me about something, then why play phone-tag?

I suppose, this was Megan’s subtle way to make me not forget her. As annoying
as her technique was, it worked brilliantly. “Fucking women!” I grumbled as I chucked my phone on the bed.

It was late, but I
didn’t feel tired at all. I contemplated if I should just call it a night or join that hellcat of a woman outside on the patio. It doesn’t take any Freudian ability to see how much baggage that woman carried. She might smile and laugh, but it was insincere. I saw glimpses of tortured pain in those eyes. Reading people was one thing I had always done well. I felt bad about what I said to her earlier, but she had to know I wasn’t trying to hit on her or anything.

I may have thought about it for a second when my eyes first landed on her. Both girls were hot, but for some reason
Trista intrigued me more. That instantly took a nosedive when I realized how guarded she was, though.

Wanting to take my mind off everyone, I looked for my
iPad. I could do with a good suspense book to pass the time, but it was nowhere to be found. I suddenly remembered I left it on the outdoor canopy bed this afternoon. I stopped halfway in the living room when I saw Trista dive in the water with her clothes on.
Funny, I would have pegged that personality of hers to have gone naked. She had that bold sassiness to her. A confident woman who knew she was hot.

Breaking my thoughts of her, I went outside. It didn’t take me long to find my
iPad sitting where I left it earlier. I started to make way inside, but something compelled me to see her one more time before I hid in my room. My eyes scanned the dark moonlit sea but there was no movement anywhere. Fear started to spread through me as I started to walk towards the shore. The sea was still, not an ounce of movement anywhere—silent.

I dropped my
iPad on the sand and hurriedly went in the water. Something told me that she hadn’t planned to come out alive.
Fuck, I had no idea her shit ran that deep.
I prayed that I wasn’t too late. It was hard to see anything as I got further in, but my determination didn’t stop me. I dove in deeper, my eyes scanning the dark water. That was when I saw a glimmer of something ahead. I accelerated my speed and swam towards it. It could’ve been a fish, for all I knew, but it gave me hope. My heart lurched when my burning eyes found her slowly sinking to the bottom—eyes closed, auburn hair floating, arms lifeless. A diamond sparkled on her exposed neck.

I quickly got to her and wrapped one arm around her waist. I used my other free hand and both of my legs to propel us upwards. My lungs burst wildly when I reached the surface, gulping air
into my chest, before I summoned all my strength and started to swim back to shore. When my toes touched sand, I gathered her in my arms and hurried to the shore.

I carefully placed her limp body on the sand
, her head propped carefully on my folded knee. It was obvious that she wasn’t breathing. Urgently, I placed my hand over the other and used the soles of my hands to apply pressure against her chest. I used enough pressure to compress her chest that it recoiled.

Panic started to flourish
as each new try proved unsuccessful, but I squashed it like the pest that it was, opting instead for a different method to try and save her. My hands instantly parted her lips for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. After my third try, she slowly started to cough. Her body stiffly turned to the side and spat out water, coughing and wheezing it all out. My arm held her while my other hand tried to soothe her. Tears formed in her eyes when everything started to rush back to her.

“I got you. You’re safe now,” I gently murmured. My insides knotted at the sight of her. What had triggered this? She was a bit distant earlier, but it was clear that she enjoyed being surrounded by her friends.

Misery was imprinted on her pretty face. “You should’ve left me in there. You had no right!” Trista started to bawl. Hatred laced her voiced as she repeated her words, until her cries made it difficult for her to say them anymore.

Hearing her openly admit that she wanted to kill herself shifted something violent inside me. She was sitting up now, crying. My hand captured her chin and
forced her to look at me. “Is yourself all you ever think about?” I savagely spat at her, my anger evident. “You’re on vacation with your friends. One of them is filming a movie. If you had died tonight, the entire production would halt to investigate your death. Emma’s career depends on this movie. Lindsey looks forward to her summer and yet, you decided to end your life
out here
, jeopardizing the happiness of the people you claim to love. I call that selfish.” It triggered the effect I hoped for.
Good
, I thought. She needed to see sense. She
had
to see sense.