Rogue Wave (The Water Keepers, Book 2) (3 page)

“No, I’m ready,” said Dr. Jensen. “I just need a refill on my supply. How soon can you deliver more product?”

The turkey sandwich began to toss around in my stomach. The whole situation felt like trouble. I wanted to get out of there, but I definitely didn’t want them to hear me go. I inched my hand up to the rail as carefully as possible, and just as I was about to pull my body up from the floor, a loud chime rang through the air.

In an instant, the phone in my pocket gave away my position. I froze for a split second in fear, glancing at the men just long enough to see two glaring, vivid blue eyes turn and stare back at me. I gasped and jumped to my feet, scrambling up the steps and rushing out the first door I could find.

I glanced back at the door, half running, half speed walking down the hospital corridor, not sure what I had just witnessed. The flash of those glaring blue eyes haunted my thoughts as I banged my fingers repeatedly over the elevator button. The door opened and I rushed forward, holding my breath until it closed safely behind me. I shot my hand to the metal wall, bracing myself as I tried to breathe.

All I could think about was the blue-eyed boy I’d once talked to while being held prisoner last November. Ash, the person who had helped kidnap me. Ash, the son of a terrible criminal. Ash, the guy who was supposed to be Rayne’s best friend, but who had disappeared and wouldn’t return any of Rayne’s calls.

Could it really be
him
that was talking to my mother’s boyfriend in the stairwell? Why would someone like
that
be pushing questionable meds in a dark corner of a hospital? Rayne said that the guy was wealthy beyond belief. Why would he care about making a quick buck? It really wouldn’t make sense that it was him.

The elevator dinged, and I stepped forward with caution. I looked up and down the halls, but there wasn’t anyone shady in sight. Once I caught my breath, and walked all the way out to my car without any obstacles, I started to wonder if I was blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Everything happened so fast. How could I be sure? What did
I
know about hospital policies on doctors ordering experimental drugs?

Maybe the fact that I panicked was enough to have caused the release of past traumatic memories I’d been suppressing. It could have triggered something deep in my subconscious to make me
think
I was seeing Ash, when in reality it was just some random guy.

I started the car engine and closed my eyes for a moment, letting the music from the radio calm my nerves. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was just being silly and paranoid. So, I spent the entire drive home convincing myself that I’d blown the entire situation out of proportion and decided to forget the whole thing ever happened.

When I pulled into my driveway, I finally remembered that someone had tried to call me earlier. I removed my phone from my pocket and read the screen. There was a missed call from Heather, as well as a text from her that said,
911
. In Heather’s mind, pretty much everything was some kind of an emergency, so I wasn’t too worried, but she didn’t use the code 911 all that often, so I thought I’d better call her back just in case.

Heather picked up on the first ring. “Oh. My. Gosh, Sadie. Did you get your mail today?”

Her question took me by surprise. “My mail? What are you talking about?”

“You have to go get it right now,” she squealed. “But don’t hang up on me. I’ll wait.”

“I have it right here,” I said, confused. “I just haven’t looked through it yet.”

Her tone was impatient. “Well, look through it then. Like, right now.”

“Okay, okay. Hold on.” I started to rummage through the envelopes.

“What’s taking so long?” she complained in my ear.

“Sorry, there’s like a whole week’s worth of mail here. What am I looking for anyway?”

“Just…look for a big manila envelope,” she spouted. “You can’t miss it.”

I found the large envelope at the bottom of the pile and pulled it to the top of the stack. Then I stopped. It all made sense now. I stared at the words
UCLA Undergraduate Admissions
in the top corner of the envelope.

Heather broke the silence. “Did you find it yet?”

“Uh, yeah. I found it. So, did you open yours already?”

“
Yes…
” Heather said, her tone so excited it practically answered my question all on its own. She definitely had been accepted to the school. “Open it!” she urged. “Oh my gosh, I’m like,
so
nervous for you.”

I slid my finger under the top edge of the paper, unsure what I was hoping to find. I scanned over the headings and began to read aloud. “Dear Sadie, It is our great pleasure to offer you admission—”

“I knew it!” Heather said, cutting me off. “We both got in. I knew we would. This is so perfect. Aren’t you excited? We’re going to be roommates, and live in L.A. and meet tons of hot guys…It’s going to be the most fun we’ve ever had in our entire lives.”

I didn’t answer right away. In my mind, the whole college, future, decision-making stuff was still supposed to be way in the future. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.

“
Hello
,” she said impatiently. “You should be, like, doing cartwheels and jumping up and down right now.”

“Totally, I know. It’s just…well, UCLA is so expensive. I’m still not sure I can afford it.”

“But isn’t that why you and Nicole have been working all those hours at her dad’s yogurt shop? You know, so you
can
afford it.”

“It is,” I said. “But even if I work there full-time all summer long, I still won’t have enough to even put a dent in the costs.”

Heather’s tone weakened. “But, you told me that your mom said she was going to help you pay for the rest. Did she change her mind or something?”

For some reason, I wanted to say yes, my mom
did
change her mind. I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t true. My mom was practically begging me to let her pay for everything. I was just avoiding making the commitment to go.

“Sadie, come on,” Heather said, sounding both annoyed and heartbroken. “I know you feel worried about having your mom spend her savings on you, but she totally wants to. She told me herself. And this is like, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you pass it up now, you’ll just be setting yourself up for regret. What else would you do anyway? Work in a frozen yogurt shop the rest of your life?”

“No,” I protested. “I mean, I could go to a cheaper school somewhere around here and still find a decent career and everything.”

Heather went quiet, voice serious. “Wait a minute. I know what this is. This is about Rayne, isn’t it? You don’t want to go to L.A. because he can’t come with you.”

“What?” I said, caught by surprise. “No, of course not. That has nothing to do with it.” But
did
it have anything to do with it? It wasn’t supposed to. Even if I did go to UCLA, Rayne would just follow me there and watch after me like he always did. Wouldn’t he?

Suddenly, I realized what my problem was. I didn’t want to commit to UCLA because I was afraid of the future. And the reason I was afraid of the future was because I didn’t want my relationship with Rayne to end. I wanted to stay in my pretend, secure little world that wasn’t reality.

But deep down I knew I couldn’t stay there forever. Not only was it becoming torture just to hold back the feelings that were all a fake, Rayne could be reassigned at a moment’s notice. He might suddenly disappear one day. Just like my father. Then where would I be? Heartbroken and alone, just like my mom had been for the first seventeen years of my life.

“You know,” I said. “I didn’t say I was for sure not coming. I’m still thinking about it. And to be honest, I don’t even know if I would want Rayne to come with me anyway.”

Heather didn’t sound convinced. “Oh
really
?”

“I’m serious. I guess I just keep thinking, things seem great for now, but there’s no way it’s going to last forever with Rayne.”

“I don’t know about that,” Heather said. “I think if he had it his way, you’d elope the day after graduation.”

I laughed in disbelief. “Where would you get such a ridiculous idea?”

“Have you
seen
the necklace he gave you?” she said.

“So? What does that have to do with it?”

“Sadie, please. No guy gives a girl a
diamond
necklace unless he’s seriously in love.”

“He’s not in love with me,” I said. “It’s not even a diamond.”

“Okay, fine. No guy gives a girl a beautiful, rare,
crystal
necklace unless he’s in love.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was pretty sure the reason Rayne gave me the Water Briolette was to help keep me strong physically, because I needed all the Healing Water I could get. But obviously I couldn’t explain that to Heather.

Before I could answer, Heather continued to add to her argument. “And he doesn’t send her two dozen red roses for Valentine’s Day, or surprise her with a candlelit romantic dinner for their two-month anniversary, or—”

“Okay, okay. I get it,” I said. “Rayne’s like the picture-perfect definition of the ideal boyfriend. I know. But you’re just going to have to trust me on this one, Heather. There’s no future for us.”

3. THE TALK

The more the hours passed by, the more my stomach folded over itself with anxiety. Just thinking about what I knew I had to do, physically hurt all over. By ten o’clock I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get it over with. I clutched the purple diary sitting in my lap, hesitating, knowing that if I went through with this, it would change everything. But I couldn’t see any other way for things to work out. I pressed my pen to the page of my diary with unsure fingers and wrote:

Hey. You around? Can we talk?

Even though Rayne had loosened his strict, no-phone-call policy, we still used the diary to talk to each other on a regular basis. I sat and stared at the purple light at the center of the butterfly on the cover, waiting for his reply with dread. It didn’t take long for his answer to appear:

YEP, I’M HERE. ARE YOU OKAY? WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?

I paused. If I wanted to change my mind, this was my last chance. I glanced up for a moment, staring out across my bedroom, wondering if I could really go through with this, when something on top of the dresser caught my eye. It was the orange daisy Rayne had given me at the hospital after my car accident.  It had only been a week or two since I last stopped to smell its magical petals. The flower had lived for months off just a single drop of Healing Water.

But something about the flower suddenly caught my attention. It looked different. I jumped from the bed and ran over to the dresser. My feet stopped as I pressed my lips together, holding back a sudden surge of emotion. The flower was dead. The petals were withered and falling off, the stem a sickly hue of greenish-brown. It felt like a sign. My eyes glistened with moisture as it became more and more clear. Even with the aid of the Healing Water, nothing could last forever.

I nodded my head knowingly and moved back to my place on the bed. As much as it would hurt, I knew it had to be done. I opened the diary, took a deep breath, and wrote:

I’m fine. But can I come over? I want to talk to you in person.

My feet dragged across the pavement as I made the long, awful journey to Rayne’s house. At least, that was how it felt tonight. I’d had talks like this with other boys before, and even though our relationship and the feelings with Rayne weren’t real, this felt harder to face than any other break-up type conversation I’d ever had the unfortunate need to initiate.

This isn’t even a real break-up,
I tried to tell myself.
You’ll still see him all the time and he’ll still be assigned to you for who knows how long. Then when he does have to leave, you’ll have a life outside of him to fall back on.

The more I thought about it, the easier it seemed. For all I knew, he would even agree with me that it was the best way. He was mostly just humoring me all this time anyway. He had stayed involved in my life against his better judgment in order to appease my own insecurities.

The black metal gate swung open as I approached, and Rayne appeared in the doorway. When I saw him, a smile broke through the pain etched on my face. He looked so happy to see me. He held out his arms to give me a hug. Maybe I should have talked to him through the diary after all. Feeling his warm chest against my face, I wasn’t sure I could make myself go through with it.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said softly in my ear. Right then, I knew I would miss his hugs more than anything else. I let his arms hold me a little longer than usual, not knowing how soon I would have the chance to feel them again.

I finally let go and stepped back from his embrace. “Are you having a good night?” I asked.

“I am now,” he said.

He took my hand and led me into the living room. Why? Why did he have to be so wonderful all the time? This was already going to be hard enough without him reminding me just how much I loved to be around him.

He stopped in front of the couch. “I was kind of worried about you tonight. I was probably just making things up in my head. I mean, I knew you got home safe from the hospital and all, but…all night I had this feeling like something was wrong.”

It was amazing the way he always seemed to sense what I was feeling.  As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t deny the bond between us created by the Healing Water. But his words reminded me of why I was there in the first place, and my muscles tensed. “Um, yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “Sorry to make you worry.” I sat down abruptly and tried to look away. Staring at his wonderful face made everything harder.

“I guess I was just being paranoid,” he said. He grinned and placed his hand over mine. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”