Chapter 21

21

The waves on the beach rumble and roar, rolling higher and higher. If a surfer had a death wish, they'd have the time of their life right now, out there on those blue shimmering monsters. Rain slaps against my face and my arms, my chest and legs, all so hard it stings as though hundreds of tiny arrows aim at me straight from the clouds. The sky is a swirling, inky mix of black and indigo, the kind of sky you see in horror movies just before everything goes to hell.

I'm running as fast as I can, maybe even faster than I can, because I can't bear for Carter to catch up to me. If he's even come after me at all. Just this morning, I would have said Carter might've followed me anywhere, especially were I this upset. But now…I don't know. Maybe he went back inside to call Erika and now they're gossiping about what a spoiled bitch I am. They're probably founding a club right now, the Teal Haters, and they're planning their inaugural meeting, so they can bond over all the ways I am broken.

It doesn't matter. It's what I keep repeating to myself, every step a word. It. Doesn't. Matter.

This marriage is fake. It doesn't matter. Sure, I wanted to be best friends with Carter again, but that, too, no longer matters. I want to laugh when I think about my plans to get him to fuck me so we could get it out of our systems.

It. Doesn't. Matter.

Shells and rocks whoosh under my feet, and on a couple of steps, I stomp on something sharp. I can't bring myself to care, and instead I increase my speed until it feels like my legs are nothing but blurs, like I'm Sonic from the video game Carter and I used to play when we were little kids.

At about one or two miles, I come upon my first roadblock of jagged, chert-gray rocks, appearing like the open mouth of some giant, ancient creature, its row of fossilized teeth all that's left of it. They're so dark they almost look black in this rainstorm. It would be damn difficult, if not impossible, to climb them. But just the thought of turning around makes me ache, makes me want to weep, and so with grim determination, I slow down to climb, to crawl, to do anything to get myself on the other side of this line of gargantuan fangs.

I'm pretty sure I can hear Carter yelling something like Teal, what the fuck? in the distance, so I grab the nearest rock and haul my ass up until I'm balanced right on top of it.

I suck in my breath, my stomach bottoming out as I look down. This is the moment when I realize I'm being an irresponsible ass. Because this, this —my feet, slick against the sharp rock, my arms out because the wind is hell-bent on shoving me right back down, the fact that I could so easily fall, and one of those rocks would absolutely pierce my middle, or my spine, or my temple—now I'm the one asking myself, Teal, what the fuck?

This is how I watched my sister die. Sure, it wasn't exactly balanced on a sea rock, and she didn't exactly die, but all the same, when I look around, I am there, at Cranberry Falls State Park, looking down at my sister screaming before nothing, nothing, nothing for eight entire years.

I wonder if all the running I do, if it isn't just keeping my worst bipolar symptoms at arm's length. I wonder if I've been running from that day, from that moment, as though it were alive and chasing me, ready to fling eight years' worth of guilt on my shoulders.

I swallow and lower myself until I'm in a crouch, placing my hands on the cold, smooth stone under my feet. Even though it means I have to see Carter's stupid, handsome face, I've got to get back. I need to figure out another way to deal with my mess of a brain. There's no way that climbing over rocks barefoot in the middle of a storm is going to somehow help.

I steady myself so I can slide off and back onto the sand.

And of course…this is when lightning strikes.

It's a brilliant and massive map reaching across the sky in all four directions, like hands, only the hands are made up of nothing but an electrical circular system. It makes the sky light up in amber gold, the same color as Carter's eyes, the drops of rain in that glare looking like yellow diamonds falling from the sky.

I don't know when the lightning gets me, the exact moment when I hook up to its vibrating, hot current. All I do know is I look down at my left hand, because it feels strange, kind of like I dipped it into a hole in the wall that led to an alternate universe where everything is thick, where gravity is stronger. And it's alight. I lift my arm and somehow my hand keeps glowing , and it glows not yellow nor white, but blue.

And I watch as that blue light stretches in front of me, and just ten or so feet away, it forms into a figure. A little girl, no more than five years old, running after another person lit in blue—a woman.

Goose bumps prick my skin so hard, it's painful. I don't know if it's from being electrocuted or from watching my first great trauma unfold before my eyes in nothing but pure, hot lightning. Probably both.

Farther out, maybe a quarter or a half mile away, there is one more figure. I think it's another woman, and she's not made of lightning. She's real. And she's looking right at me.

Before I can think about it, I stand, leaping forward to the next rock. I don't understand what the hell is happening, but I can't shake the feeling that there is something essential out there, something that is undeniably mine, and I need to get it with the same desperation a selkie would need to find her lost skin before she withers and dies.

When I reach the next boulder, I bite my lips. Just one more. Just one more rock to go, and then I'll make it back onto the sand.

I tentatively place my foot on the smooth, cold black of rock. And when I put my weight there, my heel slips.

And of course. This is when I fall.

"You're damn lucky you didn't hit your head. Or your face. Or lose a limb!"

I roll my eyes and stare out the car window. I shouldn't be rolling my eyes. If I'd just watched Carter run away from me barefoot during a horrible storm, stupidly climb some jagged boulders, and slip and fall while getting struck by lightning, I'd be telling him off, too.

"I get it, sometimes you need to run, that's how you are, but Teal, we have a treadmill. Do you not know about the treadmill in the gym room? You should by now. I know you have't been here long, but you set up camp in there and everything! You can use it anytime you need to, I would never stop—"

I tune him out as the pain in my ankle intensifies when I shiver. Carter, like some kind of superhero, leapt over two boulders, lifted me up, and carried me all the way back to the house, straight to his car, where he deposited me on the passenger seat. He said he didn't give a damn if I didn't want to go to urgent care, that's where I was going, considering I'd basically been bathed in electricity.

I don't think the lightning hurt me. I know it must sound dumb, but the lightning…it felt familiar, when it touched my skin. Kind of how it felt when Carter had me connect to the water in the big oak tree during the craft fair…but so much more a vivid, visceral, fuller sensation. The difference between a photo of a cup of coffee and having one in your hands to actually sip its bittersweetness. I knew the lightning wouldn't hurt me, because it was as conscious and alive as I was. It reminded me of the stuff I'd always heard Sage and Sky talk about when it came to their gifts. That almost unexplainable sense of connection and belonging—Sage, she feels the cells in the plants speaking to her own cells. Sky feels that same shit with criaturas.

If I didn't know any better, I would say for one small moment, I had that piece back. That essential part of me that Mama stole when I was a little kid.

But now all I feel is pain. Because no, the lightning didn't get me. But my foot getting wedged between those big rocks at an ugly angle sure did.

I'm still wearing the hyacinth-colored dress I'd put on for the lunch with the Velasquez family. It's got long sleeves and a high neck and reaches to my knees. It was a gift from Amá Sonya and I'm pretty sure she had intended for me to wear it to brunch with her, but the lace of its edges make my skin itch, so I'd never even worn it out. I thought for sure the amount of skin it covered might endear me just a smidge to Abuela Erika, but now I know that even if I were dressed in a nun's outfit, with a veil covering my face, a rosary around my neck, and holding hands with Jesus Christ in the flesh, she'd still hate my guts.

Carter and I are both soaked, and the lace itches even more while wet and clinging to me. I full-body shiver again and cry out. Putting on a brave face, I lift my leg up to take a look at my foot. Unfortunately, Carter glances over at the same time.

"Jesus," he hisses. "That looks broken, Teal!"

The ankle is swollen to twice its size and is all black and splotched red on the outer side. When I try to move it, I want to scream.

"No, it doesn't." But my voice isn't convincing at all.

The urgent care nurse takes X-rays of my foot and concludes that it is merely a high-ankle sprain. "One of the worst I've ever seen," Dr. Barringer tells me when he finally comes in; he's an older man with salt-and-pepper hair and the build of a biker, and he can't hide his enthusiasm. I guess he must see a lot of running noses and sore throats and my swollen, bruised ankle is the highlight of his week.

Carter gives him a dirty look as he writes a prescription for painkillers. I guess he doesn't appreciate Dr. Barringer's passion for the severity of my injury.

"Normally I'd just say alternate between Tylenol and Advil for a few days, but you need something a little stronger than that for the first bit. Then alternate the over-the-counter stuff, and keep it elevated, and ice it."

Carter runs a hand over his face. His clothes have dried up some, but they still wrap around parts of him I would rather not be noticing right now—the smooth planes of his pectoral muscles, the cuts of muscle all along his upper back and shoulders. "And what about the lightning strike?" he asks. "Shouldn't you check, I don't know. Her heart or something?"

"Lightning strike?" The doctor lifts his head. "The nurse said you'd made a joke about lightning, but…"

"It wasn't a joke. She was literally struck by lightning. I saw it. It was—" Carter takes a shaky breath.

"It wasn't bad," I say quietly.

"It wasn't bad?" Carter says, turning to me. "Teal, you were struck by lightning . In what universe can that be classified as not bad ?"

"Okay, okay." Dr. Barringer stands and he's got a big smile on his face. I guess my being struck by lightning has probably made his whole month, maybe even year. "We don't have the facilities to check her over as thoroughly as necessary for a lightning strike. You'll have to head over to Cranberry Medical Center for that."

I shake my head. "That's not—"

"I insist," he responds, and then, with unsuppressed glee, he goes into a long list of the ways a lightning strike can fuck a human up, including but not limited to organ damage, cardiac arrest, and tissue burns. With each word, Carter's face gets paler and paler until he looks a lot worse than how I feel.

I know the lightning didn't hurt me, but I can't exactly tell them No, you don't understand. This lightning felt familiar, like a family member, and it was really nice to me . I can't even say I'm actually a witch of wild lightning, or according to my great-aunt Nadia I am, so being struck is just one of those things no one needs to worry about . Dr. Barringer would assume the lightning wrapped around my brain and fried it, and then he'd probably throw an office party over such an exciting turn of medical events.

"Carter," I say once the appointment's done and he hoists me into his arms.

"Don't." His voice is deep and sharp. "We're going to the hospital."

He gets us there in fifteen minutes flat by breaking no less than four different traffic laws on the way. After three hours of waiting and tests, and a hell of a lot more waiting, we're sent home by medical professionals who don't hide the fact that they doubt I was struck at all. 'Cause there's nothing wrong with me. Aside from the high ankle sprain, I mean. Plus the fact that I'm exhausted, and hungry, and my heart feels kind of broken.

I really thought he'd have my back today. I really thought Carter would stand up for me with his family like he did with Lani.

That's the part that makes me want to cry the most. Not the ankle, not the lightning, not even the bizarre, electricity-created reenactment of my mother leaving me when I was five years old. It's Carter and the way he let me down.

He's barely spoken to me more than necessary, and that doesn't change when we get back home. He makes me a grilled cheese and tomato soup (my heart feels stupid when I remember this is what his mother made him and his siblings when they were sick), and he makes sure there's ice on my elevated ankle at all times. He gets me my painkillers and brings me my bedtime clothes, turning his back so I can change, because he refuses to leave me alone. He even brings my toothbrush to me and a bowl to spit in, which seems unnecessarily gross, but when I balk he shakes his head and clenches his jaw and acts like…I don't even know. Like he cares? Now he cares?

When I lie down in bed, he tucks me in like I'm a little baby. "You don't have to do that. You don't have to do any of this," I mumble.

"Of course I do. I'm…I'm your husband."

Okay, so now he wants it to be like that. "Don't say it like that. Like you mean it."

He knows exactly what I'm talking about. "Teal, I'm sorry." His voice sounds so defeated. "While you were getting all those tests done, I looked up what you said. Verbal abuse." His shoulders slump, the small of his back wedged up against my knees. He's so warm and I wish I didn't love it as much as I do. I wish I could somehow stop wanting him in the same way I click off the heat and light of a lamp or take deep breaths to make the rainstorm go away. But I can't. All I can do now is hold my breath because I suspect he's about to make me want him more.

"We've all been raised to never question Abuela Erika, or, when he was alive, Abuelo Gene. When Erika started getting mean, we could all laugh about it later, and almost always Gene was there to balance her. But he's gone now, and…and a part of me knew she'd be that disrespectful. That's why I didn't want to tell my family about you. I didn't want her to treat you like that." He turns his body to look at me, and even in the dark, his eyes glow like a wild lightning storm, feral and full of heat. "I won't ever allow it again. I promise you." He glances away. "I already called and told her."

I blink. "Told her what?"

"That if I ever hear about her talking to you that way, I won't speak with her again."

I swallow a gasp. "But, Carter…the money."

"Right. Here." He pulls his wallet out of his pocket and hands me a folded check. "I can spot you till she gives me the money…or whatever."

"How can you do that? With your investments?"

He stares out the window and clears his throat. "Sí. This is nothing to me. Ta bien, Teal."

I stare at the check. It's two more zeros than I was expecting. "Are you sure, Carter? This is a big cut."

"Consider it another form of apology. I should've been the husband you deserve today. And I wasn't. Like I said, it won't happen again, but maybe that"—he nudges his chin toward the check—"maybe you can use that for something that will, I don't know, comfort you after everything you've gone through." He swallows and when he speaks again, his voice chokes. "When I saw the lightning get you out there…Teal. My God, I felt like I was the one who was dying. And when you fell. I thought the worst." He puts a hand on his chest and lets out a shaky chuckle. "Maybe I need to get my heart checked after today."

Next he clears his throat, letting his hand fall into his lap. "There's another thing I looked up. But you've got to let me know if I'm overstepping, all right, and I'll shut the fuck up about it."

I…have no idea what he could be talking about. My breath begins to get a little short. Even after all the sweet things he's said and done tonight, I still can't help thinking that he's going to kick me out after I acted like a fool on the rocks. "Yeah? Okay?"

He makes eye contact. "Bipolar disorder."

I shake my head. "Yes? I have it?"

"When you first told me about it, I did a lot of research. I wanted to, you know, figure out how to best support you and stuff. Be a good friend."

My heart feels a bit too full at these words. "That's very sweet. Go on."

"I remembered something I had read earlier." He pulls up his phone. "These are a list of symptoms, the manic states versus the depressive states. And one of the mania ones is ‘excessive behaviors with painful consequences.'?"

I furrow my brow. "So what the hell are you saying?"

"I don't know, Teal. I just…all this running you do sounds like it fits the bill, right?"

My cheeks burn as I look down. This is exactly what Sage and Sky tried to bring up with me earlier this year. That all the running I do isn't "healthy." "So what? Something's got to keep me from drowning the whole world like it's biblical times."

Carter reaches out and touches the tips of his fingers to my chin, lifting my face up. "Remember when I told you that you were the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen? This is still true . And I don't just mean your outsides. I mean your insides, as dumb and cliché as that sounds. What you've gone through, and being bipolar on top of it? You're so fucking strong, Teal. I don't want to see you get embarrassed and hang your head, though—" He clears his throat. "I mean, all your feelings are valid and shit. I think you should be proud of yourself, and I just wanted you to be aware of what this running could be, and now that you can't do it for a while, maybe consider other options. Like the breathing, no?"

I was right. I want him now more than ever. And I don't even know if he's being true, if he's actually going to stick to his guns about Erika, if he's going to start acting like my husband. Which is why I can't explain the way my brain immediately goes to my conversation with Sky in the PI's parking lot.

Just get it out of our systems. Right? Right now, fast, before I can think about it too long.

I fling the check onto the nightstand. "Carter," I say, my voice breathless and shaky.

He turns to me fast. "You okay? Was that too much? Or do you need another painkiller?"

I will myself to be brave. To be honest and vulnerable. I swallow, and for all my attempts at bravado, when the words finally come, they're a near whisper. "I want you to make me come."