Rogue Wave: Cake Series Book Five

by J. Bengtsson

Sam seemed to pick up on my hesitation. “I don’t know why you stopped, but I want us to be together on the water like we used to be.”

  For reasons I didn’t understand myself, the weight of the years slammed into me with a force I hadn’t expected, and my eyes swelled.

  “Keith.” Sam jumped to her knees, gathering me in her arms. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I answered, wiping away the evidence. “I have no idea where that came from. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Why does the beach make you sad? You used to love it.”

  “I’m not sure. I used to be so carefree. Nothing scared me.”

  “Except sinkholes.”

  “Yes, except those.” I had to laugh. It was as if she’d hung on my every word when we were kids. “I never considered the dangers of anything I did back then, but once my world went to shit, suddenly everything was a potential death trap. The Keith Memorial Bench didn’t seem all that cool anymore.

  “But, it went even deeper than that. Keeping myself away from the ocean became like a self-imposed punishment. Instead of flogging myself to a bloody pulp like normal crazies, I just deprive myself of the things I love, like you and surfing, and then I tell myself that once I’m worthy, I’ll get them back. But the truth is, Sam, if you hadn’t found me yesterday, I don’t know if I ever would have felt good enough. I don’t know why I’ve never been able to just be happy with who I am.”

  “I think everyone feels that way sometimes.”

  “You don’t.”

  The turmoil that passed over her face gave me a glimpse into her own crippling insecurities. “Trust me, I do. I live in fear of becoming my mother, Keith. I feel like I’m tiptoeing my way through life, afraid of waking the demon. As long as it’s hibernating, though, I’m safe.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yep. So, don’t think you’re special by any means, you mutant freak.”

  The darkness faded, and we both laughed at our shared faults. Maybe that’s why we’d worked all those years ago. We were a matching pair, like Shannon and Stewart – only without all the excessive hugging. Sam and I were more like gentle ocean waves, with the occasional tsunami tossed in to make things interesting.

  “I deem you worthy, Keith McKallister.” She stood up, offering her hand. “Now, come surfing with me.”

  I could not overstate the sensual, visceral power of the ocean. To use that force to ride a fast-moving wall of water was like nothing I’d ever known on dry land. The speed. The wind in my face. Skimming the waves was like connecting to some otherworldly energy through the surfboard. Like riding a bike, muscle memory kicked in, and it was as if I’d never spent a day away from the ocean. My legs remembered exactly how to absorb a drop and to generate the lightning speed required to harness the energy for a high-g bottom turn. It was sensory overload at its finest – the roar, the colors, the taste of salt, and Sam, the most beautiful girl I’d ever known. She was focused not only on her own ride but on making mine the best it could be. If I hadn’t loved her before today, this would have sealed the deal.

  “You good?” she called out to me, water dripping off her eyelashes and sparkling in the early morning sun.

  “Better than good,” I replied, grabbing her board and drawing her to me so I could press a wet, salty kiss to her lips. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. I had my health. I had my family. I had my future all lined up. And now I had my Sam. There was nothing more I could want for. An idea sparked in my head, and once it had formed, there was no taming it. Snagging a long piece of seaweed floating near my board, I twisted and braided it until it resembled a crude ring.

  I took her hand in mine, and without stopping for a single outside thought, I blurted out, “Will you marry me?”

  She laughed, believing my gesture to be a joke. Of course she would. Who asked a girl to marry him less than twenty-four-hours after reconnecting? A mutant freak, that’s who.

  I slipped the seaweed ring onto her finger.

  As my intentions slowly sank in, Sam ogled at me like one of those bottom dweller fish with gigantic nighttime eyeballs. “Wait – are you serious?”

  “I know what I want, and it’s always been you. Marry me, Sam?”

  “I… I don’t know what to say. I love you, Keith. I do, but…”

  “But what?”

  “But I need time. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to marry you, it just means… ask me again once we’ve been together for at least a day.”

  I got it. Maybe it was too sudden, too shocking. Plus the ring needed a serious upgrade. My grand gesture, along with the seaweed ring, sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor.

  “Hey,” she said, squeezing my hand. “I love the passion behind your delivery.”

  I nodded, grinning. “Thank you. And, just so you know, Samantha Anderson, that isn’t my last proposal. You’ve been warned.”

  Five Years Later

  31

  Samantha: The Writing on the Wall

  I checked the phone for the twentieth time. Still nothing. I should have gone to her doctor’s office. I could have hung out in the waiting room behind a potted plant. But this wasn’t my experience to share. It was Shannon and Stewart’s, and like it or not, the title of best friend didn’t entitle me to share this moment with them.

  Scooping Murphy off the floor, I flung the dog onto my shoulder. His breed, Wheaton terrier, was known for their sloth-like cuddling, and he didn’t disappoint.

  “Will you be my baby, Mur?”

  He responded with a series of licks that had me forgetting about the phone call I was desperately awaiting. Typically, Murphy wouldn’t be home with me on a Saturday as he had a permanent spot at Keith’s side. An unofficial mascot, Murphy was a shop dog, going to work with Keith everyday. Fans even posted pics of him on social media.

  Keith! Yes, he could help me pass the time. I rang him up.

  “Hey, babe,” he answered. “What’s up?”

  “Have you left for LA yet?”

  A quick day trip Keith was making to Los Angeles to replenish supplies for his store was the reason for Murphy’s banishment.

  “Just did. I’m running late. A bus filled with tourists stopped by and gutted the place. Once they left, I had to wipe the bodily fluids off Jake’s life-size cutout. It took a whole roll of toilet paper.”

  “Well, that’s just…” I cringed. “Disturbing.”

  “You’re telling me. I think I might need to laminate Jake.”

  “Or take him down. Even Cardboard Jake deserves his dignity.”

  Three years ago, Keith had realized his dream by opening Kali’s Surf and Skate Shack. And that’s where Cardboard Jake lived. Aided by the star power of its famous co-owner, Jake McKallister, Kali’s grand opening was a Hollywood-worthy event. And it continued to draw crowds once word got out that it wasn’t just a surf shop but also a museum of sorts, sporting a memorabilia wall with awards and old family photos of a young musical legend in the making.

  “Have you heard from Shannon yet?”

  “No, and I’m dying over here.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be the first to know.”

  “No, I’m third in line. First her mom. Then his mom. Then me. It sucks.”

  Keith laughed. “God forbid you have to wait an extra hour.”

  My phone buzzed with an incoming call, and I screeched. “It’s her. Bye! Call me on your way home. Squee.”

  I hung up on Keith, too excited to hear his reply, and before Shannon could say a word I blurted out, “Boy or girl?”

  She laughed; such a beautiful sound. “Girl!”

  I screamed, actually screamed, dancing around the room with Murphy. “Just what we wanted,” I puffed. “Oh my god, Shannon, I’m so happy. The ultrasound was good? All her measurements are normal?”

  “Uh, well, what is your definition of normal? She’s perfect, but is already a giant. She’s measuring way longer than normal babies her gestational age.”

  “Who wants a normal baby wh
en we can have a supersized one, right?”

  I always spoke of this baby as ours, and it was, in a way. I loved her and her parents enough to officially refer to the collective whole as us, and certainly I wouldn’t apologize for living vicariously through Shannon until I had one of those growing in my belly too.

  We chattered on and on about all things baby until she shifted the conversation. “So, I’m assuming there was no marriage proposal last night? I didn’t hear anything and didn’t want to call and take you away from the tub of ice cream.”

  “So considerate of you. And no. No proposal.”

  “You should just ask him, Sam. Stewart and I had it all planned for months. There was no surprise, but it went down exactly as we wanted… except, you know, for your refusal to play along.”

  “Okay, look, we’ve been through this a thousand times. No way was I going to play the slave Princess Leia and be chained to Jabba the Hut all night. That would have set feminism back forty years!”

  “So what happened last night?” Shannon pried. “You were convinced he was going to ask you.”

  “So after I got the dinner invitation, I left work early. Booked an appointment in a blowout bar and had my makeup done there too. Then I hurried home and changed into that dress I’d worn to the charity ball – remember the pink one that shimmers? Anyway, instead of telling me what restaurant we were going to, Keith said he’d ping me his location. I’m imagining some fairytale palace with snowflakes and twinkling lights.”

  “Snowflakes in Southern California?”

  “It’s my fantasy, so shut it!”

  Only after we had a nice little chuckle did I jump into the nitty-gritty of my cautionary tale.

  “I knew something was up the minute I pulled into the parking lot.”

  “Uh-oh.” Shannon giggled. “Why?”

  “Because it was Jorge’s Mexican Restaurant. You know, the one with all the plastic owls?”

  “Why would he propose to you at a hole in the wall like Jorge’s?”

  “Because, Shannon, he wasn’t proposing. He was just eating.”

  “So, you’re saying he invited you to dinner – to eat? How dare he?”

  “Exactly. And I walked into the owl nest looking like I was going to prom… yeah, it was embarrassing, to say the least.”

  “Did Keith notice? What did he say?”

  “Obviously he noticed my glamour shots makeover, but he was so busy stuffing his face with nachos he couldn’t really say much. Still, he was grinning at me all night like he was in on some secret I wasn’t. I swear, Shannon, he’s just playing with me. He knows I’m expecting it, so he’s torturing me. And I only have myself to blame.”

  It was true. This was all my fault – and the biggest sore spot between us as a couple. The truth was he had proposed to me – twice. And I’d denied him – twice. But aside from Shannon, no one knew the truth. To the rest of the world, and by that I meant his family, Keith was viewed as the commitment-phobic chump who refused to settle down and I as the long-suffering girlfriend, longing for a marriage proposal that would never come.

  I swear I tried to correct the assumption, not wanting Keith to take the blame for something I’d done, but he insisted he’d rather be seen as the bad guy than the poor sap that continually got shot down by the woman he loved. God, I was such a shithead.

  The second proposal came nearly a year to the day after the seaweed proposal. Only this time, Keith proposed on dry land, down on one knee, and with a gleaming diamond ring ready and willing to be slipped onto my finger.

  If the seaweed proposal was a victim of overeager spontaneity, the diamond ring proposal was the victim of poor timing. See, Keith had chosen to ask for my hand in marriage on the exact day I’d spotted my mother at the local mall, carrying on like a raving lunatic. She hadn’t seen me, but I’d heard her. The entire mall had heard her. Her f-bomb-laden outburst was over tomatoes, and while she was still in the middle of aggressively chastising the food court worker for adding them to her burger, she’d been dragged from the area by mall cops as horrified mothers dove over their toddlers, shielding their innocent ears from harm.

  Shaking from the encounter, I’d driven straight to the pier where I’d promised to meet Keith for an evening stroll. I hadn’t had a chance to make sense of what I was feeling, or to tell him what had happened, before he was on the ground with my hand in his and a shiny diamond was being slipped onto my ring finger. I still cringed every time I thought back to that moment. Bursting into tears, I’d handed the ring back with some half-assed sob about him not wanting to marry me and then ran off into the night.

  Yeah. Not my best moment.

  That night, even after explaining to him why I’d freaked out, Keith was pissed and rightfully so. We didn’t speak for a week, which was a little difficult seeing that we were living together by then. Eventually he got over it, and we went on with our lives. We only spoke about it one other time when he crushed my heart by asking if I’d ever marry him.

  It was then that I made him a promise – and bought myself some much needed time. If, after five years together, I wasn’t bat-shit crazy, he could propose to me again … and then, I’d say yes.

  Well, that five-year mark came and went a week ago, and there was still no proposal. Keith didn’t even act like he knew the significance of that date; or worse, that he’d remembered. And because of my past assholery, I couldn’t say anything either. So Keith and I just existed in this weird expectant bubble, and last night… I couldn’t shake the feeling he’d been messing with me.

  After I hung up on Shannon, I flicked on the television to try to distract myself. Even though I expected a marriage proposal and would accept, it still scared the hell out of me. Each time I forgot my keys or became irrationally pissed about someone leaving their dog’s shit pile on the walking path, I worried. Was I on my way to becoming my mother? Was it just a matter of time before I turned on Keith… on our eventual kids? But I also knew I couldn’t postpone my future forever.

  My phone rang again, but this time I didn’t recognize the number. I sat up.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Samantha Anderson?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  I’d driven straight over to the hospital, and like the dutiful daughter they all thought me to be, I stood bravely as the sheet was pulled down to reveal my mother’s body still cloaked in a hospital gown. I gasped. She was skeletal. My mother had been dwindling back when I was in high school, but now she was nothing more than skin and bones – dead skin and bones.

  Aspiration pneumonia? What did that even mean? It had been fast, I’d been told. By the time she’d called the ambulance to take her to the hospital, she’d only had hours left. And since I was listed as her next of kin, it became my job to sort through the details of her life – and death.

  As if identifying my dead mother’s remains and dealing with her death weren’t enough, the real kick in the gut came when her doctor pulled me aside to tell me the shocking truth. My mother’s mental illness wasn’t just some run-of-the-mill schizophrenia or manic-depressive disorder. Apparently, she’d been suffering from a progressive brain condition known as Huntington’s disease.

  I listened in horror as he described Huntington’s as an inherited disorder that resulted in the death of brain cells. There was no cure. In its earliest stages, Huntington’s disease manifested with jerky movements, a lack of coordination, and severe behavioral disorders. And, although symptoms of Huntington's disease most commonly became noticeable in one’s thirties or forties, they could begin as young as infancy. Everything began falling into place. Sullivan’s severe lack of coordination; his mood swings. Had he carried the gene? And what about my occasional clumsiness? Did I?

  As I sat there and listened to the doctor explain the disease, I could feel the four walls closing in on me. It was a death sentence. I had a death sentence. At twenty-eight-years-old, I was fast approaching the age of
no return. How had I not known such a horrible disease, one that slowly robbed the sufferer of his or her mind, was being passed down from generation to generation? Why had my relatives hidden this condition? Or had they even known?

  In the midst of all the horrifying information settling in, my mind wandered back to Preston’s mother. She really should demand her money back from the investigator she’d hired to gather dirt on me. He’d only provided her with half the truth. If only he’d dug a little deeper, Preston never would have asked me to be his barren plus one.

  Armed with the devastating news, I gathered my mother’s meager belongings and drove to the home I’d shared with her – the place once owned by my grandmother, who’d most likely passed away from the same degenerative disease that had cut a swath across my lineage. With the key I’d found in her bag, I opened the door and, by habit, peeked inside for the all clear.

  The house remained largely the same, with one glaring exception – a heavy layering of dust. It was as if my normally perfection-oriented mother hadn’t had the strength in her final days to tidy up, and from the look of her emaciated body, I could certainly see why.

  Like a trespasser, I slowly made my way through her house. It wasn’t that I was necessarily looking for something. Perhaps I just needed some sort of closure. But that was not what I found. While the rest of the house was tidy, her bedroom appeared to have been touched by a hurricane. Flashes of red caught my eye. All over the white walls were words, and phrases, and ominous warnings. Die. Never grow old. Be Afraid. Death sentence.

  My hands shook as I read the inner ramblings of a diseased mind, and for the first time, I felt pity for the woman who’d birthed me. She hadn’t been evil by choice. She hadn’t asked for this disease. Maybe she would have been a lovely woman without it. Knowing that her cruelty couldn’t have been helped brought me some measure of comfort… until I opened the bathroom door.