Here's to Tomorrow

by Teagan Hunter

  Rae responds by squeezing my hand once.

  “Don’t go too far in, bug. Don’t want you getting swept away,” I yell to Joey. She takes two more steps. “That’s good. No further.”

  I apparently picked the worst weekend ever to do this. It’s cloudy and kind of cold with high winds that are creating choppy waves, so I don’t want her too far out. The ocean is too unpredictable for that.

  “Can I collect sticks in case we ever find a dead body, Dad?”

  That gets a laugh out of Rae, helping to lift this odd weight she seems to be carrying around.

  “Do I even want to know?” she asks.

  “Nope,” I tell her, popping the ‘p’.

  “Well, can I?” Joey pushes.

  “Yeah, bug. We can even get some together for Rocky so we can play fetch later. Rae and I will help,” I tell her.

  “You guys can use your sticks for Rocky. I’m saving mine for the dead bodies,” Joey tells us seriously.

  And that’s how we spend the rest of our day—wading in and out of the water, collecting sticks, playing with Rocky, and laughing.

  Hours later, Rae and I are wrapped around one another in bed, completely exhausted from our day.

  “I am so stuffed!” Rae exclaims. “That seafood Alfredo was amazing. I’m still in shock that you even cooked. Should I be worried about food poisoning?”

  “Hey! Take that back,” I say, tickling her until she gasps out a “sorry.” “That’s what I thought.”

  “Ugh, you’re so smug. It’s such a turn-off.”

  “You mean turn-on,” I smirk. She hits me with a pillow. “Okay, settle down, spitfire.”

  We snuggle back down into “our” position—her head on my chest and one leg thrown over both of mine. It’s not really comfortable for me but…anything for Rae.

  We lie in silence for several minutes. I twirl her hair as she draws little patterns on my chest. Even though this is something simple that most couples do, I feel like it’s extra intimate somehow. I don’t know if it’s because of what we shared with one another earlier or if it’s from the way her fingers keep curling inward, like she’s clutching on to me.

  Just when her patterns slow and her breathing starts evening out and I think she’s falling asleep, she speaks.

  “Hudson.”

  “Rae.”

  I feel her smile against my chest.

  “Will you tell me more about you saving that little girl?”

  “That hero thing totally revs your engine, doesn’t it?” I tease.

  Her voice dripping with sarcasm, she says, “Horribly so.”

  I chuckle a little. “There’s not really much to tell. Some of it is fuzzy. I was nine and, like I said before, went to about a million beaches before my grandparents fell in love with this house, so I don’t even remember where it was,” I tell her. “Anyway, I was out collecting some seashells and thought I heard a little girl screaming, so I took off running down the beach. What I happened upon wasn’t pretty. There was a woman and she was just standing there staring out into the ocean as this little girl screamed for help. I tried talking to the woman—yelling at her even—but nothing worked. So, I ran out into the ocean and pulled the little girl to the shore.”

  I peek down at Rae and see that her brows are scrunched up.

  “Well, what happened next?” she asks, looking up at me.

  I can see a hint of sadness in her eyes and it makes me a bit uneasy, but I continue. “The woman was gone by the time we hit the sand. Nowhere in sight. A man came running down the beach and snatched the little girl up. He was bawling and thanking me. I asked a million times over if the girl was okay and he just kept saying, ‘She’s breathing. Oh, thank god, she’s breathing.’ It was hard to watch and I didn’t really know what else to do…so I left.”

  Rae’s quiet again for so long that I begin to drift off to sleep.

  “Do you know what happened to the little girl?” she asks, sounding like she’s almost asleep herself.

  I sigh because it’s something I’ve wondered myself over the years. “No, but I wish I had stayed to find out.”

  “Me too,” she says softly.

  And it’s the last thing I hear before I give in to sleep.

  Rae

  “Can we go outside and play, please? I wanna touch the water again!” Joey asks excitedly.

  Hudson’s only been gone getting birthday donuts for about fifteen minutes and she’s been bouncing off the walls for fourteen of them. I have no clue how he does this all the time, but as exhausting as she is, she’s adorable as hell.

  This is now the second time she’s mentioned touching the water. I’m nervous to take her out there by myself, because I get this icky feeling whenever I stare at the water for too long, but it’s impossible to look her in her blue eyes and tell her no. So I don’t.

  “Well…since I’m the birthday girl, I say yes! Let’s grab Rocky and head out there before your daddy gets back.”

  “Woo!” she shouts and does a little victory jig. See? Adorable.

  I try to remember how far Hudson let her wade out yesterday. I think she gets a little farther out than he let her, but she’s seems to be doing fine so I let it go.

  I stand there watching her, not touching the water myself, and let the wind whip my hair around. It’s another cloudy day, so the water is a tiny bit choppy. It reminds me of another time, but I can’t really place it, so I ignore the tug I’m feeling.

  Feeling a little brave, I take two steps forward, close enough that the smallest amount of water touches my toes. It’s cold but still feels good. I take another step.

  “Oh! You’re coming in! Yay! Come out further—come out here with me!” a tiny voice yells.

  In the deepest part of my mind, I know it’s Joey. But in the forefront, the part that counts, I hear and see myself when I was seven and I’m completely transported to another time.

  It’s like my nightmare, only this time I’m not the little girl in the ocean—I’m my mother. I watch as seven-year-old me struggles hard to keep her head up. I even hear her yelling for help repeatedly. But I do nothing. I try hard to move my feet but I can’t. I have no control over anything.

  And then, suddenly, there’s a little boy in front of me with a striking pair of blue-green eyes. He looks so familiar but I can’t seem to place him.

  He begins waving his arms in front of my face frantically. He’s yelling and pointing toward the water. Everything he’s saying comes out mushed together, but I assume he’s begging me to help the little girl.

  I do nothing except watch as he fights the waves in order to reach the girl. As soon as he does, I turn around to start walking back to the house and run straight into Hudson.

  I look him in the eyes and gasp.

  “It’s you,” I say on a whisper. My head is aching and my vision feels off.

  He looks confused. “Of course it’s me.” His brows scrunch down lower and he frowns hard. “Rae…,” he says slowly. “Where’s Joey?”

  “I… I don’t know.” I tell him, my head still fuzzy. “But it was you, Hudson. You were the little boy.”

  “Rae,” he says, taking me by the shoulders and shaking me slightly. “Rae, where’s Joey? Where’s my daughter?” He shakes me again, harder this time.

  “I don’t… I don’t know. She was in the water but she was me…,” He drops his hold on me instantly and takes off toward the water, yelling a string of cuss words.

  “You were him. You were the little boy,” I say quietly to myself.

  “JOEY! Fuck! Joey!” I barely hear Hudson yell.

  My head is spinning and the thumping won’t stop. I grab on to it with both hands and squeeze, hoping that maybe if I do it hard enough, the pounding will stop. It doesn’t.

  Next, I try my heart, because it feels like it’s going to explode. It doesn’t work either

  Everything hurts. Everything inside of me feels like it’s being meticulously pulled apart—every little molecule of my bein
g getting plucked from within, slowly and painfully. And it hurts so, so bad.

  I feel like there’s something I should be doing—anything other than just standing here—but I can’t figure it out.

  And then the anger sets in—all of it at once. I don’t know what it means or why I’m so furious but I’m shaking; I can feel my blood boiling. I clench and unclench my fists, ready to strike at whatever is near. I’m looking around, spinning in a circle when I see what it was I was supposed to be doing.

  I watch as Hudson grabs onto a small floating body and something inside me breaks. Or snaps back together, I’m not sure which.

  Holy shit. It’s not a nightmare! It was real! My mother watched me drown. She let me drown.

  And Hudson saved me. I remember him clearly now—same dark hair, slightly longer and wet from the water. The look of panic on his face as he dragged me up the beach will be forever etched in my head now. Standing over me, he was drenched and breathing hard and his eyes were still so beautiful. He watched as my dad cradled me in his arms. I remember him asking if I was okay, but it was so hard to hear him over my father’s crying.

  The hardest part, though? It was watching him walk away and silently begging for him to come back to me.

  And he did. He finally did. But now I’m not sure he’s going to stick around.

  I take off running and reach him as he’s dropping her onto the ground. I fall to my knees next to them.

  “She’s not fucking breathing! Goddammit, Rae! What have you done!” he yells, pumping furiously at her chest.

  I watch helplessly as he continues to pump. I watch helplessly as he breathes air into the one person in this world that means the most to him.

  Then suddenly, miraculously, Joey coughs and sucks in a huge breath of air, automatically reaching for Hudson.

  “Daddy!” she cries as he holds her tightly, tears rolling down his cheeks.

  I just sit there and watch helplessly as she completely falls apart in her father’s arms. She looks just like Hudson did—soaking wet, tears streaming down her face. She’s breaking right in front of me and all I want to do is reach out to her, but I can’t and I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to again.

  Hudson looks at me over her shoulder, tears streaking his face. “Shh. Shh. It’s okay, bug. You’re okay. Shh. Calm down, honey. Shh,” he whispers endlessly to Joey.

  This look—the one gracing Hudson’s face right now—it replaces everything I saw as a kid. This is the look of a scared father, a broken man.

  And I did that to him.

  I watch helplessly as he slowly fades away from me because I know—I know—this is the end for us.

  In that moment, my whole world falls apart.

  I spring to my feet as Hudson comes walking back into the living room and over to stand in front of me.

  “How is she?” I ask, wringing my hands.

  “She’s exhausted. Confused. Asleep.” He sighs heavily and runs his hand down his face. “I’m not much in the mood to play nice right now, Rae, so I’m just gonna cut straight to it. What the fuck happened out there? Why weren’t you watching her?”

  He’s seething and with good reason. I let him down big time. He trusted me with his most precious gift and I completely blew it.

  “I… Shit. I honestly don’t know,” I tell him, biting my lip to keep from crying. I feel so ashamed right now. So horribly embarrassed.

  “Not good enough, Rae. I need more. Something. Anything.”

  I sit back down and wipe away the single tear that’s managed to fall.

  Fuck. Breathe. In, out. In, out.

  I start at the beginning.

  “I’ve had this horrible recurring nightmare since I was seven. It’s always the same: I’m drowning in the ocean as my mother watches. I see a little boy. Then I sink. I wake up sweating every single time at that point. Until today, I assumed it was a dream. But it’s not. It’s a memory,” I tell him. I see the moment it all clicks for him.

  “I… You… I saved you. You were that little girl. Holy shit,” he says, looking sad and dropping his head into his hands.

  “Today I had a…flashback of some sort. Only this time, I wasn’t me. I was my mother. I tried to move. I wanted to help Joey.” His head pops up at the mention of her name and just like that he’s back to being pissed. “But I couldn’t. Deep down I knew something was wrong about taking her out there on my own but I couldn’t say no to her,” I say, choking on the last word. “I promise you, Hudson. I would never, ever want to hurt Joey—never want anything bad to happen to her. I am so, so sorry.”

  He doesn’t say anything; he just stares at me.

  “Hudson?” I say, reaching out to him. He quickly jerks back and it hurts. It hurts so fucking bad. My tears fall harder.

  “I didn’t mean for anything to happen—you have to believe me. I love Joey. I love you. You have to understand that.”

  His eyes get watery and for a second—just a split second—I think I’m getting somewhere with him.

  “I think… I think you need to leave, Rae,” he tells me quietly. He gets up and begins walking out of the room. Stopping halfway, he turns toward me some. “I’m not taking Joey anywhere tonight and I think it would be best if you didn’t stay here. You can either take my car or have someone come pick you up. I’d prefer the latter.”

  And then he leaves, taking my heart with him.

  So I call the only person I know who won’t ask questions or even hesitate to make the drive.

  “Hello?”

  “Perry…”

  “Rae? What’s wrong?”

  “Perry…,” I try, my tears falling hard. “I… I need you.”

  Hudson

  “Just fucking call her already, asshole!” Tucker yells at me from across my desk.

  It’s been over a week since I’ve talked to Rae. Over a week since I’ve really smiled at anything or anyone other than Joey. I’ve been nothing but a big bundle of anger.

  “It’s not that simple, Tucker,” Gaige tells him.

  And Gaige is right. It’s a lot more complicated than that.

  I feel so damn guilty for letting anything happen to Joey. I was too busy being wrapped up in my “perfect family” fantasy to see how freaked the water made Rae. So it’s my fault. I should have never left her alone with Joey on the beach like that.

  I know that none of it was Rae’s fault, but I’m still pissed at her for not telling it to me straight about the nightmare she was having or how afraid of the water she is.

  I get that it was all a horrible reliving of a traumatic event in her life—one she obviously blocked out partially. I can understand that anyone would break from something like that, but I let my kid—my world—be in the middle of it. That’s not okay.

  On top of all that, I’m embarrassed by the way I treated Rae after everything. I was so cold to her, so unaccepting of anything she said. I know she’s never going to forgive me for that and I can’t blame her.

  So, I’ll continue to wallow because that’s exactly what I deserve.

  “Bullshit it’s not! Hand me the goddamn phone and I’ll do it. You just hit the green button next to her name. BOOM! Fucking done!”

  “Tuck, man, chill. Take a deep breath,” Gaige tries again, always the voice of reason.

  “No. I won’t ‘chill.’ He’s spent the last week and some odd days doing nothing but moping about and chewing my ass for nothing. I’m damn sick of it.” They’re talking like I’m not even here now. “He needs to get his head out of his ass and fix his fucking personal life or leave that shit at the door. I’m done with it.”

  I barely listen as Gaige goes for another round, attempting to soothe Tucker in any way. None of it works.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, man. Shut up or get out of my office and go home. I’m tired of hearing this shit,” I finally tell him.

  He looks me dead in the eye. “No. I’ve got work to do an—unlike you—I’m gonna fucking do it instead of turning around to cry every
five damn seconds. You get out. You go home. Go fix this shit or I’m done. I’m not gonna work with you like this. I love you like a brother, Hudson. But I’m tired of it. Tired of watching you beat yourself up over it.” He sighs. “I. See. You. None of it was on you, man. None of it was really on Rae. Get your shit together!” he yells one last time before he stomps out of my office.

  I stare after him, barely hearing Gaige say “Tucker was right,” and leave.

  I sit and think. And think and think and think.

  And then something hits me. I grab my coat and keys and head out the door, going to the one person I know won’t feed me any bullshit no matter what.

  “Ma! You home?” I shout, opening up the front door to my mom’s.

  “In the living room, dear!”

  I walk around the corner to find her doing some weird, incredibly uncomfortable-looking yoga move.

  “Damn, Ma. That looks rough.”

  “Quite the opposite. It’s so relaxing,” she says, unfolding herself from the weird twisty thing she has going on and sitting down cross-legged on the floor. “Something you look like you need to do. What’s going on, kid? Spill.”

  I sit down on the couch, facing her.

  “I’m not sure I handled the Rae thing right,” I confess.

  “You think,” she deadpans. I roll my eyes. “First, just ‘cause you’re a giant doesn’t mean I can’t still spank your ass for rolling your eyes. Second, you’re right. Simple as that.”

  I sigh. “How do you know that though?”

  “What’s my motto for everything?” she asks.

  It takes me a moment to remember. “Everything happens for a reason.”

  She nods, a small smile forming on her lips. “You saved her, Hudson.”

  I screw my face up at her, not really sure what she’s getting at. She pats my knee. “You’ll get it. Don’t worry. I’m going to go make some coffee. You want anything?”