by Kaia Knight
Steve’s face fell slack.
Gabriel trembled as his anger simmered over, beyond his control. “Every time you look at me, all I see is your shame. I know I’m not enough for you, Dad, because nobody can ever be as good as you. That’s why I didn’t tell you about Kailani. Because I knew what you were going to say: I thought you were better than this.”
Gabriel ripped off his coaching cap and chucked it at the floor at Steve’s feet. “No need to be disappointed anymore, Dad. I’m leaving.” He turned and left, slamming the office shut behind him.
When Gabriel came home to an empty house, he was grateful for once that Eli was not there with a grin and an oh-well attitude. He cursed to himself as he stuffed his belongings into a bag, his breathing labored and loud in the thick silence of the house. He thought of Kailani, unaware of what she would soon face, and his stomach clenched. I have to at least warn her. Then I’ll cut off contact. Digging into his pocket, he called the inn at Lilac Ranch, tapping his foot as it kept ringing. He cursed again when he got the voicemail, followed by an insistent beep. He hesitated, grappling with a way to convey the message without saying it outright.
“Uh, hi…Kailani. This is Gabe. Just wanted to give you a heads up that Mr. Montgomery and I just had a meeting. And he wants to see you too. Please call me back.” He quickly hung up, shaking his head. He dragged a hand through his hair as he paced, wondering if he did the right thing.
Minutes later, without a backward glance, he got in his truck and drove towards the coast, where their childhood home waited, empty and alone. Goodbye, Eugene.
Chapter 31
Kailani
Kailani walked numbly onto the pool deck on Monday morning, her mind in a fog after a tossing and turning all night. In her few moments of stolen sleep, she had dreamt of eyes in the shadows stalking her. No matter how fast she ran, they always found her.
Though she knew Gabriel would not be in his usual place on deck, grinning and high-fiving the girls as they shuffled sleepily by, she could not keep her head from scanning the room. Her empty stomach lurched as the reality of his absence slammed into her once again, the guilt roiling in condemning waves.
Instead of finding Gabriel, her gaze met Coach Steve’s cold glare as he paced the deck. A jolt of heat leapt to her face. Of course he knows. She bent her head forward, her dark hair shielding her face as she hurried towards her lane. Just get through today. That’s all you can do.
“Kailani!” Steve barked.
She flinched, dropping her mesh bag as her gear clattered onto the tile floor. She knelt to retrieve her goggles and paddles, the echo of her movement unnaturally loud in the stillness of the room.
Straightening, she saw the rest of the team forming a huddle around Steve, who beckoned towards her impatiently. The girls stifled yawns and blinked rapidly, struggling to wake up as Steve crossed his arms and cleared his throat.
Kailani joined the group, biting her lip to shreds. Here we go. He’s going to tell them why Gabe isn’t here. Give them even more reason to hate me. Dread coiled in the pit of her stomach as she waited for the final blow.
“Ladies, I have an important announcement. As many of you know, Coach Gabriel has been working towards his rescue diving certification for the past year. Unfortunately for us, he is taking a step into his career and will no longer be your coach. Starting immediately.” As a chorus of discontent echoed through the room, Kailani felt the weight of his lancing glare that said: You did this.
“Wait, Coach Gabriel is gone?” Alyssa said, her mouth ajar. Her hands had abandoned her efforts to tuck her hair into her swim cap, which stuck out in tufts.
Steve nodded curtly.
Alyssa frowned and shifted, hugging her arms around herself and she glanced at Kailani. Their eyes met for a moment, leaving Kailani with a sense of unease.
“So, he just left without so much as a goodbye and good luck? Champs are in three weeks,” said Maria with a bitter tone. The other seniors chimed in, looking at each other in disbelief.
Steve raised his voice to drown out the chatter. “Just because we’re down a coach doesn’t mean we won’t press on and work harder than ever.” He smiled stiffly. “In fact, I am confident that if we keep our focus, nationals are within reach. All right! That’s it, go ahead and hop in the pool and warm up.”
He turned sharply on his heel and strode towards the whiteboard leaning against the wall. He uncapped a marker and began to write the morning workout, pressing the board so stiffly that the marker squealed in protest.
The sound woke them from their stupor, and they headed towards their lanes, muttering amongst themselves.
The seniors in Kailani’s lane pouted. “This is just so sudden. Why would he leave in the middle of the season?”
Maria nodded. “He’s been my coach for over three years, it doesn’t feel right finishing my last year without him…”
Alyssa was silent, chewing on her cheek, before she turned her attention to Kailani. “You seem awfully quiet, Kailani.”
“Uh, yeah, it’s crazy.” Idiot! Say something more convincing. “It doesn’t seem like him to leave without saying goodbye.”
Alyssa’s eyes narrowed as the rest of the girls nodded in agreement, pulling on their goggles. “We just saw him yesterday, right Maria? At the Fall Festival?” Alyssa said, her gaze still pinned on Kailani.
“Yeah,” Maria said slowly, “He was with his brother...and Kailani. Did he say anything about his new job to you?”
All eyes on her again. Kailani resisted the urge to gulp. “No, he didn’t.”
“Ladies!” Coach Steve said. “Start your set, now.”
Kailani quickly pulled her goggles on and pushed off the wall, relief washing over her. As she settled into a rhythm and let her body take over, her mind was free to fixate on the disastrous turn her weekend had taken. She replayed Mr. Montgomery’s parting words from their meeting yesterday. Tread lightly, Kailani. There are eyes on you, and not everyone wants you to succeed.
Practice passed agonizingly slow. She skipped all her resting time to avoid another interrogation from her teammates at the wall, and as a result, burnt herself out halfway through practice. Still, she was not surprised when Coach Steve kept her back.
As the rest of the team clambered out of the water, a heavy silence hung in the air as they carefully skirted around Coach Steve. They eyed the whiteboard as he wrote the next set for Kailani. 200 butterfly repeats. Eight of them.
Kailani preoccupied herself with defogging her goggles as the girls threw her questioning looks. Their confusion was clear: what had she done to deserve this? There was no doubt that this was a punishment set.
Coach Steve turned around from the board and crossed his arms as he looked at Kailani with a cocked brow. He wants me to complain. Well, I’m not giving him the satisfaction.
She took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders, facing the open water before her. She closed her eyes and imagined she was weightless, slipping through the water with ease.
“Any day now, Kailani.”
She pressed her lips in a hard line before submerging and dolphin-kicking towards the surface halfway through the pool. Unlike her visualization, she was not weightless. She immediately felt the fatigue from already swimming for over an hour. The water seemed thicker than usual, pushing back against every desperate attempt to pull herself towards the opposite wall.
She gritted her teeth and fought against the resistance, reveling in the celebration of each stroke closer to the wall. Lap by lap, her confidence grew. It’s gonna hurt, but I can finish this.
By the end of her last set, she was sure that she could not muster the strength to pull herself out of the pool. She glanced at the digital clock on the wall, her chest rising and falling with exertion. She smiled grimly. She had only been a few seconds slower in her last split than at the last swim meet where she set a pool record. Peeking towards Coach Steve, she was pleased to see the challenging smirk was gone from his face. He was proba
bly banking on me giving up. Hate to disappoint.
“Very good, Kailani.” Steve said stiffly. “You may go now.”
She pulled herself out of the water with shaking arms, still breathing heavily as she passed Steve. She slowed her pace, willing him to call her back, to give her a chance to explain what happened. But the silence ballooned between them and the moment passed. Putting her head down, she hurried to the locker room.
With only a few minutes before her first class, she blow-dried her hair while tugging jeans over her damp legs. In all the chaos since the end of the Fall Festival, she had forgotten she had her monthly presentation about her progress on her Applications of Business Marketing project. Unlike the other students, however, she was the only one who had completed her campaign with weeks to go before finals. She tore a brush through her hair, her aching muscles protesting every time she lifted her arms above her head.
She jogged to class, thankful that rushing did not leave room for ruminations. The campus was nearly empty, indicating she was already late. She tried to slip into the lecture hall without notice, but the grand doors protested with a deafening creak and slammed with a boom behind her. She winced as she tiptoed towards a seat in the back row, acutely aware that her entrance had broken the train of thought of the student giving the first presentation, who now fell into a stammering series of ‘uh’s and ‘um’s.
Kailani straightened in the rigid seat, willing herself to pay attention. But her mind again wandered to the night of the Fall Festival, zeroing in on her embrace with Gabriel that had felt so right, but now marked the moment that everything went wrong.
She jumped when Professor Murray called her name and soon found herself at the front of the immense lecture hall, wishing she had notecards to occupy her hands.
Wiping her sweaty palms on her jeans, she stood behind the podium, took a deep breath, and faced the class. It took all of her energy to put a shadow of a smile on her face, something that said: ‘I just successfully completed my semester project’, not ‘my life is doomed and my scholarship is at stake.’
“I—uh, so the Fall Festival was this weekend….” A low chuckle swept through the hall.
She blushed. Of course they knew that already. Almost all her classmates had been there, and even Professor Murray had made an appearance. She cleared her throat and continued shakily, reporting on the preliminary profits they had calculated late Saturday night. She tried to inject color into her lifeless tone and rushed back to her seat after the polite applause of the class.
When Professor Murray dismissed them a few minutes later, he raised his voice over the growing hum of chatter. “Kailani? Could you please stay a moment?”
She nodded and waded against the flow of students towards the front podium once more. Professor Murray leaned against the lectern, lacing his hands together with a smile in his eyes. “I just wanted to extend my congratulations. It was a spectacular event.”
He thumbed a manila envelope and slid out a crisp piece of paper. “I must admit I’m impressed by the level of enthusiasm and dedication you’ve shown to this project. It’s clear you’re passionate about your studies and making an impact on your local community.” He extended the paper towards her, and she reached out hesitantly.
“What’s this?”
“A letter of recommendation. Or rather, a copy of it…I hope you don’t mind my forwardness, but I already submitted it on your behalf. Every year, I nominate one of my students to receive a scholarship for their scholastic achievements, as well as being a proponent of diversity and community engagement.” He smiled at her warmly. “There wasn’t a doubt in my mind after the first week that I would be writing this letter for you. You should hear the results from them in a few weeks.”
Kailani blinked. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you, sir.”
“You are most welcome.” He snapped his messenger bag shut and nodded towards her as he turned towards the side exit. “Have a great day. See you on Wednesday!”
Kailani stood long after the lingering echo of the closing door resounded, holding the paper that shook in her hands. She skimmed the page and her heart leapt when the words ‘full tuition scholarship’ jumped out at her. A tentative hope budded in her chest at the freedom in those words. Her heavy arms were a reminder of the weight of her choices, and she clung with raw desperation to the escape route in her hands. I could quit the team. As the thought ricocheted in her mind, she pinned it down, silencing it before it took form.
Kailani closed her eyes and crumpled up the paper. I had my chance. I don’t deserve another one. Shame gnawed at her, whittling down her self-worth. She was the reason Gabriel lost his job. She had nobody to blame but herself. Angry tears welled up and threatened to overflow as a torrent of self-hatred pulsed through her.
She had come to Oregon to start over. Instead, she had only made things worse. Swiping the hot tracks of tears on her face, she walked to her next class, loathing hollowing her out until she was a shell of herself.
October slipped into the callous grip of November, bringing perpetual overcast and drizzling days. As the weeks passed without word from Gabriel, Kailani’s hope wavered like the autumn leaves that shriveled on their branches, and finally with a sigh, succumbed to the tug of the wind.
Kailani drifted through the rest of her classes on autopilot. The days unfolded before her, empty and alone. With the Fall Festival behind her, she was deflated; there was nothing to distract her from the incessant echoes of her mistakes and the gaping hole that Gabriel had left behind.
She did the only thing she knew to numb the pain. Throwing herself into a dizzying blur of studying, laboring at the ranch, and swimming, she worked herself to exhaustion. The wind stung her cheeks on her rides to and from practice, the smell of chlorine like a lingering stain upon her.
Chapter 32
Gabriel
The speedboat skipped along the water, droplets stinging Gabriel’s face as he squinted across the horizon.
“Dude, slow down!”
“Sorry,” Gabriel said, pulling back on the power. He eyed his partner’s white-knuckled grip on the edge of the boat. “Just getting restless, I guess.” He sighed, leaning back. “What’s up with this weather? There are usually more storms this time of year.”
Kevin threw him an odd look and spoke slowly. “Do you want there to be accidents?”
“No! It’s just I thought things would be a little more, you know…”
“Exciting?” The redhead gave a half smile. “Welcome to the job. It’s not all glory, and you learn to love silent stretches like this. It means you can go home to your family every night.”
He thought of the empty house that awaited him. This is what I wanted, right? But the silence that met him every day was a deafening reminder of what he had left behind. Or rather, who he had left behind. A deep ache settled in his chest as memories of his last night with Kailani resurfaced—he could see her walls finally come down in the way she looked at him, vulnerable and trusting.
Movement in his peripheral caught his attention. Yes! He immediately felt ashamed for the surge of excitement that coursed through him. A pair of kayakers closer to shore were waving their paddles in the air and yelling.
He deviated from his patrol pattern and veered towards them, pulling back on the power as he approached so they would not be capsized by his wake. Though the kayakers were inaudible above the roar of the engine, the source of their panic was evident.
Gabriel studied the scene as the gap between them closed. An enormous, dark form loomed beneath them, and the kayakers yelled and thrashed their paddles in the water. Gabriel stopped short a dozen yards away and cut the engine to neutral.
“Stop!” Gabriel bellowed, standing upright. “Set your paddles down! Stay calm.” He scanned the surface of the water. The man and woman on the kayak yelled over one another as they fought to explain what was going on. Gabriel only caught the word ‘shark’ and ‘attacked’. The man extended his selfie stick and be
gan to record and narrate.
A stirring from underwater rocked the kayak, and the man fumbled with his phone, but it dropped into the water with an audible plop. Gabriel bit back a laugh at the man’s wail of despair, smoothing his face back into professional composure.
Kevin shook his head and lifted his megaphone. “Sir! We’re with the coastal rescue. Please do not move. Looks like it might be a whale, we need to stay back and allow it to pass.”
The couple finally set down their paddles and eyed the water nervously as the dark shape split into two as they headed towards their patrol boat. Gabriel tensed and braced for possible impact.
The water began to simmer, and an enormous fin jutted out of the water, almost the size of the boat. The hair on Gabriel’s neck stood on end as it collapsed back into the depths. A smaller whale showed the white of its side before gently submerging once more as they continued on their southbound journey. A strange sensation of being watched passed over him, and he shivered.
“See!” said the man in the kayak, who had ignored Kevin’s instructions to stay put and was now paddling towards them. “It tried to attack you, too!”
“She wasn’t attacking us.” An inexplicable surge of agitation shot through Gabriel. “They are wild animals in their natural habitat, and it is up to us to give them the respect and space they demand.”
“She? What are you, the whale whisperer?”
Gabriel stilled, and the source of his tension dawned on him. She. The same mother and calf I saw with Kailani.
His voice sounded far away as he responded to the man. “There was a smaller one with it, so it’s probably a female.”
The quiet kayaker motioned to her partner and began paddling towards shore. Reluctantly, the man followed.
Gabriel released a shuddering sigh and rubbed the chill from his arms.