Sunsets at Seaside

by Addison Cole

  But she didn’t know she’d be heartbroken.

  How could her fingers even work when the ache of missing Jamie was pulsing through her body with the force of a tsunami? She couldn’t push it away, could barely breathe through it.

  “Millicent?”

  She cleared her throat and held on to the table for support. “Yes. I’m here.”

  “Tomorrow morning. Rehearsal’s at ten. You might want to come in early, as the others will want to welcome you back, and you know how pitiful reunions can be. You’ll have to relive every detail of your little vacation fifteen times over.”

  He ended the call before she could say another word, and really, what would she have said? I’m not sure my arms will work well enough to pack my bags?

  WHEN THE SUN rose over the horizon, Jamie was still sitting on the dunes at Nauset Beach, where he’d been since he’d left Mark at the Sheraton. He wanted to be as far from him as he could, and even the Wellfleet beaches seemed too close. Idiot Mark. Nauset was serene in the early dawn hours, which he needed to balance the fury within him. The sand was cool on his bare feet, and the dune grass swished in the morning breeze. He’d walked far across the dunes, past the homes overlooking the water, past the divots where teenagers slid down the dunes, leaving a butt-shaped path all the way down to the beach. He’d walked until he’d come to an island of untouched dune grass, where he’d been sitting ever since, thinking about all the things he’d learned with his own OneClick search. There was no Jessica Ayers listed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra—or in Juilliard, for that matter. He no longer knew what to believe about Jessica, but his heart felt as though it were coming apart inside him, leaving shards of glass etching her name, her touch, her image, into him.

  When young families began arriving at the beach, Jamie still wasn’t ready to move. Two hours later, he twisted the ring on his finger. The stone was orange and green. What that meant, he had no idea. He stared at the stupid thing. It was probably a three-dollar gift, and yet he knew that every time he saw it, it would carry the emotions and memories of being with Jessica. He leaned back on his palms and watched the beach become dotted with people. Laughter and voices carried in the air and faded around him. When he could take their happiness no more, Jamie finally rose to leave.

  He pulled into Seaside and purposefully took the fork to the right to avoid driving by Jessica’s apartment. He wasn’t ready to talk. Not nearly ready to see her beautiful face. One look at her soulful eyes and he’d fall headfirst into her without having time to think. He’d never known how close two people could become, or how intense lovemaking could be, until he’d opened his heart to her. She hadn’t even tried to win him over, or at least not that he could tell. She didn’t play any of the games other women did. She’d never expected expensive restaurants or lavish dates. She hadn’t asked for a darn thing. She’d even tried to talk him out of spending the night for fear of it upsetting Vera, when any other woman would have used the opportunity to stick their claws in deeper. She was happy just to be with him, to take whatever he wanted to give. And he’d wanted to give her the world, which now, as he stepped from his car, seemed a little crazy after a week. Why did it feel like he’d known her his whole life? Was Mark right? Had she played him like a two-dollar fiddle and he’d been too taken with her to notice?

  “Hey!” Bella yelled as she stalked off of Amy’s porch. “Hold it right there.”

  He closed his eyes for a second, closed the car door, and then turned to face her, hoping he had the strength not to snap.

  “What did you do to Jessica?”

  If looks could kill, she’d have driven him six feet under.

  “Bella, I—”

  She held up her hand. “Don’t even try to explain, Jamie Reed. I always thought you were a good guy. I would protect you to the ends of the earth, but you brought her into our group and we all fell in love with her. Not just your sorry butt.”

  Amy stepped off the deck in a pretty yellow sundress and walked across the road with sad eyes cast downward.

  “Hi, Jamie.”

  She sounded so distraught, he reached out to her. “Are you okay?”

  Amy nodded. “Just bummed that Jessica left. I was sure you two were the real deal. Are you okay?”

  “Left?” His eyes ran between Bella and Amy. “What do you mean left?”

  “She got a call from her manager,” Amy explained. “She had to go back to Boston. She came to talk to you, but you weren’t home. I think she left a note and some of your clothes with Vera.”

  Bella rolled her eyes. “Like you didn’t know about all this? Come on. Her eyes were so red from crying all night she looked like she had been Maced. She said the last thing you needed was to be distracted from your work, and we all know that had to come from you, because no woman would make that stuff up.”

  “Mark.” He turned on his heels and ran inside.

  Vera lifted worried eyes from the book she was reading and held up an envelope. She didn’t have to say a word. In an instant, he read her expression and knew she wanted to reach out and hug him, but he needed to be left alone to deal with whatever was going on with him and Jessica. Vera had the same look in her eyes she’d had his senior year of high school, when the girl he’d been dating had called the night before the senior prom and left a message telling him that she was going to the dance with someone else.

  “Thanks.” He tore it open and walked to the back of the small cottage while he read the handwritten note.

  Jamie,

  Thank you for showing me what it was like to live and to love. Being with you was the best feeling I’ve ever experienced. Not just when we were intimate, but walking through the flea market, lying on the beach, just being near you. Vera’s a lovely woman, and she’s raised a wonderful man. I’ll miss you both so much that it hurts. I never knew I was capable of being so happy, but then again, I never had the chance to know you. I’ll cherish the memories of our time together forever, and I’ll never love another man as I love you. Yes, I fell in love with you, Jamie, and I’m not sorry for that. I do wish I could have told you to your face, but this is probably best. It’s amazing to me that two people can feel so close so fast, but I’ve lived a sheltered life, so maybe you’ve experienced this type of connection many times before and I’m alone in my wonder. In any case, I understand how much of a distraction I was, and I hope I didn’t cause you too much trouble. Please don’t be too angry with Mark. He obviously cares very deeply for you. Take care of Vera. She’s everything I always wished I had with my own mother, and more. Warmest wishes for your success and happiness.

  —Jess

  He sank to one of the chairs on the deck. His throat swelled with emotion as he reread the note in fits and spurts a few more times. I fell in love with you, Jamie… Don’t be too angry with Mark…Take care of Vera. He breathed deeply. Warmest wishes…She’d climbed back into the prim and proper cocoon she was so afraid of, and it broke his heart.

  Don’t be too angry with Mark. That was so Jessica, always thinking of others before herself. He was angry with Mark, and he was angry with himself, and now with Jessica for leaving a horrible note to say goodbye.

  He turned the paper over in his hands and read it again, his heart aching with every word. It wasn’t a horrible note. It was a very thoughtful, precisely written goodbye.

  He jumped to his feet and flew past Vera.

  “Where are you going?” Vera grabbed the arm of the couch and leaned forward.

  Jamie heard hope in her voice. “Errand. I’ll be back.”

  He sped down Route 6. Jessica couldn’t have gotten far. He called her cell as he drove—the call went to voicemail, and he contemplated leaving a message. Call me. Let’s talk. But he ended the call without leaving anything more than a few seconds of dead air.

  “Let’s talk? What am I going to say?” He shook his head. “Hey, I didn’t see your name in the Boston Symphony Orchestra listing of musicians? There’s no record of Jessica Ayers at Juill
iard? What am I doing? I’m talking to myself in my stupid car.”

  He pulled into the next parking lot, knowing he’d never say any of those things to her, because he felt guilty even thinking them. And if he saw her in person, he’d want to kiss her, to hold her, to hear her tell him she loved him and look at him like he was all she ever wanted or needed again. He wouldn’t have the heart to say a single thing other than how much he loved her. If he did that, if he allowed himself to soak her goodness up, even for only a few minutes, and he found out it was all a lie, a game, a play for a successful boyfriend, he’d never recover.

  Ever.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “JAMIE, ARE YOU sure this is what you want to do?” Vera stood in the doorway of his bedroom in the cottage as he packed his things the next morning. “You can’t just bury your feelings in work, no matter how easy that is.”

  He met her worried gaze, then zipped his suitcase closed. “I’m not burying my feelings. I’m going back to work to handle the issue that Mark uncovered. I should have been there days ago.”

  “Sounds to me like Mark came here to uncover issues.”

  His muscles constricted. He gritted his teeth while he tried to calm the anger that had been gnawing at his gut ever since yesterday, when he’d found out Jessica had left. He’d held out hope that maybe his doubts were wrong until he’d broken down and called her—only to be met with her voicemail. Fifteen hours later she still hadn’t returned his call. His feelings were so tangled that he didn’t know if he was coming or going. Was she avoiding his calls because she knew he’d discovered she’d lied to him, or was it something else altogether? Had he hurt her too badly by not being there for her and leaving her in limbo while he tried to drown his doubts in ocean views, pretending he could cast them away with each rolling wave?

  He picked up his suitcase and set it on the floor beside Vera. “I don’t know, Gram. I can’t figure out if his coming here was a blessing or a terrible mistake. I usually know what’s right and wrong, and this time…” He twisted the ring Jessica had given him, unable to convince himself to take it off.

  Vera took his hand in hers. “That’s because this time it isn’t about right and wrong. This time it’s not about code or computers or puzzle pieces that fit into nice little niches and make sense. This time, Jamie, it’s about your heart. You’re not supposed to understand it, but it’s a good thing you’re feeling something. You’ve got a big heart. Heaven knows you do. You take care of me so well, Jamie. Now take care of you.”

  He nodded, not sure he knew what taking care of himself even meant anymore.

  “I’ll come back next weekend. I just need to get this work thing under control.” And hopefully get in control of myself again.

  “I’ll be fine, sweetheart. If I need anything, Bella, Kurt, and the others will take care of me.” She hugged him and stroked his back, as she’d done when he was a little boy.

  He kissed her cheek. “Okay. I love you.”

  “I know you do. I love you, too, dear.”

  Jamie reached for the door.

  “Jamie.”

  He turned around. “What is it, Gram?”

  She shook her head, and her thin lips curved into a semi smile. “I just wanted to say that there are some things in life that are meant to be. Sometimes they’re good, and sometimes they’re the most hurtful, treacherous things you can imagine. Those things can’t be stopped. They can’t be thwarted by fighting or changing your course, because they’re like air. Shapeless and fluid. Odorless and silent. They move through hearts and closed doors, and travel the globe until they find their prey.”

  Her tone sent a shiver down his spine. These were the words she’d used the day she told him that his parents had died. The very same words, being delivered in the very same fashion. A flash of memory he’d buried so deep he thought he’d never be able to revisit it burst forth in his tortured mind. Just before those words left her lips all those years ago, she’d stumbled at the kitchen counter where she’d been making his grilled cheese sandwich. He’d jumped from his chair—Gram! He was a little thing at six years old. He could still feel the cold linoleum on his bare feet as he ran toward her. He could still feel the weight of her, as if it were yesterday, as he’d put one lithe arm around her waist and guided her to the kitchen table. His hand was barely big enough to wrap around the wooden spindles of the chair as he tugged it from the table and guided her into it. What he didn’t remember, had never been able to recall, was a phone call telling her of their demise. No matter how many nights he’d stayed up replaying the moment in his mind, he never could recall the shrill ring of the phone.

  Now she patted his hand and nodded. “Go. You’ll know what’s right.”

  “I…”

  “Jamie, just as you knew then, you’ll know. We couldn’t stop them. I warned them, begged them to stay, but your mother insisted, and your father, he’d have followed her into a volcano without a thought.”

  “You…You believed me.”

  “I believed you. You told me then that they weren’t coming home. As a boy, you were very in tune to your parents, but after…Jamie, I prayed you’d lose that connection over time, and you did. You got busy filling your mind with everything and anything you could. It was as if you never wanted to feel that connection again. Not that I blamed you. No. I knew you were right. You dove into puzzle after puzzle. Oh, the hours you spent doing every puzzle imaginable. Figures, crosswords, math calculations, and any other puzzle you could get your sad and angry little hands on. You put enough chaos in your head to fill those lonely spaces your parents left behind.”

  “Gram.” He laughed at the notion. “Are you saying that it wasn’t just a feeling, but that I had a premonition about Mom and Dad dying?”

  She squeezed his hand. “I’m not one to give names to things. I don’t believe like your generation does, that everything needs a label. All I know is that you knew that they were not coming back, and when I couldn’t convince your parents to stay home, I moved into your house and insisted that you stay with me.” She smiled and waved her hand in the air. “You probably don’t remember, but they put up quite a fight about leaving you home. Your mother called me every name in the book.” She paused, and her eyes filled with sadness.

  He must have blacked that out, because he didn’t remember any of it, but he remembered clear as day, standing on the front porch of his parents’ house waving to them as they left for the very last time. His mother’s face was streaked with tears, her thick dark hair loose and wild, tickling his cheek and nose as she clung to him. I love you, Jamie. You’re the best boy in this world. I’ll take pictures of your favorite animals, and I’ll write to you. I love you so much. And his father, dressed in a pair of jeans and a black tee, looking virile and powerful. Jamie remembered feeling like his father was as big and solid as the oak tree in their front yard, and when he picked Jamie up and wrapped those powerful arms around his only son, the scent of Old Spice filled Jamie’s senses. Take care of Mama, he’d said to his father. I’d die before I’d let anything happen to her, his father had answered with his deep voice, full of tethered emotion. He wasn’t one to openly cry, and when he set Jamie back down on the ground and palmed Jamie’s head with his big hand, Jamie knew his father was a man of his word and meant what he’d said.

  Vera squeezed his hand again, pulling him from the memories he’d thought he’d buried long ago.

  “Go,” Vera urged. “Before it gets late and you have to drive in the dark. Put the past behind you and concentrate on your future. That’s where you’ll find your answers.”

  Chapter Twenty

  MONDAY MORNING JESSICA sat in front of her computer staring at the OneClick search screen with her cell phone pressed to her ear, listening to her father talk about the show he and her mother had seen. Other than Saturday’s concert, which she’d attended in a zombie-like state, she’d spent the entire weekend home alone, wallowing in the ache of missing Jamie. How would she survive anothe
r day? She typed in Jamie’s name for the millionth time, just so she could see his picture appear on the screen. The sight of him never failed to bring fresh tears to her eyes and an ache to her chest, and still she tortured herself.

  “Sorry we weren’t able to cancel the tickets to the show and go to your concert, honey,” her father said. “How did it go?”

  It took her a second to realize he’d asked her a question. “Uneventful.”

  “Oh, well, I guess that’s better than if it went poorly. What did you do yesterday? I was really hoping you’d come by for dinner after we heard you were home, and when you didn’t return my calls, I worried.”

  I spent Sunday in a fog. “I’m sorry. I’ve been pretty tired, that’s all. I’ll try to come by soon.”

  She’d received Jamie’s phone message, but she couldn’t bring herself to call him back. It’s me. I’d like to talk to you. Please. He’d sounded as sad as she felt, but every time she thought about calling him, she heard Mark’s voice. He needs to focus, and unless you want to be the cause of his empire’s demise, I suggest you back off. And immediately after, she’d remember the determination on Jamie’s face when he left her apartment that very last time, as he said, You’re not a distraction. You’re the woman I love.

  “Jessica, I don’t want to pry, but I’ve never heard you this down before. Did something happen while you were away?”

  “Sort of. I met someone, but we aren’t together now.” She was so emotionally exhausted that she didn’t trust herself to make a sound decision. If Jamie loved her, then why hadn’t he come back that night—or the next morning? She hadn’t left Seaside until the next afternoon, and from the surprise Vera expressed over Jamie not being with Jessica when Jessica went to say goodbye to him, it was obvious he’d stayed out all night. Vera had said that he left a note saying he’d see her in the morning. Where would he have gone if he wasn’t with Jessica? And why would he wait so many hours before calling her?