Page 115 of Take Me Away

‘I was the one stupid enough to be out there.’

‘And he was brave enough to follow. That doesn’t make either of you wrong. Just human.’

But she wasn’t there. She didn’t see his face just before the wave hit. Didn’t hear him shout my name as the current pulled us apart.

‘He’s gone,’ I say, and saying it makes it real in a way I’ve been fighting since they gave up the search. ‘He’s gone, and I’m still here, and I don’t know how to⁠—’

‘Come on,’ she says, hands warm on my face. ‘One breath at a time. You’ve done harder things than this.’

I follow her lead, matching my broken rhythm to her steady one. In. Out. In. Out. Slowly, the roaring in my ears subsides. The weight on my chest eases, just enough to draw a full breath.

‘That’s it,’ she whispers, thumbs brushing away tears I didn’t know I was shedding. ‘Just stay with me. Right here.’

I become aware of the room again. Jude standing in the doorway, watching. Dad, returned to the window, shoulders rigid. Maisie, still beside me, small hand curled into the fabric of my sweater.

And Isla. Looking at me with eyes that hold neither pity nor judgement. Just steady, quiet strength.

‘You’re still here,’ I say hoarsely.

The corner of her mouth lifts – not a smile, but something close. ‘Where else would I be?’ She brushes hair back from my forehead with gentle fingers, while her other palm rests above my heart. ‘Every time a storm hits, I’ll be here.’ Her promise is so simple, it soothes me like a balm, luring me into a moment of peace. But even as I lean into her, even as I want to believe it … I know how promises work. They break. People leave. And when Isla inevitably leaves – when the guilt and the grief and the weight of Peter’s death become too much – I’ll have no one to blame but myself. For letting her in. For believing, again, that someone might stay.

‘I’ve got you,’ she says. And for tonight – just tonight – I let myself believe it. Because tomorrow I’ll have to face Nina. The village. Tomorrow I’ll have to figure out how to live in a world without Peter. But tonight, I’ll let Isla hold me together. Even though I know, deep down, that everyone leaves eventually. Even her.

Chapter Twenty-Six

ISLA

Iwake to pale morning light and the smell of woodsmoke and salt. For a disorienting moment, I don’t know where I am. The sofa cushions beneath me are lumpy and unfamiliar, someone’s jacket is draped over me like a blanket, and my neck aches from the angle I’ve been sleeping at.

Then I remember. Kit’s cottage. The storm. Peter.

I sit up carefully, the jacket – Kit’s, I realise, smelling of him – sliding into my lap. The living room is dim, curtains still drawn, but I can make out Kit in the armchair across from me. He’s still wearing yesterday’s clothes, still has dirt under his fingernails, the scrapes on his face livid even in the shady light.

Maisie is curled against him, her body tucked into the space between his arm and his chest, both of them breathing slow and deep.

He looks like he’s aged a decade overnight. His lips are pressed tight in a line, a frown between his closed eyes. I want to kiss it away, smooth the pain that put it there.

I don’t know how this works. Not sure what happens next. All I do know is that last night, when I held him as he cried, this feral ownership had possessed me. And I’d meant what I said.

I’ll be here.

So I stayed.

Now, in the grey morning light, I carefully fold Kit’s jacket and stand. My body protests – I’m stiff from the sofa, my eyes gritty from too little sleep and the tears I’ve shed for a man I barely knew, but will mourn all the same because I know he was a good man. A good friend to the man I love.

I love him.

My gaze steals back over this man I’ve never forgotten.

I love him.

It’s a thunderbolt that smacks straight into my chest.

I loved him the first time he held my hand, kicking our feet on the harbour wall, his grin as cheeky as the devil himself as I stared at our entwined fingers. ‘What are you doing?’ I’d asked, a runaway train thudding in my chest, heat scorching up my arm that had nothing to do with the sun and everything to do with Kit Harding.

‘Holding your hand, Quinn. That all right?’

‘Yeah, it’s all right.’