Beautiful Mine (Beautiful Rivers #1) (8 page)

“What was her favorite thing you brought her?”

“Aside from the African headwrap? Two shot glasses from the Bayou Boogaloo Festival in New Orleans.”

“Bayou Boogaloo?” she asks, laughing.

“Oh yeah. It was awesome. Music, food, people.”

“Why two glasses?”

I grin. “So we could take a shot together when she was better. And we did. She’d been done with her treatment for about a month and was living in Seattle with her mom at the time. They came down for the Christmas party my parents throw every year, and before the big toast, she pulled them out of her purse and she and I took a shot first.”

She told me she’d been saving them. I’d wanted to do it as soon as her treatment was done, but she claimed she wasn’t up for it physically. She eventually confessed that wasn’t completely true. When she went home from the Mayo Clinic, she still felt like she was straddling the line between life and death, and hadn’t yet really allowed herself to believe she could put both feet on the life side of the line. She knew she’d come to it eventually, it just took some time. She didn’t want to use those shot glasses until she was “all in.”

“Anyway,” I continue, “for a while she was kind of convalescing in Seattle, and she needed it. But her mom’s a little... overprotective. She always has been, but it’s even worse now. Just hanging around doing nothing made things worse for her after a while though, I guess. My parents went up last month and my mom kind of saw what was going on and decided it was time for Corrine to take the next step to rebuilding her life. So she says, ‘When are you coming back to work?’ and that was that.” I grin. “Gotta love my mom.”

Whitney smiles. “So Corrine’s doing okay now?”

“So far so good. We’re all kind of holding our breath for the five year mark. That’s when the chances of it returning go way down. She’s just working part-time and living with my folks again, but Rayce says she’s getting her strength back. Thank God.”

“So she’s been in remission...” I see she’s doing the math in her head, but I know it without having to calculate.

“Eight months,” I say, brushing the crumbs off my hands and pulling out my phone. “Here.” I pull up the photo gallery on my phone. “My turn for pictures.”

“Oooh,” she says, scooting closer so she can see better. This girl gets brownie points for that, I can tell you.

I go to the older pictures first, and pull up one of the four of us on the beach in Swan Pointe. It’s one of my favorites. This was my junior year of high school, so well before Corrine got cancer. Also before I shocked the hell out of my family to take off on my own. Rayce and Lizzy were both in college, but home for summer break. Rayce and I are standing next to one another wearing our swim trunks. The girls are in their suits as well and on our shoulders—Lizzy on Rayce’s and Corrine on mine—with their arms up in victory. We’re all sporting broad smiles and the dark California tans of deep summer.

“Oh my god, look how cute you were,” Whitney says. “How old were you?”

“Seventeen. That’s Corrine, there,” I say pointing. Her long hair is flowing over her tan shoulders.

“I figured,” Whitney says. “You look like your siblings. You can tell you’re related.”

“Everyone says that.”

“So this is Lizzy and Rayce,” Whitney says, pointing.

I nod. I scroll until I find the one with Corrine in her gaucho hat. This picture is just her, sitting at the game table in Mom and Dad’s living room, looking pale from the chemo. She’s holding some playing cards and sticking her tongue out at me, the picture taker.

I laugh a little. I laugh every time I see this one.

“Why’s she sticking her tongue out?” Whitney asks, laughing a bit too.

“Because I just stomped all over her ass in gin rummy.”

“So when was this?” Whitney asks. “Was she in treatment then?”

“Yeah. This was during the first round of treatment, so she’d go in a few times a week and be home in between. I think this was maybe three or four months in or something.”

“And with everything she was going through you didn’t let her win the card game?” Whitney says, playfully swatting my arm.

“Oh no. The Rivers family takes competition very, very seriously. She’s not easy to beat, either, so let me tell you, that was one fine moment of glory.”

Whitney laughs and takes another slice of salami as I scroll through looking for my other favorite. “Just one more,” I say. “I promise.”

“No, no,” she says, licking her fingers again. “I love this.”

And I love it when you lick those fucking fingers.

“Okay, here it is,” I say. Whitney leans back in, her shoulder pressing against mine. I took this photo in the Mayo Clinic, Corrine’s home for nine fucking months. But she’s a fighter, and no other picture shows it more than this one. She was down to something like ninety-five pounds, and her complexion had turned sallow. Between the cancer trying to eat her alive and the chemo taking its own shot at it, she was weak and exhausted almost all the time.

She’s in her hospital bed, bald, all hooked up to IVs and monitors and oxygen. I’m leaning over the bed, my head close to hers, and we’re both looking at the camera, making “rock on” signs with our hands.

“That was our secret Fuck Cancer sign,” I say, grinning at Corrine’s smile. “Our moms would’ve had our hides if we’d gone around flipping the bird all the time, so we came up with this instead.”

“I love that.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have a recent picture of her?”

“Sure,” I say, flipping through to the one I took the last time I was in town. “This was back in March.” We’re at her mom’s dining table, leaning close to each other and smiling for the camera, the remnants of our most recent hand of gin rummy on the table. Her hair’s starting to grow back. She has a cute pixie cut that actually suits her well, though she’s a little self-conscious about it.

“Aww,” Whitney says. “So cute. Is that another gin rummy game?”

“Oh yeah. I can’t get out of a visit with Corrine without playing gin rummy. She fucking
loves
that game. Played it about a billion times when she was in the hospital.”

“Who won that one?”

“Irrelevant,” I say, tucking my phone away, and Whitney laughs.

“You’re close to your family.”

I nod. “Yeah. They’re all right. I guess.”

She smiles. “Do you miss them?”

“Yes, I really do. But I go home for visits, and call them a lot. So, you know. It’s all good.”

“So you’re close to them, and you miss them, but not enough to stick around?”

Our eyes meet then. I’m not sure, but we might be talking about something else now.

“No,” I say, quietly. “Not enough for that.”

“That tells me how much you love it. I’ve seen it, too. Just the little I’ve been with you. It’s like this energy inside you coming out.” She talks about it like it’s a good thing, and I appreciate that.

“Yeah,” I say, looking out at the field and trees off in the distance. “That’s a good way to put it.” I can’t help but wander. I really can’t, and I’ve tried. “I just...” I hesitate. “I love my life, but there’s a downside to anything, I guess. I just wish I didn’t cause other people pain.”

“Like who?”

“Like the people who want me to stay.”

“Your family?”

I don’t respond. Yeah, my family, too. But that’s not who I’m thinking about.

“A girl?”

I sigh. She’s a smart cookie, this Whitney.

Whitney

I see the uncomfortable look on his face and know I’m right.
Damn
.

He nods. “All of the above.”

“What happened?”

He sighs and starts packing up after lunch.

“Sorry,” I say. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“No,” he says quietly, standing and extending his hand to me so I can get up too. “Maybe you should know.”

We heft our packs onto our shoulders and he grabs his walking stick and we head back down the hill to the road. Connor’s quiet, working up to it, I think. After we’ve reached the road and fallen into a rhythm, he starts.

“Her name is Evie. We met in Middleton. That’s in South Australia.”

“Is she Australian?”

He nods.

“Does she have an accent?”

He gives a small smile. “Best part about our fights was hearing her swear at me with an accent.”

I laugh a little, but only a little. He’s already back to being serious again, lost in whatever thoughts are swirling around in his head.

“This was, wow, two years ago now. I’d been exploring New Zealand and Australia for a few months. I was about ready to take off to somewhere else when I met Evie.”

He pauses. Whatever story this is, it almost seems more difficult for him to tell than the one about his cousin.

“We were together six months. I docked my boat and we got an apartment together. She owned a surf shop, and I got a job as an adventure tour guide.” He shrugs. “I thought it’d be something fun to do, you know.” He rubs his fingers along his forehead, hesitating again.

“Did you love her?” I ask, prompting him.

He nods. “Yes.”

I gotta admit, I’m feeling little pangs of jealousy listening to him talk about another woman, as if he’s mine or something. But I still want to hear the story.

“It was a very... intense relationship. Everything she did, she did full throttle. She was exciting and daring and I did love her, but the fights were intense too and I didn’t care for that. I think I could’ve put up with it though. It wasn’t that, I guess.”

“You couldn’t stay,” I say, knowing where this is going.

He shakes his head. “No. And she didn’t want to travel like that. She had her shop. We’d take trips, but they were limited to her vacation time, and mine for that matter. I tried to stay. I really, really did. But it’s like you said. There’s this thing inside of me and it drives me. The longer I stayed, the more restless I got and she started to resent it. She thought I wanted to get away from her, but it wasn’t that. I just needed to
go.
Chase down that horizon. Just... go
see
something.”

I’m watching him and he’s watching the road, eyes distant as he’s remembering, his brows knit tight in frustration.

“I’d be going about my everyday work, and something in me was just pacing all the time.”

Like a wild animal caged,
I think.

“Sometimes I have to wonder if there’s something wrong with me,” he continues, almost desperately, “because sometimes it’s like this... this
itch
I can’t scratch. Why can’t I just get it together and do the things people need me to do?”

He exhales sharply then falls to silence.

“Because,” I say gently, “there’s only so much changing you can do for another person. This is obviously who you are, Connor. Like, the very core of who you are, from what I can tell.” Even as I’m saying it, I’m seeing him more clearly than I have yet. He’s like this little piece of wind blowing around, belonging to no one but the earth itself.

Back in that café with Maggie and the others, when he said the world was his home, he wasn’t kidding.

As I look at his handsome face, I feel both awed to be in the presence of someone so genuine and wild, and sorrowful that my time with him is inevitably fleeting. I’ve suspected it all along, but it feels different now that I know for sure that a man like Connor can never be captured.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” I say. “You can only be who you are. It’s all any of us can do. Sometimes being who we really are is just hard, but it’s still right.”

We’re walking down a gravel path that runs somewhat parallel to a highway. We’re quiet, both thinking.

“Whitney,” he says slowly.

We take a few more steps in silence. “Yeah?”

“I want to make sure there are no misunderstandings here.”

“There aren’t,” I say.

He looks at me regretfully.

I sigh, regretful too, but it is what it is. I mean, I’m not thrilled with the situation. Yes, I wish things were different. I wish we were both in San Francisco instead of here. I’d definitely like more than a few short days with him. But, the fact that we have so little time together is probably for the best, because regardless of the situation, Connor will always be on the move anyway.

The time limit we’re staring down is a blessing in disguise. It’ll keep us from getting too attached. Too serious.

“We both know where this is going,” I say. “It’s okay. No one’s made any promises here.”

He sighs and stops. I stop too and he pulls me into his arms, looking me directly in the eye. “I’m not
able
to make promises.”

“I understand.”

“I
can’t
.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

He sighs, lowering his forehead to mine, still looking regretful. “I just want to enjoy you as much as I can, while it lasts.”

“I want that, too.” And I do. I take a deep breath. “Look, let’s don’t worry, all right? Let’s just have fun and enjoy it. Aren’t you enjoying it?”

He smiles, his eyes softening. “You know I am.”

I smile too, my heart warming at the way he’s looking at me. “Me too.” This is what we have to do. Just stay in the now. All I need to think about is me and Connor and how he makes me feel right now. And he makes me feel happy.

“I could use another kiss, though,” I say.

Because kisses help.

That night we stay at a small, private hostel in Dumbría, and (not for the first time) make enough noise to cause the hosts to avoid looking us directly in the eye the next morning. It’s our last full day together. We’ll be in Finisterre sometime this afternoon, find a place to stay, and tomorrow morning I’ll take a cab back to Santiago so I can catch my flight home.

And that will be that.

Connor will become a story I tell, and I’ll become another story for him.

Something about this happening
tomorrow
is making it more real than it’s felt so far. Every step I take closer to Finisterre, every hour that passes, makes it harder than it was yesterday. The hours are slipping through my fingers. Part of me wants to turn to him and say, “Say goodbye to me now and go, before it gets too painful.”

But I’m greedy. I want every minute of Connor I can get.

We’ve seen pilgrims on the road each day since we left Santiago, but seem to be running into them more today. Or maybe it just seems that way because every time we do, I wish we didn’t. I don’t want to talk to other people. I just want to be with Connor.

Maybe he feels the same way, because within minutes of joining up with someone on the road, we do something to
unjoin
with them. We’ll either pass them, or if they’re going too fast for that, we’ll find a reason to stop artificially so they’ll pass us.

We do this without speaking about it. We do it all the way through the old sea town of Finisterre, with its boxey buildings and colorful red tile roofs.

When we finally get to the little cape that was considered, for centuries, to be the end of the world, my heart swoops up in my throat. The ocean goes on forever. In spite of being a modern woman who’s familiar with the world map, it still
seems
like this is the end of things.

The beach, a combination of sand and large black rock formations, stretches on in both directions. And that water. God, it just goes on. The sound of it is like a siren call, drawing me in. I can’t help but smile. I wanted to see this so badly, and walked an additional eighteen and a half miles to get it done. But I suppress the urge to cry.

Maybe it’s tears of joy. Maybe not. Either way, I don’t trust myself to let them go.

The ocean is enough to distract us for a while. We take off our boots and play in the water, walking along the shore as far as we dare with our packs lying on the beach behind us. We grab a quick dinner, then head back to the beach. There are more pilgrims now, coming for the sunset, just like we are. We manage to find a rock to sit on away from the others anyway.

The closer the sun gets to the horizon—oranges and yellows glistening on the water—the faster it descends. We watch it in silence. Our arms are snug around each other, and my head is resting on his shoulder. The shimmering orb of the sun dips down toward the water with steady determination. There’s no stopping a force like that. The bottom of the circle kisses the horizon and slips down into it. Farther and farther, until it is only a sliver of light that winks at us, and is gone.

We take a deep breath together, but don’t move. We sit like that until the sky darkens to a deep indigo with only a hint of pink streaking along the horizon.

Connor looks at me, and I tilt my head up to look at him. I don’t want to be sad, so I smile. He gives me a gentle, lingering kiss.

I should say goodbye right now. I should. It’s the perfect moment. But when he pulls away, I say, “Well... I guess we should find a place to stay.”

“Or,” he says quietly. “We could take a cab to Muxia and sleep on my boat.”

I smile. I guess if Connor doesn’t see a fork in the road, he’ll just go ahead and make one himself. A cab to Muxia was not in the plan, but I like it. I like it very much.

It’s dark when we get to the docks in Muxia and board Connor’s ship, which is not at all what I’d imagined. Rather than the ratty Forest Gump boat I had in my mind, this is a fifty-five foot ocean trawler with a deck that shines in the moonlight. When we go into the interior I’m pleasantly surprised again. It has a clean, almost luxurious feel.