Page 117 of The One

“The real reason is that I didn’t have the nerve to.” My voice softened as I said, “I was afraid, Rhett.” I rubbed my lips together, the wind making them so dry. “There was so much I didn’t know from that day on the boat. So much that I couldn’t piece together. Parts that just didn’t make sense in my head. An argument? About going to the beach house? It wasn’t adding up.”

“I didn’t think you’d accept that as an answer … but then you did, and you didn’t want to hear anything else. Neither did your father.”

My hands touched my earlobes, remembering back then how every sound had pounded my eardrums, even an almost-silent dribble. “I couldn’t hear anything else.” The knot was so thick in my throat that I could barely swallow. “All I kept thinking about was how much she adored you. How she loved spending time with you and being around you. What could have possibly made her want to get away from you? And then my brain would spiral. Did she know the engines were on? Did she jump on purpose?—”

“No. She didn’t know.”

“I don’t think so either. Pen wasn’t suicidal. She didn’t have suicidal ideation either—but if she had, would I have known? Because I’d missed so many other things, like her using. I don’t trust my awareness at all.”

“You’re coming up with scenarios because that’s what we do. We analyze. We interpret. We try to understand even if it doesn’t make sense and it’s impossible to understand.” His hands moved to the metal, gripping the edge on either side of him. “Ican hear every word she spoke as though it happened seconds ago.”

“You mean of that day? Right before she jumped?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

I heard myself gasp. And then I heard myself say, “Tell me. I want to hear it.”

“Lainey, the last few minutes I spent with Penelope are imprinted on my brain in a way you can’t even imagine, in a way that I’ll never forget.” He took a breath. “Are you sure you want to hear it all, word for word?”

“Yes. More than anything.”

He let out a deep, loud breath. “The boat was stopped. I’d pulled over to a clear spot, and we were idling since we’d almost just gotten into the accident.

“We’d gone back and forth about you, and she said, ‘I deserve all the things too.’”

“When I asked her what she wasn’t getting, she responded with, ‘Everything!’”

He huffed, rubbing a hand over the top of his head.

“So, I said to her, ‘You’re going to NYU, the only school you wanted to go to—are you forgetting that? And the guys in our high school you wanted to date or hook up with, you got them too. What do you want that you don’t have?’” He was staring straight ahead, toward the track that I’d been walking on, as though he was watching the scene play out in his head.

“‘God, you’re so stupid,’” she said to me.

“Then, I replied, ‘You’re right. I must be. We have another twenty minutes until we’re at the beach house. Can you control yourself long enough to not almost get us into another accident? I’d like to get there already so I can forget about this shitstorm of a day.’” He ran his tongue over his teeth, his eyes getting redder.

“She pointed at me and said, ‘Fuck you.’”

“Rhett …”

If he sensed the emotion in my voice, he didn’t acknowledge it. If, from the corner of his eye, he saw me wipe my tears, he didn’t look at me.

“I tried to say her name, and she said, ‘Leave me the fuck alone.’”

“I opened my arms, Lainey, knowing I’d crossed some kind of boundary, and said, ‘Come here. We’ll hug it out, and then we’ll get going. Don’t forget, we have a joint to share once we get to Timothy’s.’”

“She’d tried to get me to smoke on the boat, and I wouldn’t. I’d promised her we’d share a joint at the beach house just to get her off my back. And the hug was to change her mood, but it caused her to flip me off and tell me to go fuck myself.” He finally looked at me.

The expression on his face was haunting.

Harrowing.

But that wasn’t the only thing that sent me over an edge that I hadn’t realized I was teetering on.

The truth had done that. Penelope’s last moments, which were unlike anything I’d ever imagined.

The tears were suddenly dripping freely down my face, my chin quivering, my breathing coming out in pants.

“The last thing she said was, ‘I’m fucking out of here.’”