Variation: A Novel
Variation: Chapter 35

Devon2Sharpe: RousseauSisters4, just wanted to know the meaning of your handle. I thought there were only two of you?

ReeseOnToe: Devon2Sharpe, there are three alive. One plays an admin role in the company, and they lost their oldest sister in a car accident that Alessandra survived.

Devon2Sharpe: ReeseOnToe oh shit, I didn’t know. Thx

ReeseOnToe: NP. Alina was a spectacular dancer, too. You can replace some of her stuff on YouTube.

She’s on the beach. That was all Anne was willing to tell me when I got to Allie’s, but the look she dealt out said it was my fault. Yeah, dropping that New York information on her and splitting probably wasn’t my best course of action, but I’d been feeling all hopeful and shit.

Not so much anymore.

I blew out a slow breath, accepting my fate, and made my way through the backyard and down the steps. Good thing I’d stopped at my house to change out of uniform. Sand was a bitch when it got in my boots.

Allie sat on the end of the pier, staring out over the ocean. My chest clenched as I crossed the wooden expanse. This morning’s hope had transformed into tonight’s problem when my email pinged during the morning meeting, and what seemed like an easy hurdle to jump now felt a canyon. Orders had come in, and I wouldn’t be going anywhere soon.

I’d be in Cape Cod, while Allie most likely took the New York contract. This was going to suck, but we could handle a fight. The fight would be good for us, force us to define what we were really doing, which had left the fling department weeks ago, somewhere between me giving her a key with her drawer and her freeing up closet space for a few of my uniforms. Flings didn’t make room for each other in their lives the way we had.

“Hey,” I said so I didn’t startle her, then lowered myself to sit at her side, letting my legs dangle above the water.

She fidgeted with her hands but didn’t look over.

“I’m guessing you’re pissed that I asked for New York,” I started, “but it turned out to be nothing. I got my orders, and I’m staying here.” Caroline would eventually be thrilled once she was done being pissed at me. “I hope you know I’d never expect you to take the Boston contract or anything. I fully support you going back to MBC if that’s what you want.”

No response.

“Allie?” I studied her profile and flinched when she didn’t so much as look my way. Shit. She’d thrown her walls right back up in the three hours I’d been gone. “I know I should have talked to you about changing it, but . . .” I took the deepest breath of my life and dove straight into what was going to be the most important fight of our lives. One I wasn’t willing to lose. Not again. “But I don’t want this to end. I know you’re leaving in the next few days, but we can make this work. I have a favor I can call in at the assignment desk, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll come down on weekends so you don’t lose studio time. I’ll fold myself into your life—”

“My father always told us that waves come in sets,” she interrupted, staring out at the ocean as those very waves broke against the pylons beneath us.

My stomach tensed. Holy shit, I was in bigger trouble than I thought if we were talking about science. “They can,” I agreed, “depending on if they’re caused by wind or storms, and the shape of the ocean floor—”

“He told us that individual waves move faster, but when they group in deep water, they move slower because they’re connected by the same energy.” Her left hand moved over her right, spinning something around her finger. “They’re bound as a set, traveling through the water until the landscape changes with the shoreline.” She paused. “And then they break one by one.”

“Right.” Where was she going with this? I braced my hands on the pier and held on to the edge as I listened, looking for any clue in her expression, but she was fully masked. Untouchable.

“And I understood the metaphor he was making, but I always thought that we were more like the pylons,” she continued, her fingers moving faster. “We were stronger together, more capable of taking the hits, holding the pier through storms, as long as we supported each other. But the longer I sit here, the more I realize that losing one pylon might damage the pier, but it doesn’t lessen the integrity of the others. They’re connected by purpose, not energy.”

She looked down as a wave crashed into the wood, the spray rising to just beneath our feet. “And now I think Dad was right. The four of us were a set, moving through life bound by an unbreakable force, at times unintentionally holding each other back so we could push forward together, not realizing the picture-perfect beach we were racing toward would break us one by one, and the others would be doomed to watch, powerless to help or prevent our own ruin.” The evening light brought out the gold in her eyes as she looked past me toward the beach and the breaking waves. “We aren’t the pylons. We’re the waves. Lina broke first, and in our own ways, the three of us are now careening toward the shore.”

“Allie, what happened?” A deep sense of foreboding sent chills up my spine, the feeling identical to the moments my tires had lost their grip on an icy road, and all there was to do was wait for them to replace purchase—or wreck.

“That’s the problem. I don’t know.” Her eyes locked with mine, and the hair rose on the back of my neck. “But you do, don’t you, Hudson? Because you were there.”

“What do you mean?” My grip spasmed so hard I half expected to leave handprints in the wood.

“Gavin let it slip that he picked you up at the hospital”—she tilted her head—“covered in my blood.”

Oh fuck. My stomach crashed into the waves below, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to do. I froze.

“You. Were. There.” She spit it like the accusation it was. “At the accident. That’s the only way you could have had my blood on you.”

I wanted to run, to rewind time two days, two weeks, two months, and do it all differently. My ribs clamped down on my heart so hard it pounded in protest, but I’d never told Allie a lie, and I couldn’t start today. Except by omission.

“Yes,” I admitted. “I was there.”

Her eyes widened, and my heart screamed that I’d just cost us any chance at a future. “Were you in the car?”

“No.” I shook my head and fought the boulder of a lump forming in my throat. “I was behind you. We left the beach at the same time—”

“The beach?” Her brow knit.

“The cove where we kissed.” I grimaced at the way she instantly tensed. “Kissed now, not then. Then, I wanted to wait until we faced your parents, to do everything the right way, and then it all went so. Fucking. Wrong.”

“The cove.” Realization flared in her eyes. “I showed up that night?”

“You were late, but you showed up.” I nodded. God, I’d wanted to tell her so many times, and I should have. Damn the consequences. She never should have heard it from Gavin. “It’s the same road, so everyone just assumed you’d been coming back from the reception.”

“Did you see the accident happen?” Her hands clenched.

“No. You disappeared around the corner probably thirty seconds ahead of me. By the time I rounded the curve . . .” I looked away, my brain recognizing I was here on this pier, but my memory fighting to convince me otherwise, filling my vision with mangled metal and my lungs with smoke. “You’d hit the tree.”

“Was . . .” Her voice broke, and I snapped my gaze back to hers. “Was Lina alive when you got there?” Her lower lip trembled.

“Yes.” My chest tightened painfully. Her head had been turned toward Allie, her bloodied face flush with the steering wheel, but I left that detail out. Allie didn’t need my nightmares.

“What did she say?” Her eyes filled with tears, and my ribs threatened to break.

“She told me to save you.”

“But I was already safe.” Allie blinked, then shook her head. “Why did she go back to the car? What was she looking for?”

“Back?” My eyebrows jumped. “What are you talking about?”

“She went back!” She pushed up on the pier and stood.

I quickly did the same, a chill rolling up my spine. “You remember something, don’t you?”

“Yes!” she shouted. “It was my fault.” The wind gusted and she shoved the loose tendrils of her hair out of her face. “She pulled me out of the car, and then she carried me up the embankment to the shoulder of the road and sat with me.”

Every muscle in my body tensed, but I kept quiet.

“She held something to my head to help stop the bleeding, then told me to hold on because help was coming.” She spoke with complete and utter certainty. “She told me that she loved me, and to follow my heart, and to take care of what she’d left behind, and then she put her ring in the pocket of my skirt.”

Fuck. My soul left my body. Lina had said at least two of those things at the cove when I’d walked Allie back to her car.

“But then she told me I’d be okay, and she went back to the car for something, and I couldn’t stop her. I tried, but I couldn’t move. God, my mom just kept crying that I’d saved myself and left her there to die . . .” She shook her head violently. “I couldn’t tell her the truth was so much worse, that I couldn’t get her to stay.”

“Allie, it wasn’t your fault. That’s not what happened.” I shook my head.

“It is!” She lifted her right hand and the ring flashed in the sun. “See?”

“Holy shit, you have it.” Breathing took more than a little thought.

“Why did she go back?” She stepped backward. “You were there, Hudson. Why?”

“She never went back. She never left the car.” I took the steps that separated us and clasped her shoulders so she didn’t stumble off the pier. “And you didn’t leave her to die, Allie. I did.” And there it was.

She startled.

“I left her.” I’d only ever said those words to one other person.

“I don’t understand.” Her forehead crinkled. “She pulled me out—”

“No, love. I pulled you out,” I said slowly, so there was no chance of misunderstanding.

Her face slackened.

“When I got there, the car was already on fire. It took all my strength to rip open your door. The frame had been bent in the crash. Lina was conscious, and you were dazed. She told me to get you out, to save you, and I didn’t argue. I didn’t even hesitate.” I cradled the side of her face for what I feared might be the last time. “You were . . . God, Allie, you were essential to existence. Of course I was going to save you.”

“You?” she whispered, studying my eyes.

“Me.” I nodded. “I cut through your seat belt with my pocketknife, somehow got you out of the wreckage, and carried you up the embankment.” Even now, I could feel the heat of the fire on my back, the slight weight of her in my arms. I saw her eyes, watching me with absolute trust even as they unfocused and she started to slip into unconsciousness. My heart pounded like we were still there, on the side of the road I avoided to this day. “I was going to run straight back, but your head was bleeding so fucking fast. The wound was pulsing, and all I could think was it had to be arterial, and I was terrified you’d bleed out before anyone could replace us. You were my world. Nothing mattered beyond you.” Even Lina. “I sat you down, took off my sweatshirt, and put pressure on the wound.”

“You.” This time it wasn’t a question.

“I told you to hold it there, and then turned around to go back for Lina . . .” My throat closed, and I had to take a deep breath and swallow so I could finish confessing. “But the fire had reached the gas tank and the car exploded.”

“Oh my God.” Her face crumpled, and her eyes watered.

“Listen to me, Allie.” I leaned in. “You didn’t leave her or let her do anything. None of it was your fault. Whatever you remember is just your mind trying to protect you, piecing together bits and pieces of what she said to you at the cove to give you one last memory of her. I’m the one who made the choice, and I chose you.”

“But I have the ring,” she whispered.

“I gave you the ring at the beach.” God, if I’d only known that’s how she remembered everything, I would have said something years ago.

“No.” She wrenched out of my hands and sidestepped before turning her back on me and walking toward shore.

“Lina gave me the ring before the Classic!” I followed her, pausing when she did to give her space. “You can ask Anne. She saw us in a hallway and thought we were sneaking around behind your back or something. But Lina told me to give you the ring.”

Allie pivoted to face me. “Why would she do that? It was her heirloom.”

“Because . . .” Now I was the one who needed a second, and Allie watched as I struggled for the words. “Because I was in love with you.” How, out of everything, was that the hardest truth to tell? “And Lina, she saw what I thought I kept pretty well hidden.”

“We were just friends.” Allie hugged her arms around her waist.

“Until we weren’t.” I reached up to shape the brim of my hat, then ripped it off my head and whipped it into the ocean out of pure frustration. “The fact that you don’t remember what might have been the most pivotal moment of our lives has haunted me for ten fucking years.”

“Haunted you?” she snapped. “Tell me what happened, Hudson.”

I turned to face her. “I was leaving in four days, and Lina told me to take the ring and give it to you as a promise that whatever we started, we’d finish once I was out of basic training. She said it would be a message to your entire family that she had your back, and she was so certain you’d choose me because you loved me, too, even if you didn’t realize it.” My ribs did their best impression of a vise. “She was right. You did. And you don’t remember.”

“I chose you over ballet.” She searched my eyes like she was looking for a lie.

“You chose me over your mother’s company.” I nodded. “You chose us. You didn’t sign the MBC offer at the reception, and said you’d wait to accept whichever company’s contract was closest to wherever I’d be assigned, and that you didn’t care if it cost you a season, and fuck, did I love you even more for it.” My shoulders dropped and my chest hollowed. “You decided to ride back to your parents’ with Lina so you two could game-plan how we should tell them.” I blew out a slow breath. “Letting you get into that car is the biggest regret of my life.”

She glanced at the ring, then back up at me. “My mother said the paramedics found me on the side of the road by myself.”

I scoffed. “Your mother lied. She does that. A lot.” I didn’t bother masking my hatred. “She kicked me out of your hospital room and told me never to come back.”

Her eyes flared. “And you listened?”

“No. I went back the day after, and she told me you’d woken up and didn’t remember anything, and that if I persisted in my attempts to derail your life, she would tell you that I’d had plenty of time to save you both but had taken too long with you, leaving Lina to die, and you’d never forgive me for it.” Remorse hit with the force of a battering ram, just like always.

She flinched. “And you left. That’s the end of the story.” She walked away again, and I followed just like I always did, halting only when she spun around once we reached the boathouse platform. “I deserved the truth!”

“You did.” I nodded as the waves crashed beneath us. “I’m so sorry. I almost called you thousands of times, but once I got phone privileges at basic, I knew that ghosting you had already given you another reason to hate me. And as months and years went by, I’d dug a hole there was no prayer of ever recovering from, so I chose not to intrude on your life.”

“You could have come back at any time and told me the truth.” Her voice broke. “I left a seat open for you for a decade.”

I felt the blood drain from my face, like it knew it needed to protect far more vital organs in danger of bleeding out. “Would you have forgiven me?” I stepped forward, and she retreated. “You told me the first day I met you that your sisters were the most important thing in the world to you, and I didn’t give a shit that night. I chose my wants over your needs and didn’t so much as hesitate. I make split-second decisions, always have, and usually they work out, but that one cost the life of your sister. Could you ever have gotten past the fact that I pulled you out of that car instead of Lina? That I’m the reason you’re alive and she isn’t?”

She flinched.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” I deflated. “Every time you look at me, you’ll remember that I left her in that car. Or you’ll wonder if I had just carried you a few less feet, taken just a little less time to stanch your wound, or hell, let you bleed for another minute, if Lina would be here too.”

Her eyes flicked from side to side as she mulled it over.

“I wouldn’t blame you for not getting past it, since I think about it every damned day. You are every person I go into the water for. There are hundreds of them, but they’re all you. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save Lina, too, Allie. You’ll never know how sorry I am.” I’d waited ten years to say those words, knowing they’d never be enough, and the pain of being right threatened to crush me.

She tugged the sleeves of her MBC hoodie over her hands. “You just let me live with the guilt of thinking I saved myself and left her there for a decade. Even if I could understand why you did all of that ten years ago, why didn’t you tell me when I came back this summer? Why would you let me fall for you when you knew this would . . .” She shook her head and looked away.

Fall for you. That did it. My heart twisted, then flat-out broke at what I’d lost by holding on to the secret for too long. “I fucked up. At first, I didn’t want Juniper caught in the crosshairs of you hating me, and then I didn’t know if you could take another blow, and then you told me we couldn’t last past the summer and not to tell you anything that wouldn’t affect these five weeks.” It sounded like bullshit, even to my ears. “But really, there’s no excuse other than my own selfishness. I had you back and I was terrified of losing you again.”

There it was. All of it.

“But you chose New York.” She tilted her head at me. “Were you ever going to tell me? Or did you think it would never come out?”

“I was going to tell you after the Classic, but then everything happened,” I promised her. “I was going to tell you and confront your mother so she knew she couldn’t run me off again. Honestly, I was surprised she didn’t tell you the second you informed her we were together.”

“You thought my mother would spill your secret?” Allie laughed, but it came out on a cry. “It would have killed her leverage on me. God, Hudson, do you know how many hours I’ve spent with therapists trying to remember what happened? Asking why I would have left Lina there when I swore she went back to the car? You’ve known all this time! If you’d told me at seventeen, maybe I would have struggled because you chose to save me over Lina, but I wouldn’t have despised you. Not like this.” She shook her head. “And I understand keeping things private. I’m a master of it. But knowing this truth would have changed my life. Maybe our lives. And now, I don’t know how to trust you. Or how to trust that this is the truth. And yet . . . you saved me.”

“Allie . . . it’s all true.” The word despise took what was left of my heart and smashed it into sand.

“Thank you, Hudson.” She looked off into the water as a wave broke against the shore.

I held my breath.

“I should have said that first. Thank you. If not for you, I would have died in that car with Lina. Though, if not for us, we wouldn’t have been in the car in the first place, I suppose.”

“Stop replaceing ways to blame yourself.”

Her weary gaze found mine. “I really do wish you nothing but the best.”

“No. Don’t break us up.” That’s exactly what was happening here, and every part of me screamed to hold on this time, even as my heart bled out on the pier. “We can get through this.”

“No, we can’t. You can’t build something when there’s no trust.” She looked my way. “The irony, truly, is that I’ve never learned to be completely open with anyone, but I got close with you. And maybe if I had just let you in, if you knew the things my family . . .” She shook her head. “Well, maybe you would have made different choices, and we wouldn’t be here. That part of the blame is on me.” Her back straightened and I watched, horrified, as she put up piece after piece of her armor and rebuilt her walls.

“What does that mean?” My brow furrowed.

“Nothing that matters anymore. And this isn’t a breakup. It was foolish to even entertain the thought that we could be anything more, not when we want such drastically different things for our lives. We’ve always had an expiration date, and we’ve simply reached it.” She plastered on that fake-ass smile. “But it was good for a summer, right?”

Whatever was left of my heart stopped beating.

“Goodbye, Hudson.”

This time when she walked away, I didn’t follow.