The walls of the shop are covered in surf apparel: wet suits, rash guards, board shorts, T-shirts. The floor displays are stacked with everything from surf wax and leashes to energy gum and tourist gifts. The surfboards are all standing up like soldiers behind the counter.
“Can I help you?” asks a young blonde girl with dreadlocks.
“I’m looking for Fallon.”
My voice is a bit shaky, but she doesn’t seem to notice or care. Her face lights up when she smiles. She slides off her stool and rounds the counter.
She holds out her hand for me to shake. “I’m Fallon.”
Her voice is kind of husky, but it’s comforting. I take her hand and shake it lightly. Her skin is a bit rough, but that makes me trust her. Fallon works until her fingers are calloused. Living with Jackie and Chris, seeing the long hours Jackie worked at the bakery and the endless hours of practice Chris would endure to get a song right, I’ve come to appreciate a strong work ethic as a very desirable quality.
Must stop thinking about Chris.
“Great!” I reply, letting go of Fallon’s hand. “I was just wondering … Well, someone told me that you give … Um, I was told that you’re a guru or something. I mean, I don’t know what to call it. I just … I want to learn to meditate.”
She continues to smile serenely as if I’m the millionth person who’s walked in here stammering like an idiot and she knows just how to fix it. “I can help you, but are you sure you’re ready?”
“What do you mean?”
She tilts her head as her gaze wanders over my face and to the empty space above my hair. “Do you think you’re ready to let go of all this?” She waves her hands around my ears as if she can see all my negative thoughts floating around my head. “All this stuff you’re carrying, it’s heavy. Real heavy.”
I can smell smoke on her breath and I’m wondering if maybe I made the wrong decision. She’s obviously smoking some good stuff. But maybe that’s what I need. Not to smoke some good stuff. But maybe I need someone who’s willing to do what I’m not willing to do. Maybe she can teach me how to do what I’ve been unable to do on my own. Maybe she can teach me to forget.
“I don’t know if I’m ready,” I reply. “But I know I’m desperate. That counts for something, right?”
She purses her lips, which are a bit too pink for her golden skin. “We’ll see. Meet me at the shore tomorrow at six a.m. I always start with a surf lesson to get to know you before we attempt meditation.”
I search my mind for my work schedule and realize I work at nine a.m. tomorrow. Linda won’t mind if I’m late to work. In fact, I’ll stop by the café right now and see if I can get someone else to cover my shift. This is too important.
I thank Fallon and leave the shop feeling lighter than I’ve felt in months. She’s right. I was carrying some heavy stuff around. But I already feel it being lifted away.
Now I know what people mean when they say today is the first day of the rest of my life. That’s exactly how I feel right now. Today, on Chris’s twenty-first birthday, my life without Chris finally begins.
This story continues in Relentless (Book Two of the Shattered Hearts Series). Turn the page for a free extended preview of Relentless.
Relentless
Preview
Relentless Addiction
Mom is too tired to play hide-and-seek. Her stomach hurts so she took some medicine to make it feel better. I don’t like it when she’s sick. Grandma Patty doesn’t know about Mom’s stomachaches and I haven’t seen Grandma in a few weeks, but I’m starting to think I should tell her.
Mom is asleep on the sofa; at least, I think she’s asleep. I can’t really tell the difference anymore. Sometimes, when I think she’s sleeping, I’ll try to sneak some cookies out of the cupboard. She usually hears me and yells at me to get out of the kitchen. Sometimes, she sleeps with her eyes half-open so I wave my hands in front of her eyes and make silly faces at her. She never wakes up and I always get bored after a couple of minutes. It’s no fun teasing someone unless there’s someone else around to laugh, and it’s just Mom and me here.
Her skinny arm is stretched out over the edge of the sofa cushion and I stare at the bandage. It’s too small to cover that big sore. One of those things she calls an abscess opened last night while she was making me a grilled- cheese sandwich. Some thick, brown stuff oozed out of her arm. It reminded me of the glaze on maple donuts, but it didn’t smell anything like a maple donut. The whole kitchen smelled like stinky feet when she put her arm under the water in the sink. Then she wrapped a billion paper towels around her arm and I had to eat a burnt sandwich.
She didn’t want to go to the doctor. She said that if she goes to the emergency room and shows them her arm the doctors might make her stay in the hospital for a long time. Then I’ll have to live with people I don’t know, people who might hurt me, until she gets better. My mom loves me a lot. She doesn’t want anybody to hurt me the way she was hurt when she was nine.
Mom teaches me a lot. She isn’t just my mom; she’s my teacher. When she isn’t sick, she teaches me math and spelling, but my favorite subject is science. I love learning about the planets the most. I want to be an astronomer when I grow up. Mom said that I can be anything I want to be if I just keep reading and learning. So that’s what I do when she’s sick. I read.
She’s been asleep for a long time today. I’ve already read two chapters in my science book. Maybe I should try to wake her up. I’m hungry. I can make myself some cereal – I am seven – but Mom promised she’d make me spaghetti today.
I slide off the recliner and land on the mashed beige carpet that Mom always says is too dirty for me to sit on. I take two steps until I’m standing just a few inches away from her face. Her skin looks weird, sort of grayish-blue.
“Mom?” I whisper. “I’m hungry.”
Something smells like a toilet and I wonder if it’s the stinky abscess on her arm. I shake her shoulder a little and her head falls sideways. A glob of thick, white liquid spills from the corner of her mouth.
The memory dissolves as someone calls my name.
“Claire?”
The cash register comes into focus as the rich aroma of espresso replaces the acrid stench in my memory. I’ve done it again. For the third time this week, I’ve spaced out while taking someone’s order. The last two customers were understanding, but this guy in his Tap Out T-shirt and veins bulging out of his smooth bald head looks like he’s ready to jump over the counter and either strangle me or get his own coffee.
“Sorry, about that. What was your order?”
“Wake the fuck up, blondie. I asked for an Americano with two Splendas. Jesus fucking Christ. There are people with serious jobs who need to get to work.”
I take a deep breath, my fingers trembling, as I punch the order in on the touchscreen. “Will that be all?”
Baldy rolls his eyes at me. “And the scone. Come on, come on. I gotta get the fuck out of here.”
“Hey, take it easy. She’s just trying to take your order,” says a voice. I don’t look up, but I can hear it came from the back of the line of customers.
“I already gave her my order three fucking times,” Baldy barks over his shoulder. “Mind your own fucking business.”
Linda comes up from behind me, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder as she sets the guy’s Americano on the counter next to the bag holding his multigrain scone. She doesn’t say anything, but the nasty look she casts in his direction could make an ultimate fighting champion piss his pants. Linda is the best boss in the world and one of the many reasons I still work at Beachcombers Café. All the other reasons I still work at one of the tiniest cafés in Wrightsville Beach have to do mostly with my desire to disappear after dropping out of UNC Chapel Hill ten months ago. But that’s a whole other story.
Baldy peels the lid off his coffee, rolling his eyes as he peers into the cup. “I said I wanted room for
cream. Are you all fucking retarded?”
Before I could reach for the cup, a guy in a suit steps out of line, grabs the cup off the counter, and dumps the entire contents into Baldy’s scone bag. A loud collective gasp echoes through the café.
“Now you’ve got plenty of room for cream,” the guy says.
I clap my hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh as Linda scrambles to get some paper towels.
The rage in Baldy’s eyes is terrifying. “You motherfucker!” he roars as my white knight grins.
And what a sexy white knight he is. Even in his pressed shirt and slacks, he can’t be more than twenty-two. He has an easygoing vibe about him, as if he’d rather be surfing than wearing a suit at seven in the morning. With his sun-kissed brown hair and the devious gleam in his green eyes, he reminds me of Leonardo DiCaprio in one of my favorite movies, Titanic.
Baldy charges my Jack Dawson, but Jack swiftly steps aside at the last moment. Baldy trips spectacularly over a waist-high display of mugs and coffee beans. All six people in the café are now standing silent as Baldy spits curses at the cracked mugs and spilled beans underneath him.
I look at my white knight and he’s smiling at me, a sneaky half-smile, and I know what he’s about to do.
Before Baldy can get to his feet, Jack drops a few hundred-dollar bills on the counter. “For the damages.”
He winks at me as he steps on Baldy’s back then hurries toward the exit with no coffee, just a huge grin that makes everybody laugh and cheer. He gives us a quick bow, showing his appreciation to the crowd, and slips through the door as Baldy lumbers to his feet.
My gaze follows Jack as he slides into his truck, one of the newer models that looks like something conceived in the wet dreams of a roughneck and a Star Wars geek. He pulls out of the parking lot and disappears down Lumina Avenue.