He turned and walked into the living room, and I followed. Something bad had happened. Something he wasn't looking forward to telling me. A small table lamp was on in the living room, casting strange shadows on the fish tanks and adding to the deepening sense of gloom. The wind howled outside.
As I entered the room, Devon stormed past me. His face was pale against his freckles, and his eyes flashed with anger. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought there might have been tear marks on his cheeks. He hurried through the kitchen, slamming the door behind him as he went out into the storm. My heart rate ticked up higher. Something was definitely very wrong.
Doc sat down on one of the ancient couches, looking weary and worn. The pale yellow light of the lamp wasn't kind to him and only accentuated the length of his nose and the age of his skin. I didn't see Lucas, but Doc had said he was okay. Nothing could have happened to Brooke in the thirty seconds since I had seen her. Worry clutched at the pit of my stomach.
“What's going on?” I asked, peering through the dark kitchen doorway after Devon. He was probably on his way to Mimi's. I hoped he got there before the rain hit.
“You should sit down, Isabel.” Doc's voice was low and guarded. No one called me Isabel. Ever. Unless it was something bad. Something very bad.
“Doc?” I sat carefully on a worn, tan-colored easy chair. At least, I assumed it had been tan at some point in its life. The chair was probably older than I was.
Doc stared at my feet for a second before looking up. There was defeat in his clear green eyes.
“We didn't get the Grove.”
I heard the words, but my brain refused to comprehend them. This wasn't possible.
“What do you mean?” I barely squeaked. “We had enough money... the grants and the donations... and...”
“Someone outbid us at the last minute,” Doc interrupted gently. He reached out across the small space and put a hand on my knee. The air seemed to be leaking out of the room somehow, leaving me short of breath. “The lawyers say they can't release who won the bid until the sale is final, but some of the comments they let slip don't bode well. It sounds like a hotel company.”
The foundations of my world were crumbling. The Grove was supposed to be my project. My future. I had so many hopes and dreams for research, conservation, and education, and they were all fading before my eyes. If a hotel company had bought the land, the Grove was going to be destroyed. There was no way a fancy tourist hotel would want the mangroves taking over their beach front property. It had happened to other mangrove groves in too many places to count. They would raze the Grove to get at the beach underneath. The island's government wouldn't stop it, because another hotel would bring in more tourist money.
“Izzy?” I noticed that Doc's eyes were rimmed with red. This was painful for him too. He had devoted years of his life to studying the ecology of the area, not to mention the thousands of dollars and man-hours he had put forth to try and make the Grove a nature preserve. This was as much a blow to him as it was to me.
“I'm so sorry, Doc,” I whispered. Details were suddenly all I could see. Doc was wearing a frayed green shirt that had a small hole in the left sleeve. The couch he was sitting on had a miniscule stain in the corner of the center cushion. The light in the third aquarium was flickering. My mind was trying to focus on anything, on everything, other than the news.
“It's not your fault, Izzy,” Doc comforted. He was handling this better than I was. I could barely breathe. The air was now completely gone from the room. Doc peered at me, a frown of concern deepening on his already lined face. “Are you going to be okay?”
“No,” I gasped, standing up far too quickly. The room spun. Thunder shook the windows, further disorienting me. I stumbled against the end table with the lamp. The room swayed in the movement of the light. I was going to be sick.
“Izzy, it's going to be okay.” Doc's voice was distant, but somehow his hands were on my shoulders. I didn't want his comfort. I wanted to rage and scream and cry. It wasn't fair. This wasn't how things were supposed to be. Everything had been perfect this morning, and now it wasn't.
Noah. He was still perfect. Things were better when I was with him. I knew he couldn't fix this, but I needed him. I needed him to hold me and lie and say that things would
work out better in the end.
I shook off Doc's hands, twisting away from him and banging my thigh against the table. It was going to leave a bruise, but the pain felt far away.
“No, no, no...” I chanted, weaving my way out of the living room and into the kitchen. Doc was just a couple of steps behind me.
“Izzy,” Doc called, grabbing my arm and spinning me to face him before I ran out into the storm alone. “Where are you going?”
“Noah.”
Doc let me go and nodded. “Be safe.”
I ran from the kitchen, slamming the door behind me. Wind whipped at my hair and sand bit my skin, but I didn't care. I almost wished it stung more so I could forget the sick sensation in the pit of my stomach. I ran from the house, my feet pounding on the cement as I headed for Noah's place.
There was too much and not enough in my mind. The Grove was going to be destroyed. I was sliding out of control and had no brakes to stop me. Months of planning, fund-raising, meetings, and hoping were for nothing. Everything I had worked for, everything Doc had worked for, was going to disappear into a monstrosity of a hotel.
The storm hit the coast with a hiss. Gray sheets of rain cascaded against the sand as it made land. I didn't care. I kept running down the path until I hit the Grove.
I stood in the pouring rain, staring at the tangle of wood and brackish water. It would never be considered classically beautiful. It wasn't what people expected of a tropical island paradise. But it had been my passion. I had seen myself in that Grove.
Logically, I knew I would recover. This wasn't the end of my career, but for this moment, this second in time, it was a knife in my heart. I ran past the Grove, the sobs heaving in my chest. It was all going to go away. The green and brown murky depths would no longer stand guard over the fledgling fish and sharks. The birds would have to find somewhere else to live. It felt so wrong that something so important to the local wildlife could disappear so easily. I would have to find somewhere else to chase my dreams.
The only problem was, I didn't want to find somewhere else. I had already become attached to those gangly trees. I had planned my future around them, and now it was changing. I didn't have a good plan for this. I had been too hopeful, too optimistic that we would be successful.