Perigee [bxb] | Bad Moon Book II

49; {Jaylin}: sunshine

The whitecaps whipped against the earth with rabid hunger. The cold was so cold in fact, it burned against his toes—but still Jaylin stood within the bite of the waves. Three weeks since he'd been here. That was all it been, and yet it felt so long ago. It felt like he'd suffered and woken from a thousand nightmares since then. That, within those three weeks, he'd walked through the gates of hell and waded through its impious lakes of fire to get back to this place.

And he couldn't let go of it.

Her hand touched his back and he turned his head to Tisper. The light of a swirling gray sky glinted from the silk embroidery of her eyepatch. She'd started on it hours after she awoke, still deeply medicated in her hospital bed. The doctor told her she'd lost the eye and the nurse handed her the patch, still new in its wrappings. But Tisper wasn't like most people; she didn't mourn for her loss. She turned the patch over in her hands and said: "This won't do." Then she asked for a sewing kit from the craft store and went to work, needling flowers into the fabric. When the first patch was done, she asked for another and another and another. One patch for each outfit in her wardrobe.

At first, Jaylin thought it must not be healthy. Some kind of coping mechanism to deal with her loss. A distraction from her severance. But he realized in time, that it was only Tisper. That all her life, she'd been stitching daisies into the fabric of this ugly gray world. This was how Tisper coped, how she existed—by staying in motion. By moving forward, by letting go.

So why couldn't he?

His hands went tight around the plastic.

Matt sunk into the sand at his side, taking the cap from his head so the wind could soak through his hair the way it washed through everything else in this place. Matt, who was dead and not. Who'd somehow found his way back from the grave, heart still ticking and blood still pumping, according to every nurse and doctor who'd checked his vitals since that day in Maine.

Matt had literally overcome death. He'd escaped it. He'd moved on.

Jesus, Jaylin. Why can't you just let go?

He stared down to the remote in his hands. It had meant nothing to him ten minutes ago—or four days before that, when Tisper had begged her grandmother to fetch it from her storage units in Washington and fast-track it to the watch in California. It meant nothing to him until he was standing there, at the water's edge, ready to chuck it into the ocean.

It's just a remote, he told himself—but that wasn't true at all. A splash of red nail polish still stained the play button from the night she'd had a bit too much wine and decided to give herself a manicure. This was the last piece of his mother he had to his name. It was a stupid, cheap, replaceable television remote—but it was her energy that existed within these buttons. The residuals of her lived in this thing.

"Jay—"

"Give him time, Matt."

He wasn't going to hide his tears from them. There was no point in that anymore—not when they'd both nearly died for him. Not when he loved them like he did. The way she'd taught him to love. He let the salt sting his cheeks, stroking over the rubber buttons like they were things that actually mattered. Precious jewels or old photographs. Her favorite pink sweater, the smell of her perfume. Tisper still had those things—she'd kept them tucked away in her storage unit while he was busy drinking and fucking and failing in college. Tisper had saved all of those things. Why was this so hard to let go of?

"Jay." Matt's voice was soft against the grainy snarl of the ocean. "If it's too hard, maybe you shouldn't."

"I'm okay." Jaylin wiped his face in his hands and took in a long, ragged breath. Stay in motion, Jaylin. Move forward. After a moment of collection, he took a fair step back in the sand. Then, with all he had, he sent the remote hurling into the hungry ocean waves. And it hurt—it did. But just for a moment. Because after that, all he could feel were Tisper's arms around him, Matt's hand on his shoulder. They watched the sun set over the edge of the ocean those angry waves reared back, like their hunger had been satisfied. Like they'd been waiting all this time for a piece of her.