Close Your Eyes: Book Four

Chapter Fifteen

After they all left, we barely spoke to each other as we put the kids to bed, and then I went in our bathroom and locked myself in. I spent an hour in a lavender infused bubble bath, and then I got out and brushed my hair and put on some pajamas.

When I walk into the bedroom, he's in bed scrolling through his phone. I see his eyes leave his phone to look at me, and we hold each others gaze for a couple of seconds.

I'm fully expecting him to go back to his phone while I walk over to the bed, but instead he sets his phone on the nightstand and rolls over. I see him reach out, and a moment later light floods the room. He sits up then, looks at me, and pats the spot beside him.

I set my phone on the side table and sit down, my back facing the edge of the bed.

He turns his body so our knees are touching, and then he takes a deep breath.

"Did you only leave Hawaii because I was leaving?" he asks me.

"No." I shake my head.

"When we left for college, you wanted to go, Savvy." He whispers. "Did you only go because of me?"

"I went because I wanted to." I tell him.

"But you said that you hated Hawaii." He says.

"I know."

"I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble understanding this." He says.

I take a deep breath.

"I've been blaming the island like it was cursed, but it's not. The world is just...just messed up, and that's the reality. I don't belong on the mainland. I belong on the island with the sun and the sand and the ocean. Every time somebody asks me a stupid 'mountains or ocean' question I always say the ocean. I blamed my kidnapping on Aiden and the island, and neither of them are more at fault than I am. I spent years wishing to go to the international marketplace and be friends with you and Aiden again and to be a normal kid. I wanted to go to the ocean and have a nice house in Hawaii and just be normal."

"But you are normal." He says.

"Yes, for the most part, I am normal, but I think it took me hearing that Aiden is coming to realize that I always assumed things would go back to normal when I got home. I thought I would just have friends and make friends easily, I didn't think I was going to be petrified to leave my house. I didn't think that my best friend caused my kidnapping. I was so...so angry that I got back to Hawaii and things were still so difficult, that I spent all my time there blaming the island and Aiden for my problems instead of being grateful that I was free again."

He's quiet for a long time, and then he reaches out and takes my hands.

"Do you regret coming to Oregon?"

"No." I tell him. "I think being here was good for me. Being in my parents house, walking out the door every day and seeing where it happened only fueled my anger. I think I just needed time away from there, away from anything familiar. I needed time to just be...Savannah, not the girl that was kidnapped and held prisoner for six years. It took until now to realize how much I miss Hawaii."

He blows out a breath of air.

"I don't want to move back. I'm not ready. When I think of that place, all I'm reminded of is misery. First you, and then my step dad..."

"I know, and Liam, I would never ask you to move back. I know how you feel about everything...with Andrew and your Dad."

"Well...I mean, my Dad wasn't as bad as I was raised to think he was, and Andrew's dead. So maybe it wouldn't be bad. I'm sure it wouldn't, and I miss Hawaii a lot. It's just...thinking about going back just for the scenery...I don't know Savvy. Our whole family is here, and we might hate it there. We might be going back somewhere that doesn't really exist anymore."