*Lokela

Speaking of letters, Lokela, I want you to know that anything we might have had is over between us.

I don't want to hear you apologize.

Ray's voice. Fucking hell. Her voice wouldn't get out of his head.

You'll be there for me?

That question hurt more than her anger. His own voice, also in his head answered, echoed by his heart.

Yes. He'd be there. I'll be there for you. Every moment of every day.

His skull pounded in pain and sticky blood streamed into his eyes. What the hell?

"Shit man, press this down." Miller put a cloth to Lokela's head. It stung.

Lokela sucked air through his teeth, hissing in pain. "Damn it."

"Yeah, maybe we should go to the hospital," Miller said to Doug.

"We are literally driving to a medical clinic as we speak." Doug was incredibly calm. Lokela liked that about him. He liked how calm Doug was when the whole world was falling apart and Lokela's head was split in two.

It fucking matched his chest.

He started laughing, but it hurt too much to continue. "What the fuck happened to me?"

"A coconut happened," Miller said. He was squinting at Lokela's forehead in the light of the overhead car lamp. "We pulled over to pick you guys up and it fell from the tree next to you and hit your head."

"That was some fucked up bad luck. I saw the whole thing," Zach said, slurring his words from the back seat.

If Lokela hadn't been in so much pain, he'd have cracked his head open with a coconut to prove that it wasn't luck—it was karma. As it was, he sucked his breath through his clenched teeth when the car jostled on a bump. "Coconuts kill people. Is it bad?"

Miller shrugged. "It's not good."

Travis leaned forward onto the back of the seat. "Head wounds bleed a lot. I know what I'm talking about. You can have the smallest cut and whoosh!" He motioned with his hands. "Blood flood."

"Thank you for that description," Lokela said. He took the blood stained rag—it was Trevor's shirt—and held it tight to his forehead. He closed his eyes, trying to think about anything but the sledge-hammer pounding on his brain.

I don't want to hear you apologize.

Ray was on repeat again.

I don't want to hear you apologize.

Doug asked him something. Lokela frowned in confusion. Doug repeated the question, but all Lokela heard was "She fell in love with you, and you broke her heart."

Then everything clicked into place. Ray's angry words when he tried to explain what he'd done, the fear and confusion on Ray's face at the beach when Beth went into labor early, her not answering his texts, Doug driving her to airport, the image Doug described of her sitting on his floor, reading his letters...

Lokela knew what he had to do. Now he had to have the balls to do it. He could barely see, his eyes stung so bad from the blood smearing his face. "Miller! Miller, where's my bag?"

***

*Ray

The evening inched along while Ray tracked the minutes on the round wall clock. She had to move as far from it as possible. The ticking was driving her crazy.

Hours passed. She watched every minute go by, pacing, sitting, staring, chewing her nails. Doug and Miller had come by briefly to check on her, and give her a hamburger and fries she didn't eat. They were distracted, and had completely forgotten she was a vegetarian. Doug let her know they were booked at a nearby hotel.

"I'll stay with you," Doug said, wrapping her in a hug.

"No, it's all right. The nurse said everything is going fine, these things just take time. You should get some rest."

"So should you."

"I can't." Ray glanced around the room again, as if searching for something that was missing. It was feeling she couldn't shake. "I'll call if there are any complications."

He squeezed her goodbye and he and Miller left. That had been hours ago. She was alone with her thoughts and the occasional other people waiting on loved ones. She checked her phone. No messages.

She paced. She stared. She checked her phone. She stuck her head in the hallway to see if anyone was coming for her. It seemed like years were passing in quiet and solitude and endless waiting for closure. She had to know how Beth was doing.

And why for the love of ichthyology was she wondering where Lokela was all evening?

He left her alone—exactly as she told him to. She shook the thought from her head. At the desk, the on-duty nurse said everything was fine with Beth. The baby seemed strong and healthy despite being a bit early, contractions were picking up, and Beth was in the birthing pool with Russell.

Birthing pool? Nice.

Ray pressed her lips together in approval. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if she could go in and give her sister a face-mask and scalp massage, but the nurse didn't seem like the joking type. That meant she had to return to the waiting room, to wait, alone.

Without Lokela.

As her eyes grew heavy, she curled in a ball on one of the chairs and propped her head on the wall. She would close her eyes for a few minutes. Just a few minutes.

A hand on her shoulder jolted her from sleep. A nurse stood over her.

"Ray? The baby has arrived. Would you like to come and meet your niece?"

She jumped up. Something fell on the floor from her lap. A folded piece of paper? It plucked a chord in her chest, stinging, but there was no time to deal with it, or look to see what it was. Shoving it in her pocket, she hurried after the nurse, practically stepping on the woman's heels.

At the door of Beth's room, she paused, frozen with happiness. The baby was there, in Russell's arms. He sat next to Beth, their heads touching as they bent over to coo at their daughter. A tiny hand reached up.

"I guess that's my invitation," Ray said. Beth motioned her to come.

"Would you like to hold your brand-new niece, Annabelle?"

Ray cooed and clucked, holding the baby for as long as Beth would let her. She was perfect, but a bit on the small side. The nurses tucked her into a tiny bed, saying stuff about monitoring her oxygen and watching for jaundice. Ray wasn't listening. By then, she was fighting to stay awake.

"I think I should go to bed," she said, voice breaking in the middle with a huge yawn. "I can get a taxi or something."

Beth squeezed her hand. "I'm glad you were here to meet her, you know."

"I know," Ray said. She smiled at the little family. They made a great team, the three of them.

Beth didn't need her after all.

Maybe...if Ray was being truly honest with herself, she was the one who needed Beth and this newborn baby. As soon as she was out of sight, she let her shoulders slump with exhaustion. Her heart ached. Every muscle was sore. Her head pounded. She rubbed her chest as if it would help.

And not one message from Lokela.

Her hands went into her pockets for her phone. The paper. She glanced up and down the hall to make sure she was alone, and unfolded it to read.

Ray

It was Lokela's handwriting. A letter. He'd written her a letter.

It had to be him.

She skimmed it. No signature, but she knew it was him. She ducked into a bathroom for better light and locked the door. Sinking to the floor, she straightened the paper to reread.

He explained everything. Every step of his journey from trying not to like her to loving her, every mistake made, everything he should have said—but didn't—was on the page. His handwriting was scrawling—he must have been writing fast. There were different colored spots on the page, circles, like water or coffee had dripped on it. She flipped it over. The back was blank.

Every moment of every day, I'll regret what could have been if I had had the courage to speak. But to go unmasked—my ugliness wouldn't allow me. In the light of day, I had no courage.

There is no kiss, that promise of the lips, that secret spilled straight to the heart, to right this wrong.

I walked silently beside you. I invited you a thousand times to join me in the water—as myself and not another.

I was silent when I should have spoken, wrote when I should have waited.

A thought struck her.

When she wouldn't let him explain, the way he wanted to, he wrote her a letter. His last letter. The goodbye at the end was a stone in her heart. It was a closed door. He promised to not be in the house when she got back from Kauai, so she would be free to stay.

Her hand covered her mouth to keep her from yelling in frustration.

He was going to leave Kauai as soon as possible, and stay away from her forever in Honolulu.

No.

Yes—it was what she wanted. He was a liar, a player, his best-friend's wing-man so the boys would get laid, and she had fallen into his trap. First with Zach—who she almost slept with—then with him without knowing who he really was.

No.

She stood up, and flung open the door. She'd call a taxi, find him, talk to him. Yell at him most of all.

There is no kiss, that promise of the lips...

But there was a promise. The truth had been there all the time. Right in front of her when they were together in his room, in the water, in the shower. When he kissed her, he had told her how he felt, but she hadn't listened.

She would go and talk—

--and she had no idea where he was. It was three-thirty a.m. She swiped for his number on her phone.

It rang.

And rang.

He didn't answer. She slumped to the warm concrete. It bit into her knees. Trembling, she told herself it didn't mean anything that he didn't answer.

*** We are almost at the end, and these two just don't seem to be able to get past the roadblocks in front of them... ***