Page 51 of Shades of You

His eyes reflected the shadowed ocean depths where fear had once ruled. “Evan panicked, darting into another room to look for a way out. I might have been only eighteen years old, but I was the better diver. My brother’s life was in my hands, so I had to keep it together and get us out.”

Instinctively, I moved closer to him on our driftwood perch and pressed the length of my arm against his. I wanted to absorb some of his pain, to offer solace in the silent language of touch.

Hunter’s voice trembled slightly as he spoke, like he was diving back into that day with each word. “Finally, I saw a blue glow and we made it out of the ship. Except we were almost out of air and one hundred fifty feet below the surface. Evan… he just lost it. He took off for the surface.”

My stomach clenched at the thought of their desperation in the dark water. Evan was less than a year older than Hunter, part of the reason why they’d been so close. Both had been so young to have to face something so terrible.

“Of course, panicking at that depth can be deadly. I tried to catch him, to slow him down.” His hand clenched into a fist on his thigh, knuckles white. The stick broke and he tossed it onto the sand.

“Everything I knew about diving safety, all the rules, were screaming at me from inside my head. But none of that mattered. All I could think about was saving my brother. So I went up after him, as fast as I could. And then…”

Hunter paused to ease out a long sigh, almost a hiss. “I ran out of air. Nothing but locked pressure of an emptyregulator in my mouth when I tried to breathe. I kept my cool, though. I had to. Evan was all that mattered.”

My breath caught as I envisioned him racing for the surface, lungs burning and heart pounding in the shadowy depths of the ocean. Silence enveloped us, the only sound the gentle waves against the shore. My heart no longer beat—it thundered and sweat broke out on my brow. “Oh my God. What happened next?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Hunter

The memory had carveda permanent scar into the fabric of my being. Fourteen years might as well have been fourteen seconds. And the weight of that day clung to my soul like an unwelcome shadow, dimming every moment of joy that dared to surface in my life since. Brenna’s quiet presence next to me was comforting, urging me to continue.

“By the time we reached the surface…” I paused, the image of my brother’s enraged face flashing before me. “Evan was wild with rage. Like a storm personified. He hit me in the face.”

I could feel the punch again, a jarring blow that damn near knocked the breath from my lungs. My head snapped back in the water, the salt stinging my eyes.

“He punched me again and again, and I just took them. God knows I deserved every one. Finally, he got his rage out, and we moved toward the boat and clambered aboard. We got our gear off. Then, without warning, Evan doubled over and puked into the ocean. A wave of freezing dreadrolled through me when he flexed his fingers and said they were tingling.”

Taking a deep breath, I met Brenna’s gaze once more. “Since you’re a diver, I don’t need to explain the symptoms of decompression sickness. The bends.”

Brenna’s expression shifted from horror to realization. Her eyes widened, a silent acknowledgment of the danger we had faced, and she nodded slightly.

“As fast as I could, I got the engine going and headed toward home. I radioed ahead and told them Evan had signs of DCS. By the time we reached the island, he couldn’t feel his legs.”

My hands clenched involuntarily, reliving the helplessness of that moment as Calypso Key grew closer. Each second stretched out like an eternity, filled with the writhing of my brother’s agony.

And beneath it all, the horrible, gnawing guilt of knowing I had walked away unscathed.

Brenna was the lighthouse guiding me through a storm of memories, and her gentle eyes were the beacon of understanding I’d been searching for without even realizing it.

After rolling my rock-hard shoulders, I continued. “Once we docked, the ambulance rushed Evan to the recompression chamber in Tavernier. He spent days locked inside that steel cocoon. While he was trapped in there, I haunted our beach like a ghost. I wouldn’t talk to anyone—anger and guilt were my only company.

“When the rage finally won out, I found myself standing outside Bruce’s run-down shack without even realizing how I got there. I pushed open the door without knocking.”

Brenna ran her thumb over the back of my hand. “Was he there?”

Nodding, I exhaled a long breath of that long-ago fury. “Bruce was slouched in a chair with his feet up on some rickety table, clutching a half-empty bottle of rum like it was his lifeline. I stormed across the floor and knocked the bottle out of his hand, demanding to know where the trophy was.” I barked a humorless laugh. “He got up and lurched to a table across the room, then lifted a dirty shirt to reveal my trophy. He admitted he’d been on a bender and forgot all about our plan. I snatched the trophy from him, boiling with rage as he dropped onto the stained, dusty recliner, dismissing me. He had no idea what had happened. Of course not. He’d been buried in a bottle, not a recompression chamber. I turned and left without another word.”

I’d given Brenna a very shortened version of the events, minimizing the red haze that had descended over me at Bruce’s shack. That had been the first time I’d experienced that blind rage. I didn’t give in to it, but in later years I would. I found myself absently stroking the bullet hole near my ribs and moved my hand away.

My other hand was still entwined with Brenna’s, and I squeezed gently. “I still remember the hospital’s cold, sterile smell as I walked to Evan’s room. You know how hospitals are, right? That eerie silence that seems to swallow your words before they even leave your mouth. It was like that.”

I took a moment to collect my thoughts before continuing. Much of that time was hazy in my mind, but not what happened next. That was etched in crystal-clear high definition. “Evan lay in his bed, looking so small and so…stillbeneath those white sheets. The guy who used to throw pitches that left batters swearing was just lying there.”

Brenna tightened her hold on my hand and pressed against my side.

“Evan didn’t want me there. He was so furious. And themore I apologized and tried to make things right, the angrier he got. The louder he got. Finally, he screamed at me to get out. He told me if I really wanted to help him, then I should disappear from his life.”

The pain of that moment still cut like a blade. I had backed away from his bed, my heart shattering with each step. There was no redemption there, no forgiveness. Only the truth of what I had wrought. The older brother I’d idolized my entire life was broken because of me.

---