Fate

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

I stayed awake most of the night thinking about everything. What is Nick going to do? What are we going to do? Did he just say I love you? I was having the worst anxiety. He doesn’t deserve this, he lost his parents and now his grandma. He has a had a really rough life and all he does is act like he is okay, he doesn’t tell anyone anything unless they push it out of him. I don’t understand why he keeps it all in and makes it worse. I certainly don’t know why he would pick me out of all people to tell everything too.

The next morning we woke up on the hammock around 6am, when the sun rose. Nick’s eyes were all puffy from crying the night before. I had only gotten around 2 hours of sleep, maybe. He looked at me with a slight smile that quickly faded.

“What do you wanna do?” I said in a light toned voice. All I could hear were the birds chirping and the smell of the neighbors coffee. I wish today was a good day, I could tell it was going to be a tough one. 

Nick started to get a sentence going, “I had her cremated... She always wanted to be cremated.” He looked at the ground the whole time he spoke. 

“Are you going to have a ceremony?” I asked slowly, looking at him with weary eyes. 

He got off the hammock and stood up in front of it. “I don’t want to, I just want to bring her ashes to the beach and set them free. She loved going to the beach with me, she said watching me play in the sand was her favorite part.” he flared his nostril as if he were going to tear up again, “I used to build these sand mazes and she would have to crawl through them and figure out how to get out.” He finished and looked at me.

I grabbed his hand and said, “Want to go to the beach this weekend?” I had a smile but my eyes were watery. 

“Yes please” he smiled.

Later that day, I had a ton of missed calls and texts from Nicole and Allie. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to either of them now. On the way to the beach, I made reservations at a hotel. We didn’t play any music the whole ride, I just drove. Nick had the vase of ashes on his lap, while he was going back and forth from looking at the vase to out the window. 

We finally arrived and it was the longest drive possible. I got the bags out of the car and brought them into the hotel room after we checked in. Nick and I went down to the beach with the vase after getting settled. 

It was around 7pm and getting dark, he wanted to put the ashes in the sand at sunset. We still had only said a few words to each other, but I didn’t mind, I was just happy I could help him through this. 

He pulled off the top of the vase right as sunset was about to end, and threw the ashes. He had this proud look on him like he was doing something right. I went behind him and hugged him, he held on to my hands and just stared at the ocean in front of him. 

We sat on the sand next to each other and he said, “The first time she met you at the hospital that night she loved you. She said she could tell I was happier.” he looked down, sifting the sand through his hands. “I love you Cara, every since you walked into the Supermarket the first day I started working. There was just something about you that I couldn’t shake. I knew that day you were doing the scavenger hunt, I didn’t look nervous but I totally was.” He smiled. I wasn’t expecting him to tell me this, but he went on. “ever since my parents died I couldn’t open up to anyone except my grandma. When you came around you started asking me questions and I actually wanted to tell you everything. I have never felt this way about someone, or open up to anyone like you before.” He stopped and looked towards the ocean, “Now you’re all i’ve got”.