that summer |percabeth au| ✔︎

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - PLAN B

Percy and the regatta may have evicted me from my original hideaway, but all my pensive wandering seemed always to lead back to her, my queen of possibilities, and the following morning I found myself stretched out in a familiar spot.

Candy had donated some outdoor cushions she'd had in her garden shed, significantly less musty than the ones we'd tossed from the Vega, and I set them up in the saloon and berth. I crawled in on top of them, content to be alone with my endless thoughts.

But when the boat rocked with Percy's steps an hour later, my stomach fizzed.

Hope and desire. Anticipation.

He hopped down through the companionway, looked at me across the saloon. "Oh," he said softly, a dim smile sliding across his lips. "There you are."

He handed me his sweatshirt, the one I'd abandoned last night, though it wasn't cold today.

All of last night's awkwardness vanished. Maybe it had never existed. Maybe I'd only imagined it. Feared it.

"I texted you to meet up for breakfast, but when I didn't hear back, I figured you were doing your own thing."

I checked my pockets, realized I'd left my phone at home.

"Scoot over," he said, slipping off his shoes.

I sat up and shifted over in the small bed as he climbed in next to me. We sat with our backs against the shelving, heads bent, and he took my hand, warm and comforting. Solid.

After a long silence, he nodded toward my old poem and said, "I've been thinking about plans. A and B and everything after. You never told me your B."

I shrugged. Singing was everything to me. It was hard, turning a passion into a profession—I'd only gotten a glimpse of that, and already the competition was getting stiffer, the rehearsals more grueling, the disappointments sharper. But I was ready to work for it with Rachel by my side. We'd always given each other strength.

I knew there would be setbacks and letdowns. But I'd never considered the possibility that it wouldn't happen.

I reached for the seashell at my throat, tugged it gently. The doctors had warned me that the physical recovery would be slow, that I'd still feel rawness and discomfort in my throat, maybe for years. They were right; I had felt that. I'd learned to mitigate it with hot tea and honey, with relaxation, with rest.

But there was no mitigating treatment for the deeper wounds.

What happened when the one thing you loved, the song of your soul, was taken from you? What pieces of your old life were you left with, and how could you begin to put them back together? How could you find your way back to the people who'd hurt you the most?

Outside, the ocean churned and hissed, continued its endless dance.

Still, I couldn't answer.

Percy squeezed my hand. "I wish I had the words for this."

I squeezed back. He'd never had a big dream like this—he'd said as much. So he couldn't imagine what it was like to have his dream taken from him, to know that no matter how hard he worked or what sacrifices he made, he'd never get it back.

I tried to tell him as much, in so many silent words and gestures, all the expression I had left.

"You're right," he said softly. "I wouldn't know. Couldn't. I've never had any dream. Never looked for it, never found it, never followed it."

Dreamless, I mouthed, more because that's the word that came to me than because it was right. His story felt like the before to my after, and I thought I'd understood him.