Cona Island

Chapter 3

A week passed and life went on. Melody thought about Drake often, and made a firm resolution that she was going to get him out of his shell. It was the challenge of it that made it so irresistible. She set down the box of lures, and drew her mouth to one side. That meant, though, that she had to make a habit of going for a jog early in the morning. She wiggled her shoulders. Well, she was out of shape anyway.

And Uncle Dave did say that she didn't need to be quite so hands-on in the shop yet. Bethany was there to help him, and her friend Brad. They had been friends since elementary school. Brad had a mess of brown hair and square black-framed glasses. He was the picture of a nerd, and that was the reason Bethany said they were better friends than lovers. She wanted to marry a lawyer. And one would have to retire to want to come to Cona Island with its 523 residents. Make that 524 for Drake. If he was going to stick around.

She'd thought of him so often the past week, wondering what he did when he was home from work, if he had anyone to talk to at all. She’d helped out in the Haven for long enough to know how people like him ticked. More or less. And then, there was the issue of Jason getting out on parole in a couple weeks' time. He didn't really have business on the island anymore. Everyone knew what he had done to her, and all he was going to get here was more embarrassment. She didn't want to let that worry her, though concerns sneaked in often enough anyway.

She could use a distraction herself, and Drake was the perfect one, seeing as he apparently had the ability to send her nerve endings ablaze with a single look. No guy had ever been able to do that to her with just a look.

"Mel, could you bring those fishing rods up front please?" Dave asked, “We can place them over there by the window, show them off."

Dave had small round glasses, an oval face, a nose slightly too big and a grey beard. He looked like the grandpa everyone wished they had.

"Sure." She snapped out of her musing, and gathered up the seven fishing rods.

They were pricey stuff the locals would never use. But the tourists loved them. For some reason, they seemed to think buying expensive fishing gear on an island was somehow superior to buying the same thing in the city.

She neatly placed them side by side on the display while Dave finished packing out frozen bait into the freezer. "Emily said she got another four orders in. Two double chocolate cakes, lemon cream pie, and those blueberry and lavender cupcakes."

"I told her she should bake for Emma's Cafe. People love her baking and Emma could use a hand."

"Heard Cliff and Rory will be going out to the mainland one of these days. Pick up supplies before the Welcoming of the Whales Festival. If Cliff can get his boat fixed. Engine’s gone to hell again. But he says that boy workin' for him is handy enough. Said he'd fix it. I dunno. Plenty have worked for him, sayin’ they have the know-how. They always leave him in the dumps a week or so in."

Melody smiled and waved at Jillian, Bethany's girl friend, as she passed in the street. "Yeah, I saw him the other day."

She could all but feel Dave's protective instincts kick in behind her back. Her aunt and uncle took her and Bethany in when they lost their parents to a car accident. Bethany was just a baby and she was ten at the time. They were unable to have children of their own, so they relished being able to be a mother-and father figure to the two girls.

"You have, eh?"

"He's actually really nice. Or I think he could be. He seems kind of depressed to me, like some of the people in the Haven. But I like him." She gave Dave her best innocent smile. "Well, more than like. He's really handsome."

Dave took it the worst when he found out that Melody was trapped in an abusive relationship with Jason. He hit her where it didn't show. The ribs, the stomach. He couldn't tear up her face and get away with it, though he left a little scar above her left eyebrow. He had thrown a glass and the shatters of it flew into her face. She would always have that reminder of him. His girl came to work every day in a world of pain. And he never even knew. He had blamed himself for a long time.

"And what do you know about this guy?" He questioned.

Melody tilted her head and smiled at him. He tried so hard to sound encouraging. "Well, I know that he was a marine. He did his last tour a year and a half ago. Seems like he lives alone. And he chose the Reef Bungalow because he wants to keep busy outside of work. He doesn't seem to want to get too involved with people, though he seems really isolated to me."

"Marine, huh?" Dave gave an approving nod. "How old?"

"I'm guessing thirty-something. Definitely a few years older than my twenty-nine."

"Marine, thirty-something. What's he doing on an island in the middle of nowhere?"

Melody sighed. "Uncle Dave,"

"I'm just saying. Marines often come with a lot of baggage."

She slanted him a look. "I have baggage, too. Maybe he just needs someone who understands. I told Bethany I'll try to convince him to come to the house. Then Nanna can have a look at him."

Dave threw his hands up in the air in surrender. "Say no more. If Emily approves, the boy's as good as family."

As the day drew to a close and the light of the sun gave way to darkness, they locked up and went home. On the drive there, Melody saw that the Jonesses were having a party outside. Her thoughts automatically drifted to Drake. She wondered what he was doing on this lovely summer evening, alone in that old bungalow. Did he have someone he could call if he just wanted to talk? What were his hobbies? What was his family like?

Family was everything to her, and to many people on the island. There were so few living here, they had to look out for each other. But he was still on the fringes. She'd go there tomorrow morning. Soldiers wake up early, right? And invite him to a jog.

Coffee! She could bring him coffee! She had two travel cups she could use. She bought two that day because she couldn't decide between a nice blue and a green with cloudy swirls of white. How do soldiers drink their coffee? She thought about it, then the answer was obvious. Black and bitter, of course. Because they were manly men. And Drake Johnson was a lot of man... She rubbed her eyes to get her head out of the gutter as Dave pulled into their driveway.

***

Drake sat on the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes. What a shitty night. He'd managed around three hours of sleep. The rest of the time he spent tossing and turning. He eyed the crutches next to the bedside table. They were part of the problem. It was such a joke. He used to be this f*****g warrior, and now he couldn't even get up in the middle of the night to take a piss without a pair of goddamn crutches. By the time he was back in the bedroom, he was wide awake.

He looked at the clock. 02:15AM. Might as well get started. He reached for the chair against the wall, drew it closer, and placed his leg on it. Then he reached into the bottom of the bedside table for his lining. He wrapped his stump that ended just above where his left knee would have been. He gritted his teeth. If he'd had his leg, he would've been dressed and ready by now. And the mangled thigh wasn't a pretty sight. He didn't know if he would ever get used to it. Then he reached for his prosthesis, and fitted it. By the time he was done, fifteen minutes had already passed. Christ.

He dressed in jeans and a black tee. When he turned back to make the bed, he saw Bean for the first time. He was splayed out next to him on his back, paws in the air like the bed belonged to him alone.

Drake slowly pulled the sheets towards him, and the cat with them. Bean was forced to wake up, and confusingly looked around at why the bed was moving.

"Come on, get off or I'll throw you off."

Bean yawned, stretched, threw his tail in the air in arrogance and jumped off.

"Loafer." Drake muttered as the cat strode out of the room.

He made the bed, fed the cat, and drank a glass of water. He leaned against the worn kitchen counter with his water and stared at his living space. There wasn't much in it. Couple of old couches, coffee table that'd seen better days with a few books he'd bought. His home gym.

The only real item of value was his five-string guitar, but he was rarely in the mood to play or sing. What the hell for? The last time he'd played was when he was having a good time with his team. They joked around often and said he sang just like Kenny Rogers, that he had the accent for country music. He'd never see them again. Because he was the only one who made it out alive after that explosion. Steven had made it too, but he was in a coma, and all the experts said that he would never wake up again. What right did I have to survive?

The floorboards were old and some of them needed replacing, but at least they weren't rotten. The place could use a fresh coat of paint too, both outside and inside. The trims of the roof needed fixing. They were broken in several places. A broken house for a broken man.

The longer he stood there, the more he felt the dark void of depression coming down on him like a veil. A heavy exhaustion fell over him. I’ll sit down, just for a minute. He stumbled over to the couch, feeling suddenly like spectral hands were pulling him down through the planks of the floor into an open grave. He slumped into the chair. And he got lost in his own thoughts. Regrets of the past, bleak prospects of the future, self-hatred, and guilt all melted together to form one incoherent runaway stream that he had no hope of catching. The thoughts and memories brought on a mess of emotions that battered his sluggish system with stress. Guilt, grief, regret, anger. Inside his head, he was caught up in the storm, grasping in vain for something to steady him. On the outside, he was sitting on the couch, staring at an empty space on the wall in front of him with dead eyes.

Explosions, weapons firing, blood and c*****e and the haunted faces and wails of the fallen, the tortured, and the weary. No end in sight. No home to return to, except the next mission. Because he wasn't running from terrorists, he never wavered to complete a mission. But he was running from hearing what a failure he was. And oh, the things he had to see and live through just to get away from that, unspeakable things he could never unsee.

Hold on, Sergeant Johnson, Rick's voice. Stay with us, you stay alive, you hear?

Why?

For the ones that are left behind.

John. Hey Sergeant, aren't you going home this round? Man, my family would crack if I worked as much as you.

Lucky for you. You go on. I'll hold the line.

Yeah, you always do.

Sharp pain in his leg slowly pulled him back to the surface. He blinked several times. He mechanically turned his head to look at the cat, sitting beside him, wondering where he’d come from. Pain registered again, Bean was kneading his nails into the flesh of his thigh and had been meowing relentlessly, though he didn’t hear it. He winced and threw the cat off the coach. Then he noticed broken shards of glass on the floor next to him, with a dark circle of wetness on the floorboard. Was he holding a glass of water? He tried to remember, but there was a fog in front of him that he couldn’t see through, and already a headache hammered away behind his eyes. Did he feed the cat already? Why was he moaning so much?

He contemplated not leaving the house. Just sitting on the couch for the whole of the day, staring at the wall. What was the point? He looked at the clock on the wall. 05:30AM. He’d been sitting there for three hours and fifteen minutes.

Get up Johnson, he heard Rick’s voice. Get. Up.

He forced himself to move, before the dark pulled him down all the way. Because it was like quicksand. The farther down you go, the harder it is to break free. He fed Bean, again, then stared for a few minutes at his keys. You have to go work, Johnson. The old man will be waiting. He looked longingly back at the couch, cursed, then took the keys, locked up and left for the beach.