CH 1 - THE MAN WHO SHOULD HAVE DIED
“The sea was the last thing I remembered.”
Cold, relentless, and unforgiving.
When I woke up, I felt as if I had entered the afterlife. This was a small, wooden room that carried a scent of salt and herbs. My body was as if it had been dismantled and reassembled through shaking hands.
My throat was on fire when I attempted to talk. “Where. am I?”
A man's voice responded, gritty but warm. “You're okay now, kid. You were near death when we found you.”
I turned my head, flinching at the stabbing pain in my leg. A fisherman was at the door, his clothing reeked of saltwater and smoke. His name would be Thomas Hale, as I was to learn. He had discovered me near Willow Creek, a small town at the edge of Maine where nothing out of the ordinary ever happened, and when it did, it was notable.
“You’ve been out cold for three days,” Thomas said, moving in closer. “Doc said it’s a miracle you’re breathing.”
I attempted to sit up, but my body objected. My left leg was wrapped in a splint, aching in a way that caused blurred vision. “What. happened?”
He looked at me curiously. “That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me.”
This is when it hit me the truth I could never say.
My name wasn’t Ethan Gray. Not yet.
It was Adrian Cole billionaire, CEO, and the man that the news would soon proclaim was dead in a fiery plane crash over the Atlantic.
But the man in the bed couldn’t be Adrian Cole anymore. He was just too broken. Too lost.
So I lied.
“Yacht,” I croaked. “There was an accident. Engine failure. Storm came in harder than we had figured.”
Thomas arched an eyebrow in skeptical disbelief. “You rich folks and your fancy gadgets,” he said. “Even a lucky tide got you to shore before it swallowed you whole out there.”
I managed a weak smile. “Guess I’m luckier than I thought.”
He nodded toward a tray in front of his bed. “Just eat when you can. Doc will be back by sundown. Try not to stir too much your leg is broken clean.”
Silence filled the room again as he walked out. My heart was pounding in my ear. Behind my eyelids, I could see fire and metal. I could hear the scream of the engines. In my mind's ear was the voice of a woman seated beside me in that cursed flight, a scream that was swallowed by the blackness.
“Hold steady, Adrian!
Then everything went black.
Now, in this small seaside chamber, I possessed no empire, no riches, no name. Only pain, and a second chance that I never asked for.
Days dragged by in a haze of slow motion. The town doctor, a kind woman named Margaret Rainer, came calling each day, swapping out my bandages and shaking her head at me whenever I attempted to walk. “You will walk again,” she said, “but not if you go around like a fool.”
I discovered that she was involved in a relationship with a small electrical repair business owner named Mike that was located near the docks. His type was a firm believer that nothing could go wrong in this world with a bit of elbow grease, aside from perhaps humans.
“You're the man who came from the sea,” a young boy said one afternoon, peeking through a door. “Mama says you're lucky.”
“Maybe,” I said. “It depends what you call lucky.”
They all eventually asked the same thing of me, after all: What happened out there?
“And every time, I gave the same lie.”
“A yacht accident.”
It was increasingly easy to say with each passing day, although guilt continued to twist ever deeper within me.
In the second week, I was finally capable of supporting myself with crutches. Every step was a triumph, a reminder of all that I’d lost.
One evening, as the wind was blowing through the gaps in the window, Thomas came back with a box of old clothing. “You'll need those when you're ready to walk into town,” Thomas said. “We ain't got much, but it's something.”
I nodded in appreciation. “Thank you. For. everything.”
He looked at me for a moment. “You talk like a man who’s lost more than just a boat.”
I looked away. “Maybe I did.”
He shrugged. “Then maybe you’ll find something better here. Willow Creek’s small, but it’s got a way of fixing broken things.”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that some problems just couldn’t be repaired.
Weeks blurred together. My strength came back to me slowly. I started to go out in short stretches first to the porch, then to a dirt road that led to the docks.
The townsfolk welcomed me warmly. “Good morning, stranger!” “How’s your leg?” “You staying for long?”
I smiled, nodded, and lied. “Not sure yet.”
Each lie constructed a wall that separated me from who I was and who I was becoming.
But then one morning, while limping towards the pier, I heard it the sound of laughter.
Light. Musical.
It came from across the street, where a small café existed under a sign that was faded to a blueish purple. Through that café window, I watched a girl trying to repair a flickering fixture while a curl of hair fell across her cheek, and she pushed it back with a disgruntled sign.
In my chest, something shifted.
“For the first time since the crash, I felt. awake.”
I didn’t know her name. I didn’t know her story. But as I watched her laugh quietly to herself, and balanced on a stool in front of that light, I knew one thing with absolute certainty She was a woman who was about to turn everything upside down.
