“I’m sure he’s okay.”
“Me too,” I agree halfheartedly.
“He’s probably somewhere where he can’t answer,” he says, trying to convince both himself and me, but even as I nod, that pit in the bottom of my stomach gets bigger.
I pick the house phone up when it rings once, hoping that it’s Kai telling me that he’s okay and he’s on his way home.
“Hello?”
“Honey, Meka’s on her way to you now, and Bane and I are on our way,” Leia says.
“What happened?” I ask as tears begin to fill my eyes. I know that whatever she is going to say is going to rip me apart.
“I don’t know. No one knows exactly what happened. After you called me, I became concerned, so I asked Bane to look into what Kai was doing,” she whispers. “He found out that Kai was meeting someone and they were taking the person’s yacht out. Bane made Kai promise he would call in an hour, and when we didn’t hear back from him, Bane called the coastguard. They told him that a Mayday was sent out, and when the coastguard arrived at the location, only pieces of boat were left. They think there was some kind of explosion.”
“No.” I close my eyes and my stomach dips as I try to avoid getting sick.
“They’ve been searching, but as of yet, they haven’t found any survivors,” she cries, and I collapse onto the couch behind me. “We’re going to go over to the station and see if we can get any more information,” she says, but her words begin to sound garbled, like I’m underwater.
I feel the phone slip out of my palm and hear Aye ask for Bane, but after that, everything becomes a blur until I hear my name yelled.
“Myla!”
I stand from where I was sitting on the couch as Meka comes rushing into the living room.
“Oh, God,” she whimpers, rushing towards me with tears streaming down her cheeks.
“No,” I breathe even though I just spoke to Kai’s mom. I don’t want to believe that it’s true, but there is no denying the look in Meka’s eyes as she looks at me.
“I’m sorry.” She cries harder, and my chest compresses under the weight of devastation I feel.
My knees give out and I fall to the floor as a sob rips from my chest. I feel her wrap her slender arms around me, and her tears seep through the shirt I have on. I don’t know how long we stay there in the middle of the living room crying, but after some time, I feel Pika and Aye pull us away from each other.
Aye helps me get settled on the couch just as Kai’s mom and dad walk in, and a fresh wave of tears springs to my eyes.
“Honey,” Leia says, coming to sit next to me.
Her hands go around me, and I know she is not here to tell me good news. It takes everything in me to focus on breathing, to remind myself that I have to breathe for our son. I cannot even begin to think of how I will make it without Kai. I don’t know how I will live when I have to say goodbye to my soul.
“We didn’t even pick a name,” I whisper staring off into the ocean, which is turning orange as the sun begins to set.
“What, honey?” Kai’s mom asks, using her hand on my cheek to turn my face towards her.
“We didn’t even get a chance to pick a name.” I shake my head. “Kai said he wanted to wait until after he was born so he was sure to get a name that fit him, and now, he won’t be here to give him his name.”
“Oh, Myla,” she whispers. “Don’t think about that right now. Right now, just pray that they find him.” She chokes out the last part, and I can see it in her eyes that she doesn’t even believe they will.
“I’m going to be sick.” I get up, rush out of the room, and go to the toilet, the contents of my lunch coming up. I wait until the nausea passes before standing and going to the sink to splash some water on my face. The refection looking back at me when I look in the mirror is not one I have ever seen before, not even during the worst years of my life. No, the girl looking back at me looks lifeless.
“Can I come in?” comes from the other side of the door, along with a quiet tap.
“I’m coming,” I say in a hoarse whisper. My throat feels like it’s on fire from crying, and the passageway feels too tight to even take a complete breath.
As soon as I open the door, I come face-to-face with Aye, who looks me over from head to toe before pulling me into an embrace.
“He’s a fighter,” he tells me.
I nod, because that’s true. I don’t know what happened on that boat, but if there was a way for Kai to get out alive, he would, even if that meant swimming to shore.
Aye leads me back out to the living room and places me in a chair. He leaves and then comes back a few minutes later with a cup of tea and some saltine crackers before walking off to stand with Pika. I look at my two guys and close my eyes when I see not only them looking at me with concern, but also the pain I feel reflected in their eyes at the thought that they have lost their friend.
We all sit around the living room until the coastguard calls to say that they are calling off the search for the night due to a storm that was slowly making its way ashore. I lose it again. The idea of my beautiful husband in the middle of the ocean, with the only help available to him unable to reach him, causes me to lose the small thread of hope I was holding on to.
“Honey, why don’t you go and try to get some sleep?”
I look from the ocean to Kai’s mom and shake my head.
“You need to rest,” she says gently as her eyes glance to my belly.
“Okay, but come get me if you hear anything please,” I tell her.
She nods, murmuring that she promises.
As soon as I get to our room and open the door, I’m bombarded by his smell, and it takes everything in me not to turn around and run. I close the door behind me then go to the dresser and pull out one of his shirts, holding it to my nose and noticing that, even though his scent is lingering in the material, it doesn’t smell completely like him.
I drop the shirt to the floor, walk over to his closet, and find his shirt from yesterday, one he put aside to have dry-cleaned. I put it to my nose and inhale a lungful of his scent, holding my breath until I feel lightheaded. I only let it out when I have my clothes off and I’m slipping his shirt on. I walk over to our bed, pull back the covers, pull the phone off the nightstand, and then climb into bed, bringing the covers up and over my head as I dial his phone number. His name is the only thing he says, but the sound of his voice, repeating it over and over, eventually lulls me to sleep.
