Chapter 2
Luna paddled. Her eyes locked on the horizon, one thought on her mind. The finish line looming. Two weeks.
She had one aim, Heighton Port. There, the worst of this experience, this trip, this ordeal, would be behind her. The aching muscles, the blisters, the gnawing fear, the desperate loneliness — would be over. Two weeks. For good.
But also, this was everything she had known for so long. Days and days of ordeal.
There had been a short respite with Sky and her group, but that had been preceded by mega trauma and ordeal. A flash of a moment with Beckett. But, oh, the weeks before Beckett had been awful. The kind of weeks someone shouldn’t have to live through. Lonely, desperate, sad.
It was awful being alone, and she did not want to do it anymore.
This whole thing, this big paddle across the ocean, was all because Beckett had promised that she would never be alone again. If not those exact words, it was what he meant, and she believed him. Beckett meant she had someone.
She meant it too.
But she was scared.
She had been telling Beckett that she wasn’t afraid. That there was nothing to fear, but she hadn’t been completely truthful. She was terrified. Just of a different thing.
Beckett was scared of losing her. That he wouldn’t find her again. That she would become lost and never found.
His fear was close to being over.
That was good, she was happy for him.
Her fear was entirely different.
She was headlong rushing into a life that was absolutely different.
She had no idea what to expect and didn’t know if she would like it.
Her whole life, her family, had scoffed at the idea of living on land. To Waterfolk there wasn’t an in-between, you were either — or. Waterfolk or a boring Stiffneck. No one in her acquaintance had ever been both.
Meeting Beckett at a dock, signing in at a camp, riding on his motorcycle to his mountain, living in his house. These things were taking her away from her life, her identity, her essence.
Luna had been truthful (sort of) when she said she wasn’t afraid of becoming lost. She hadn’t been fully honest. She was terrified of being found.
But she loved Beckett.
That much was enough to paddle closer and closer to his shore.
