Blast-force trauma. That was what the doctors called it as they diagnosed her brain injury, back pain, hearing loss, PTSD, and constant, oh-that-constant, aching.

But not tonight.

She steps farther into an ocean not yet warmed by the sun’s summer rays. It’s too cold to be enjoyable, at least without a— What is it that surfers wear? A seal suit? No, a bodysuit. No, wait, a wet suit. Yes. She only wears a one-piece, solid crimson, legs cut high like a lifeguard’s. She can barely swim.

Seven years of breathing techniques, meditation, compression, ice packs, supplements, and physical therapy, but nothing worked. Then she met him. Last year, on the anniversary of the explosion, his words echoed through the town square, rattling deep in her soul. Finally, someone saw her invisible pain, and rather than promise to take it away, he promised to make it not matter. Her agony was pointless. Her thinking shortsighted. She was experiencing a blip in a larger existence. There is more out there.

She wades deeper into the black water, a seagull cawing overhead as a white froth breaks on her knees. Freezing ocean water can wash away pain, he said. She must return to the elements, the greater universe. She must surrender.

“You have been trained by society to limit your thinking. There is so much more than this life. Open your mind, release your fear, and you’ll see the vast sea of possibilities.” Even now, in this moment, she feels his words. She swallows them whole, absorbs them into her very essence, and lets them take up all the space inside her.

He has the answers.

A wave crashes against her chest, the saltwater frigid, stealing the air from her lungs. The wave’s force lifts her toes from the murkiness below. Her muscles tighten. Her teeth chatter. Seaweed wraps around her calves, holding on; she shakes it loose and, with it, the pain. It releases. She releases. The current shoves her faster than she’s moved in years. Her eyes lose focus as she lies back, submitting, ice hugging her shoulders, pulling her deeper, past the breakers, toward that eternal horizon.

He has delivered the answer. Her pain is gone. It no longer matters.

Nothing matters.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Vera

Vera’s car wouldn’t start. It wasn’t the first time. Her senior citizen sedan suffered from a not-too-accurate gas gauge. She never knew when the tank was empty, so as a precaution, she put in twenty dollars’ worth of gas every Friday. That typically got her through the week, but she drove her aunt to a church function on Tuesday. It was two towns over; maybe that pushed her to E?

Vera hoped so. Because broken parts meant money, and every dollar she earned went to her college fund. She slammed shut the dented white door of the car, which sighed heavier than she did, and tossed her leather bag over her shoulder. A two-mile stroll on a warm summer night wasn’t so bad.

Her Converse scraped toward Main Street to the symphony of cicadas playing their violin wings. The fog was so dense individual droplets hovered in the strobes of antique-replica streetlamps. Salt air slid down her throat. Roaring Creek’s proximity to the beach attracted the tourists, and its central location between Manhattan and Boston kept the locals. Either metropolis was a reasonable two-hour drive, even shorter if you took an express train. This meant townies got loads of educational and employment benefits while living in the backdrop of a Lifetime movie where a woman abandons the big city for the joy of running a fledgling ice cream shop.