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It didn’t take her long to climb up the small railing that ran around the side of the boat. The ocean was dark and uninviting when she looked over to see what she would be dealing with. She looked back at the crowd and found Daniel right at the front. His eyes were fixed on her. “I’ll see you at the bottom, bitches,” she said, grinning as she took a step backwards.
The sensation of having no solid ground under her feet was like no other. She’d pushed her feet back, knowing fully that it would happen, but her heart still sank in surprise. The wind started to pick up her braids as she fell. It took longer than she thought it would to reach the bottom. The yacht was surprisingly tall, and when she hit the water, it took the wind right out of her.
That was just the start, though. The water quickly started to pull at her body, so that her hand sank below the waves that were breaking the surface. It happened too quickly for Lucy. She didn’t have a chance to hold her breath and salt water rushed into her nose, burning her throat and forcing the desperate need to cough on top of everything else that she was dealing with.
The force of the hit had left her body numb, but she forced her arms away from her sides, so she could pull herself back up to the surface. She was going to drown. In her over confidence, she’d misjudged the jump. She should have dived in. She shouldn’t have taken it straight with her feet first like she had. The pain from the impact didn’t subside, but she managed to pull herself back up to the surface of the water.
The wet sand under Lucy’s legs felt good because it meant that she was on solid ground. She sat down on the cold sand and looked out at the ocean she’d just pulled herself out of. Her lungs were on fire. The salt water and air deprivation had stoked their embers and enraged them. “Need a towel?” Lucy turned and found Daniel walking towards her with a towel in his outstretched arm.
“You didn’t jump too?” She arched her eyebrows in surprise. “After all of that big talk?”
“Well,” he shrugged, “I thought you’d want the towel to be dry.”
********
Chapter 9
Lucy could hear the party happening on the boat. She’d been dying to get there earlier that night. It had been the only place that she had wanted to be, but things had changed. She glanced over at Daniel, who was sitting next to her on the sand. He was looking out over the ocean. He looked peaceful. Lucy was used to his face conveying every expression it felt, but she couldn’t read anything from it. It was like his mind had calmed to the white noise of the ocean.
“What are you thinking about?” Lucy broke their silence, because it was frustrating for her to not know.
“What do you want me to be thinking about?” Lucy’s cheeks burned at Daniel’s teasing. “No,” he said quickly. “I’m only joking. I was thinking about life, I guess.”
“Life?” Lucy questioned him. “That’s a bit of a broad term.”
“I guess it is,” Daniel agreed, but didn’t explain any further.
“You two go to college here, right?” Lucy asked. She’d never really put much thought into Josh’s and Daniel’s lives before. She’d always been too wrapped up in her own.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Is the college good?”
“I’d hope so, with the money my father pays them.”
“So, you’re sorted then.” Lucy shrugged, because to her it was that simple.
“So, I’m sorted?” Daniel looked at her in bewilderment. “What does that sort?”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “You go to college, you get a job, you settle down, and then you die. You’re at a good college, so you’ll get a good job, and then everything else will fall into place.”
“Do you really see things like that?”
“I see things how they are.” Lucy met his eyes.
“Okay, but what about if I don’t want a good job? What if I want to be an artist or a charity worker or something?”
“Then that’s what you should do.”
“But the job isn’t good.”
“But, it’s what you want to do.”
“I wish I saw things as simply as you do.” Daniel sighed and lay back on his elbows.
Lucy frowned at him. “What could possibly be bothering you that much?” she asked, because she had to know. She was getting agitated with him. She wasn’t meaning to, but she was. She couldn’t help it. Daniel didn’t know what real problems were. He had no idea what it was like to wake up every morning with a deep regret that would never go away.
“It doesn’t matter.” Daniel shook his head.
“It obviously does matter, though, doesn’t it?”
He sighed. “If I tell you this, then you have to promise that you aren’t going to tell anyone.”
“What do you want, like a scout’s honor or something?” she asked sarcastically. Her sarcasm was met with a glare that made her back down. “Alright, I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
“It’s my ex,” Daniel said quickly. It was like he’d been waiting to talk about it. The words just rolled off his tongue in an eager breath. Lucy stared at him in stunned silence. Why was she suddenly feeling jealous? “We broke up a couple of weeks ago because she cheated on me.”
“Oh, that sucks,” Lucy managed to say. She was suddenly feeling extremely uncomfortable. She wanted the conversation to change. She wanted the silence they had been sitting in to come back. When they had been sitting in silence, she had been free to believe that he was thinking about her. She couldn’t do that when he was directly telling her otherwise.
“I was in love with her,” he continued to explain. The mention of love sent a weird twinge panging in Lucy’s heart. “It really bummed me out.”
“How did you find out that she cheated?” Lucy asked, because she wanted him to remember that he hated her. She wanted him to remember that his ex was no good and that he shouldn’t be with her.
“The guy told me. He didn’t know she was with me until the day after. I went to stay at her place on campus for the night. The last thing I expected when I lifted up the toilet seat was a fucking note from some guy. It was there, though. He apologized, said that he thought I should know.”
“That’s next-level,” Lucy said, shaking her head. It wasn’t the time to point it out, but the guy’s method in getting the message to Daniel had been genius. “That must have been crap.”
“Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “I left the message taped to the seat. Told her that I knew about her cheating and figured she’d find the note herself at some point.”
“That’s totally brutal.” Lucy shook her head. “I bet you hate her?” she asked him, half hopefully. She felt guilty about the hope. It was selfish and unthoughtful, but she felt it all the same.
“You know,” Daniel gave her an ashamed look, “you would think that, wouldn’t you? But, no,” he hesitated, “if I’m being truthful, I don’t hate her.”
“Why?” Lucy asked starkly. “After everything she put you through? Why wouldn’t you hate her? She sounds like a total bitch.” Lucy tried to ignore Daniel’s noticeable flinch over her insult.
H
e sighed. “Because…I guess that’s just not how love works.”
Lucy wanted to scream in his face. He wasn’t in love with that girl. He couldn’t be, not after everything that she had done to him. Why was he being so stupid? Why was he letting himself be hurt like that? Why couldn’t he see that he had Lucy sitting right in front of him? She cut off her thoughts at that. This wasn’t about her. This wasn’t about what she wanted or who she wanted to want her. This was about Daniel.
“I’m sorry that she hurt you,” Lucy said, settling her hand on his thigh. He looked down at her sudden contact but didn’t try to shake it away. “Some girls just can’t appreciate a good thing when they have it.”
“Is that so?” Daniel smiled softly at her.
“Sure.” Lucy nodded. “There are tons of girls like that.”
“And what kind of girl are you?” he asked, leaning into Lucy’s smile.
“I’m the kind that you don’t forget,” she whispered against his lips, before she kissed him.
********
Chapter 10
Lucy woke up feeling worse than she had the day before. The champagne she had drunk the night before was making her brain push up against the sides of her skull with a force that could only be described as torturous. Why had she done this to herself? The sheets had found their way back between her legs. Her back felt cold. She’d left her window open and a breeze was breaking into the room in a way that the sun wasn’t. Where was Daniel when she needed him? He’d been the one to pull the covers up for her, when she’d been unable to the day before.
