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“I don’t need to know you to know there’s something wrong with a woman who can’t be in her own skin for even a moment.”
His words cut through her, making her feel inferior and broken in some way. As though she should be ashamed of what she’d become. When she’d fashioned herself into what he, and the world, expected of her. “I am in my own skin,” she defended coldly.
“Are you?” His lips twisted derisively, and he bent down and scooped her up, carrying her over his shoulder back into the hallway.
“What are you doing, Gael?” She asked, her voice showing her emotions. It wavered and cracked.
He didn’t answer. He was fuming mad. He had suspected that she had a strange obsession for vanity, but he had had no idea how deep it went.
At the edge of the pool, he finally came to a stop. Gently, he tossed her towards the centre, watching as, as if in slow motion, her body sailed through the air and crashed into the water. Her eyes caught his from mid-air, and the hurt accusation in them was a look he knew he would never be able to wipe from his mind.
She went under completely, and stayed there for a few seconds, before emerging at the edge of the pool. Her face was soaking wet, her mascara had run, her hair was hanging in dark blonde curtains, plastered to her face. Her dress was stuck to her body.
His voice was sucked from him painfully. “You are beautiful to me, Carrie. All of you, all the time. Don’t you understand that?”
But Gael had dramatically underestimated the level of Carrie’s vanity.
At first he didn’t realise, but when he stopped fuming and actually looked at her, he saw that her face wasn’t simply wet. Tears were gushing out of her eyes, and silent sobs were wracking her body.
“Carrie,” he groaned, walking towards her and crouching down on the side of the pool. “That might have been a bit extreme. I only wanted to show you …”
Still, she cried silently. So silently, and it was worse than if she’d actually bawled and berated him. Her eyes clung to him as she pulled herself out of the water and, drenched to the core, walked back into the house.
She was leaving puddles all over the tiles. She didn’t care. She found a bathroom and locked the door, then str
ipped her clothes off. There wasn’t a lot she could do about them. They were saturated, and wouldn’t dry before she left the island.
And she would leave the island.
She didn’t care how, she would get away from him immediately. She ran the shower, and stepped into it, her chest still wracking with her noiseless tears. She stood under the running water, lathering her whole body, as if she could wash Gael from her. She scrubbed the make up off her face – cosmetic-free was better than looking like a sad clown.
Gael had a meagre assortment of toiletries in a draw – the kind one might find in a plush hotel. She rubbed moisturiser into her face and pinched her cheeks, to return some colour to them.
She towel dried her hair and ran her fingers through it until it hung relatively straight. She wrapped a bath sheet under her arms and pulled the door open.
A small pile of fabric was on the hallway floor. She scooped it up and looked at it dubiously. One of his t-shirts and a pair of shorts. They swam on her, but that barely seemed to matter. She hooked the towel back onto the bathroom door, and made her way through his home. Her sandals were on the grass lawn, where she’d left them earlier. She padded over to them now, and slipped them on her feet.
She felt catatonic with rage; incapable of caring about anything except her hurt and embarrassment.
She looked around to get her bearings, and then began to walk down the driveway.
“Carrie.” His voice was an insistent shout. She didn’t turn around. Was she still crying? She must have been, because her face was wet again. She dashed away the tears and kept walking.
“Hey!” He caught up with her, and when he looked at her face, she could see that he was truly worried. That he had no idea what to do. “Carrie, I apologise. From the bottom of my heart. That was wrong of me. I wanted you to see … to understand … that this is the most beautiful you have ever looked to me. I should never have pushed you like that. Please don’t go.”
She focussed on a point past his shoulder.
When he realised that she wasn’t planning on speaking, he put a hand on her arm. She ripped it away with a ferocity that could have torn it from its socket.
He studied her with a sinking feeling, and then murmured quietly, “I’ll get the boat ready. Just … give me a moment.” He could use the return journey to explain. To atone.
“Did you say you usually take a helicopter?” She enquired coldly, her eyes still not meeting his.
“Yes, but with your fear of flying …”
“There are some things I fear worse,” she promised, her heart aching. “I can’t go back on the boat.”
His gut twisted. “I am so sorry.”
