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“I said, I’m an acrobat,” he repeats. “I got up to use the bathroom and I heard her car pull up around seven this morning. While she was coming in the front door, I climbed out of your window and did a tuck and roll over to my house before she could see me.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Absolutely, I am.” He brushes his fingers along my hair, pulls it back over my shoulder then leans in for a kiss. “An idiot for you.”
I sigh. “Me too.”
CHAPTER 15
FLOAT ON
MOLLIE NOW
My plan to have some quiet time to reflect on the mess that is my life has backfired. Instead, I’m plagued by the past and reminded of all that I lost. This house isn’t helping matters. My mom renovated the kitchen and pulled carpet so the whole house has beautiful ceramic tile, but her bathroom remains the same.
It would be nice to take a shower and not have flashbacks of sex with Owen. Not that it was horrible sex, it was decidedly not, but the thought of it brings back the heartbreak I felt when he didn’t write me back, or call, or even email. It’s like he went to college and forgot me. Not that I blame him, college was hard and distracting.
My faith in our strong relationship was one-sided I guess. I spent the first six months of my freshman year hiding away because I was so miserable. In hindsight, I get that we were only 18 and his head was probably turned by the first shiny new co-ed he saw, forgetting all about me.
Even now, it seems so impossible. Like, I imagined all of the nights we spent together wrapped in each other’s arms after days of talking about everything and anything. It was only a few months, but it felt like years because we were so close. I’ve never had another relationship like it, even friends that I’ve known for years, even Steven, or especially him.
The past few days have been more stressful than I planned but today it is beautiful, warm, and sunny and I’m going to enjoy a beach day. The temperature dropped a little yesterday but today it’s in the 80s and clear.
I pack water, snacks, a book, grab a chair and an umbrella and head out. Lifeguarding taught me how to carry multiple things at once with ease and it still serves me well, especially after a big grocery trip. I can carry like 20 bags and a case of toilet paper from the car, no problem.
My swimsuit is more modest than the one that the shower door demolished, but I still feel great in it. The bottoms are white and pretty small and the top looks like a lightweight jog bra with orange and white stripes. It’s a good suit to swim in and it’s the one I wear when I go to the local gym to do laps.
I have a pretty green and white cotton kaftan my friend Simone sent me from a trip to India that I threw on top and my hair is knotted up on my head. Dressing for the beach is one of my favorite things. Sometimes all you need is an oversized tee over your black string bikini and a trucker hat, other times I like to be fancier. Today is somewhere in the middle. My plan is to swim and sun, and try to forget my worries, just for a few hours.
This is my happy place after all and I missed out on too much of it. After that summer, I didn’t come back for a few years and when I did, Owen was never here. When I asked my mom, she said that it was mostly renters but Lucy still was the owner and came down in the spring and fall.
I set up my spot along some other beachgoers and sit in the sun for a while before setting up the umbrella. When I’m nice and hot and my sunscreen is for sure absorbed, I head to the water’s edge. It’s one of those days when the water looks like you’re on a Caribbean island instead of the Jersey shore. Clear blue, calm, the sun sparkling on the small waves.
It’s not as warm as the Caribbean would be but it’s tolerable and I wade out, nodding to a mom with two small kids playing in the shallows. I make it to waist-deep water, let my hair down and drop under to get it wet. I place the clip on my suit top and swim out a little farther but where I can still stand.
A good lifeguard knows that the ocean is unpredictable and when there’s no one to save you, you better take precautions. It really is calm today so the most danger I’m likely in is getting bitten by a crab or side swiped by a skate.
I float to my back and spread my arms out wide, drifting and enjoying the peaceful feeling of weightlessness. A swish and flop near me startles me as I see a school of skates fly by me. It humbles me in a way that the ocean sometimes does. One minute you are floating alone and happy, and then you get this overwhelming realization that you are a very small animal in a vast ocean. It’s a good way to squash your ego while being in awe of our place on this planet.
I’m rattled a bit so I swim back to shore, noticing someone sitting near my umbrella. As a woman alone, it makes me nervous, until I see that it’s Owen and get nervous and anxious for a different reason entirely. Butterflies flit in my stomach when I see him sitting bare-chested, all manly and I need to get a grip.
“Hey, I recognized your towel and saw you out there. Hope you don’t mind me sitting here. I’m happy to move.” He’s got aviator sunglasses on and I wonder if they’re the same ones from years ago, then laugh because of course they aren’t. “What’s funny?”
I wave my hand. “Nothing, just a silly thought. You are welcome to stay and share some shade. I even have Sour Patch Kids and iced coffee in a can.” I plop down on my chair and pat myself with my towel, then open my cooler.
“It’s nice to see you have the same taste in delicacies from when you were a teen, Hatchet,” he teases as I hand him a cold brew in a can and shake some candy into his outstretched hand, choosing to ignore how that old nickname makes me feel.
“Some things don’t change, isn’t that what you said?”
“I guess I did say that,” he says popping the top of the can open and taking a sip. “I’d say that a lot has changed about you too.”
I tilt my head and give him a look. “Careful there, Hart, you don’t want to put your foot in your mouth.”
“I was going to say that you are clearly a mature, professional woman who has only gotten better looking over the years.”
“Such a sweet talker, that for sure hasn’t changed. I’d imagine that helped you become a good lawyer.”
He shrugs and looks annoyed. “It made me an amazing lawyer, just not someone I could look in the mirror and feel good about. I’m happy to be away from that career and feel good about it.”
