I watch her mouth move, answering my question. I asked her name but I don’t hear a thing with my eyes so focused on that mouth of hers. I glance up from her mouth to her eyes and see her questioning look. She’s asked my name too.
“Zander,” I toss out my name and put my hand out towards her. She slips her hand into mine and I realize that she’s freezing. Her perfect lips tremble and my damn my stupid body wants nothing more than to hold her close, to cover those lips with mine until they tremble with need instead of cold.
I let my eyes begin to skate over her body. My heart nearly grinds to a halt in my chest when I see a fucking wedding ring on her thin finger. Normally, back in Atlanta, before everything changed, I wouldn’t have cared. I’d ignore the ring on a woman’s finger if I wanted her bad enough. I’d fuck her stupid then discard her so she could return to her husband, who likely would never know the difference. Or sometimes they would. I didn’t give a damn either way. But seeing a ring on her—her—feels different. Anger flashes up inside of me. It licks at my self control and I have to remind myself that I’m a prick who has never cared about that sort of shit.
Such a fucking prick, Zander, I think, reminding myself of who I really am. I’m a jerk with a history that’s splattered with evidence of just how much of an asshole I can be. The goddamn internet does a fine job of reminding me when I google myself. I shouldn’t do that. It only awakens the rage that I’ve stifled for two years.
Figures she’s married. But where the hell is her husband? Why isn’t that dick out here with his wife? He just lets her roam into frigid water?! She could have drowned… If I hadn’t seen her… Maybe he’s the reason she looks this way…
I shut down my thoughts before I turn into a mutant man in the shade of green. I take in a deep breath, having a hard time hiding the irritation I feel. My body has already begun to awaken in her presence, seemingly choosing her; choosing this thin, nervous, untamed looking woman in front of me.
She holds my gaze for a long time. My eyes study her brown depths. I dive in headfirst, searching for more information. I feel like if I look hard enough, close enough, long enough into her eyes I’ll be able to see the inner workings. I’ll be able to see what drives her forward and what holds her back. I’ll see what’s broken. I’ll diagnose her ailment and do my damnedest to treat it. To make her better.
I’ve lost my fucking mind.
I’m like Tom Hanks in Castaway, a desperate man so isolated and longing for companionship that he finds it in a fucking volleyball.
My nostrils flare as I take another deep breath, working hard to gather my thoughts. What did she say her name was? The air in my lungs solidifies when my subconscious offers up the answer to my question.
Sadie. Sadie. Sadie.
My spine tingles at the possibility. There’s no way that this woman that I’ve never seen in my life could possibly be her, Sadie Parker, the widow that I’ve wondered about every day since I woke up in recovery in Atlanta.
I didn’t know the details of the donor or the family, of course, but I wondered about her, at least in some capacity. I wondered who’s world had just fallen apart as mine came together. I wondered who the person was that loved the donor most. I wondered who it was that had me feeling an insurmountable heap of guilt simply for needing the transplant and then living through it. I wondered who I owed my life to.
My mouth moves on its own, desperate for more information. “It’s a little early in the season for me to shoo people away from this beach. Visiting?” My hand squeezes around hers as a silent prayer that she’s really her and at the same time that she isn’t. I’m a dick. I want this visibly broken woman in front of me to be available to me but at the same time my heart breaks for her if she is. I shrink a little beneath the guilt that I feel if she’s the Sadie that I think she is. My donor’s Sadie. My Sadie.
“Not exactly. I’m here to meet someone.” I watch as her arms wrap around her front as if to hug herself. She’s freezing. Something fiercely protective and foreign as fuck builds deep inside of me.
She’s got to be her. She’s got to be my Sadie and she’s freezing out here, dripping wet and exposed in that dress that’s doing very little to conceal her curves.