The face I see as I close my eyes is blue eyed.
Things have changed.
Why now?
I can sense it. Sense him changing. Opening up.
Now? Now, when I’m not sticking around. I guess now it’s convenient for Joey. He’s home for the summer before residency. I’m a sure thing. He didn’t have a problem walking away before. Why would now be any different? I’ve loved him so many years, I wonder if it’s still real. Or whether it’s just become this thing that I believed so long, it’s separated from me. If I cut the cord, will it still exist?
My lungs burn. The water explodes in front of me as a body sluices downward. I kick to the surface. My bikini is still on, I adjust the top and burst through the surface. I kick for the sandbar, not waiting to see who jumped in after me. My feet find sand and I pull myself from the water into the cold breeze and bright sun, the salt thick on my lips.
I trot up the sand and find a spot to collapse and worship the sun, the sand sticking to my body. Keri Ann is on Jack’s shoulders as he wades heavily from waist deep water. She has my towel and my shades.
“Bless you, my love,” I say to her as she drops them down to me.
It wasn’t Joey who jumped in after me, it was Devon. Joey wades ashore with our picnic supplies, and then swims back and around the boat several times with powerful strokes. I guess it’s his workout today.
I help Keri Ann unpack the food. I’m starving.
Joey walks out of the water, rivulets streaming down his body to his faded navy board shorts. He flicks his hair, made darker from being wet, and runs his hands through it, combing the longer hair off his forehead.
I fiddle with the colored thread and jewelry around my ankles, taking a sudden, massive interest in whether the clasp on one of them is coming undone. It’s not.
I look up as Keri Ann thrusts a sandwich under my nose. She lifts an eyebrow at me, flicking a glance at her brother. I scrunch my nose at her and take the sandwich.
After we all eat our fill, we loll about on the sandbar chatting until the tide starts coming back in to shrink our little island. It’s so weird that Jack Eversea, currently one of the most famous actors on the planet can act so down to earth. People always say about celebrities, that they’re just human. It’s so hard to see it that way until you actually see it that way. Jack, Joey, and Devon talk about sports, music, the best burger they’ve ever had, funny stories about being stuck in a hotel room because of a security issue, and one of the film crew blowing the doors off the bathroom, and none of them could get away from the stench. Normal human stuff. Joey grosses us out with stories of cadavers from med school.
On the surface, it’s one of the most relaxing days I’ve had in so long. It’s the undercurrent that seems to be turning into a riptide every time I glance at Joseph that I’m concerned about. There’s a tsunami of energy swirling between us. It’s unresolved feelings about what happened in the kitchen, poured like lighter fuel on the smoldering remains of what happened between us years ago. And those few words he uttered that changed everything. I’ve tried to keep them out of my head since I heard them because they make no sense, but now they are all I can think about.
I never said I didn’t want you.
The boat heads back to Daufuskie Island to drop Jack and Keri Ann off for the night. I give her a tight hug. My friend is on the cusp of throwing her entire soul into this relationship with Jack Eversea. None of our lives will ever be the same no matter what happens. Today seems like a pivotal moment in life for all of us.
As we head back to Butler Cove, Devon claims he has calls to make.
I climb up to the front sun deck, my towel around my shoulders over my dress to keep me warmer in the evening wind. As we head across the Calibogue Sound, I spot fins from a pod of dolphins, and it makes me smile. I sense someone behind me, and then the smell of Joey envelopes me as he folds a sweatshirt around my body. I close my eyes behind my sunglasses and breathe in slowly. I feel him settling down beside me.
When I open my eyes, he’s next to me, his knees bent, arms leaning on them and staring out at the horizon. The low sun makes his skin glow. He’s so beautiful. Painful and beautiful. I swallow the lump in my throat. My photographer’s brain captures the image, the straight nose and forehead. The curve of his Adam’s apple. The wind whispers through his hair. He looks for a moment as if he’s lived lifetimes since he was born. And I suppose in a way he has. How does that song go? How a face can change when a heart knows pain? Or is it fear?
“You’re staring.” He turns to look at me. His eyes have something in them I can’t decipher. I hold his gaze, not knowing how to respond, but not looking away.