I sigh, because I can’t answer his question with the truth, and for some reason, I can’t bring myself to lie. “That’s hard to quantify.”
“Try,” his voice is needy, but stern. He wants an honest answer.
But I just shrug. “I don’t know.”
He gestures with his hands. “Take an educated guess.”
“This is hard for me, you know.” I stare him down, waging war with the way I dig into him with just one look. “We fuck and then we don’t talk. And when we do talk, it’s never about anything that matters.”
“We hardly know each other.”
“That’s my freaking point.” I jump to my feet and slide the back of my palm against my head. “You ask me what I am to you, but how am I supposed to answer that?” For wanting something out of me, he remains closed-off and distant. “You called me your fuck buddy in the note you left me this morning. I guess that’s what you are to me. You’re my fuck buddy.”
“I’m sorry.” He shakes his head sheepishly. “It was a stupid question.”
“You shouldn’t apologize for asking questions.” I bend down to my knees in front of him. “You should apologize for other things, like making me wake up in a hotel alone after a great night, not knowing where you were or what you were doing.”
“I told you. I had to take care of a few things.”
“God knows what the fuck that means.”
There’s a long pause where neither of us say anything. He sputters his lips, looks away from me and digs his fingernails into his knee. “I visited my wife and daughter today.”
“Your what?” I’m back on my feet in an instant. “You are just like the rest of them.” My feet kick against the sand as I hurry away from the scene. I could punch him in the fucking jaw. I know it’s ridiculous for me to feel this way, and I couldn’t even explain the logistics of why I do to myself.
“They’re dead,” his voice cracks in half.
I’m frozen—my body running cold—and can’t bring myself to face him. I’m trapped in a vacuum where his words tangle through my being, slicing me open and draining me of feeling. I could cry if I weren’t such a heartless bitch, and yet I’m broken.
“They died years ago,” he continues.
I turn to him in what seems like slow motion. He’s lost in a world that only exists between him and the sea. He stares out into nothing, but for the first time since I’ve known him, I’m able to read him.
His face is buried, haunted in shades of pale colors contrasted against the soon-to-be night sky. His spirit is sunken, pushing his body deep into the sand. I’m looking at a broken-hearted ghost.
I sit back on my towel and stare off into the horizon with him. There’s nothing I can say—nothing I should say. It’s why he’s always lost in silence. Perhaps, he’s dreaming of a life that was torn from him.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t know.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it? You weren’t supposed to know.”
More silence, and for once, I understand it. Sometimes words aren’t enough. Sometimes, they’re too much. I take refuge in the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. Most everyone has packed up and gone home, but here we are—two lost souls dreaming of a better life against the almighty tides.
“You asked me what you meant to me,” I say quietly, but it still cuts like a knife through the silence. “I didn’t know it then, but I know it now. You mean the world to me. You’re my escape from this fucked up world.”
He nods, taking it in. “I’m terrified of you, Apple.”
“Why do I scare you so much?”
“Because I fall in love too easily.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales through thin lips. “Every fucking time, and it always ends the same—with a broken heart.”
I’ve been there and my understanding of his pain is transcendent. The same suffering he endures is my constant motivation in this war I have been waging. Men come into my life only to break my heart.
“I used to be somebody else,” he continues. “I didn’t used to be this way. I was everything you’d expect a good person to be. I went to church and waited until I was married to have sex. It didn’t do me any good, but neither does this life. I fuck and then I run, so I don’t get attached.” He turns to me with sunken eyes, reminiscent of a sad puppy. “I’m attached to you for some inexplicable reason.”
“You shouldn’t be,” I warn him. “You don’t know me.”
“That’s why you terrify me.” His eyes search over mine, as if they see something. “We don’t know each other as well as we could, but when I look into your eyes, I see something. Something I’ve been missing.”
I dust off my thighs and climb to my feet. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“I drank most of that bottle,” he says and peers over to an almost empty bottle of whiskey, “I don’t know if I’ll make it very far.”
“It’s okay,” I assure him and offer my hand. “If you keel over, I’ll carry you back.”
He chuckles, but reaches for my hand anyway. “Right.”
We walk down the beach, where the water meets the land—the point where dreams are washed upon sand, waiting for the next tide to be carried back out into the eternal sea. For drinking an entire bottle of whiskey, I’m amazed by his ability to stay upright as the wind whips around us.
“Are you from here?” I ask.
“Born and raised.” There’s a short pause before he continues on, “After the accident, I had to get away. I was ready to flee to California, but couldn’t bring myself to leave the state.” He chews into his lip and bows his head.
I place my palm on his sandy back and caress him. I’m not a caregiver by any stretch of the imagination, but it feels right. Still, I couldn’t pretend to know what to say.
“The last time I saw my wife… I was fucking her.”
Everything suddenly makes sense. I’m hit by a freighter train while sitting in an idle car on the tracks. I feel everything as my soul is torn from my body, but I never saw it coming. It’s why he fucks and runs, because he’s consumed with the potent destruction of guilt.
“It was an early summer morning when she left the house with our little girl. The police came a few hours later, pounding on my door. I knew something was wrong.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, but I know it’s not enough. Nothing ever could be.
“I had just graduated with my Masters degree. We spent years together, living paycheck to paycheck, and right when I was about to be someone, my life was stolen from me.”
I hurt for this man I’m supposed to destroy. It’s karma for every fucked up thing I had planned for him.
“And now, I have an identity crisis. It’s like I don’t know who I am. Am I the smart, educated professor? Am I a sexual deviant? Am I some thirty year old trapped in the body of a twenty year old fratboy?”
“Maybe…” I begin, but take a short pause, trying to make sure I’m saying it right. “Maybe, you’re all of those things, and none of them are so bad.”
He nods as if he agrees, but there’s still a haunted strip of a movie glazed over his eyes. “Maybe that’s one of the reasons I’m so attracted to you. When I look at you, I see youth. I see a second chance to be with somebody where my past doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe…” I look like a ghost, I’m sure. I’m lost in the moment, reflecting on my own past, wondering to myself if it’s possible to escape it.
“What about you?” He stops walking along the sand and turns to face me. “Anything fucked up ever happen to you?”
I purse my lips and shake my head. “Not so much.” It’s an obvious lie, one I’m not certain I want to continue lying about. I should be able to open up to him, but I can’t. Not when I know what he’s supposed to mean to me—nothing.
“You have to carry some baggage with you.” He forces a smile, but it’s more out of yearning for something, and not so much about being happy in the moment. “Everyone does.”