A Week at the Beach (16 page)

            I gathered what I needed and made a mad dash out the door and down the stairs.  By the time I got down to the bottom, I was soaked but smiling.  The hammock, my hammock, was free and waiting for me.  I spread the blanket over the netting and fell into the middle of my makeshift cocoon. 

            I stayed wrapped up in my sanctuary undisturbed for almost an hour.  The rain was still coming down and I put my book down so I could just sit and listen to it pound the ground around me.  The last time I’d found myself in the hammock, I was content in my solitude, but this time it felt like there was something missing.  I sighed deeply and closed my eyes as the rain picked up.

            “I found you,” Nick’s voice pulled me out of my sanctuary. 

            I kept my eyes closed, but couldn’t stop the smile from forming on my lips. 

            “I didn’t know I was lost,” I said in response.  I opened my eyes and smiled at him. 

            He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, dripping wet, but smiling at me.

            “Where have you been?” I asked with a laugh.

            “Nowhere,” he shrugged. 

            “Why are you so wet?” I pointed at the water dripping off his head and onto the floor.

            “I was looking for you.”

            “In the rain?”

            “I found you, didn’t I?” he grinned at me.  He walked closer to where I was hanging in the hammock.  “I see you got smart and put a blanket down over the netting this time.”

            “No more waffle face for me!”

            “Scoot over,” he waved at me and tried to get into the hammock with me.

            “No way!  This is my hammock!” I pushed him away.

            “Come on!  Let me sit with you,” he pouted at me.

            “First, you are soaking wet, and secondly, hammocks aren’t made for two people.”

            He pulled his shirt off and used it to dry his hair.  “Now will you scoot over?”

            “Are you serious?” I tried not to stare at his chest as I questioned him.  “There is no room for both of us.”

            “Yes there is!  Just scoot over and we’ll fit.” He leaned down and pulled the hammock towards him.

            “Nick!” I grabbed onto the sides of the hammock and held tight as he sank down next to me, causing the hammock to swing back and forth.

            “Scoot!” he ordered me.

            I wiggled around and made room for him next to me.  We ended up sitting against each other in the middle of the hammock, with our feet hanging off the side.  Nick’s legs were long enough that he was still able to push us with his feet.

            “I told you we could fit,” he said triumphantly as he pushed us off, making us sway back and forth.

            I rolled my eyes at him.  I was trying very hard not to think about how close I was to his bare chest. 

            “I hate the rain,” he grumbled and threw his head back.

            “Really?  I love the rain,” I said with a smile.

            “How can you love the rain?”

            “It reminds me of my childhood.  When it would rain my sisters and I had to stay inside and play, and we always had a great time.”  I smiled at the memories that were now flooding my mind.  “Sometimes, my mom would let us build a fort in the living room and we would spend hours under those blankets pretending to be in all kinds of fantastical places.  When we got older, we’d play board games together and gossip about boys.  I loved those rainy days.”

            Nick was silent for a few minutes, and I debated whether to say something or not.  I wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but I could tell something was on his mind.  The rain pounded the ground, creating a rhythm to our silence.

            After a long silence, he said quietly, “Rain reminds me of my childhood too, only I didn’t get to make forts in the living room or play board games with my family.  In my house, rain meant that I needed to find somewhere to hide and be silent.”

            “Why?” I asked softly.

            He answered without looking at me.  “My dad worked construction, so when it rained he didn’t get to go to work.  When he didn’t work, he drank.”

            “Why did you have to hide?”

            “It was always best to stay away from my dad when he was drunk.”

            “Was he a mean drunk?”

            “He was an abusive drunk.”

            I finally had him talking, so I didn’t want to scare him off, but I had to know about the scars.  I took a deep breath and went for it.

            “Is that where you got the scars?” I whispered.

            “What do you mean?” he said defensively.

            I shifted to see him better, lifted his arm, and used my fingers to trace the outline of the circular scars under his arm. 

            “Cigarette burns?” I asked quietly while my fingers rubbed the scars gently.

            He nodded and took a deep breath.  “That was his favorite way of waking me up.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “If he came home at night and one of my toys was left out, if the house wasn’t neat enough, or if he just wanted to wake me, he’d come into my room and put his lit cigarette against my skin.”  Nick watched my fingers playing against his skin.

            My hands stopped moving and I looked up at him.  “Is that why you don’t sleep well?”

            He nodded.  “When you spend the first fifteen years of your life having your flesh burned until you wake up, you start to dread the night.”

            I settled back against him.  “What happened after fifteen years?”

            “I couldn’t take it anymore.  I ran away.” He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me into his chest. 

            The intimacy of our contact sent a shiver through my body.  I knew we shouldn’t be sitting so close, but he seemed to need it, so I didn’t fight him.

            “Where did you go?”

            “I stayed with friends when I could.  I spent a few nights in shelters, slept on the beach a lot actually.  Then I met Mitch and he let me stay in the backroom of his surf shop.” He pushed the hammock and started us swinging again.

            “What did your friends say when you told them you had run away?”

            “I didn’t really tell them.”

            “You didn’t tell them that your dad was abusive?”

            “I didn’t tell anyone.”

            “Why not?”

            He took another deep breath and long pause before he answered.  “I’ve never told anyone.”

            Another shudder ran through me.  I didn’t know what to say to him.  His arm was still around me and he was still pushing the hammock gently. 

            After another minute of silence, I sighed, “If we’d been friends, my parents would have let you move in with us.”

            Nick laughed lightly, “I hardly think your father would let a teenage boy move into an apartment with his three daughters.”

            I smiled, “You don’t know my dad.”  I laughed and added, “Of course, he never would have let you out of his sight and probably would have installed deadbolt locks on the bedroom doors.”

            Nick laughed.

            “But you would have been part of the family,” I added softly.

            “I think I would have liked that.” 

            Silence fell over us again.  The rain still hadn’t let up and I watched it run off the edge of the floor above us. 

            “Nick?”

            “Yes?” his voice was almost too soft to hear over the rain.

            “Do you always have trouble sleeping, even when you’re not alone?”

            “Always,” he answered quietly.

            “Tell me about Mitch,” I whispered and rested my head against his chest.

            For the next hour, I listened as Nick told me about the man that took him in, gave him a job, and helped send him to college.  I asked questions when they popped into my head and he answered them all.  He kept the hammock swaying and I stayed resting against his chest.

            “Do you still talk to him?” I asked after he’d finished talking.

            “Not as often as I should, but I send him money every month.”

            “To pay him back for everything he did for you?”

            “Yes,” he said through a yawn.

            I smiled, “Do you know what else I love to do when it rains?”

            He laughed, “No.”

            “Take naps,” I said with a grin.

            “That sounds good to me.”  He pulled his arm from around my shoulders and started shifting in the hammock.  He pulled his feet up into the hammock and stretched out lengthwise.  I wiggled and matched his pose.  I rested my hand against his chest and placed my head back on his shoulder.  He put his arm around my waist and held me.

            We didn’t speak for a long time, and after a few minutes, I heard his breathing shift into a deeper rhythm.  I watched his chest rise and fall as he lay sleeping next to me.  I closed my own eyes and let myself fall asleep in his arms.

            I woke up a few hours later.  We hadn’t moved positions and I could tell that he was still asleep.  There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the world but the two of us.  There were no sounds coming from the house above us, and the normally busy beach was deserted.  The only sounds that filled the air were the rhythmic sounds of his breath, the sound of thunder rumbling in the distance, and the rain that was still beating down around us. 

            I looked over at his face and watched him sleeping.  He looked peaceful and content and I tried to imagine what life must have been like for him.  I couldn’t understand how anyone could be so cruel and heartless to a child.  I put my head back down and took a deep breath.  Nick had shared something with me that he’d never told anyone.  Not for a single moment did I doubt that he was telling me the truth when he said that.  We’d only known each other for a few days, but I knew he wasn’t the kind of guy who would make something up just to get a girl to sleep with him.

            Besides, he knew I wasn’t interested in that.

            Despite my confidence in who I was and what I wanted, I found myself in a vulnerable position.  I wasn’t going to lie to myself and pretend like my heart didn’t skip a beat when he smiled at me, or that my pulse didn’t race when he touched me.  I couldn’t even hide the fact that while I’d been happy in the hammock alone, I didn’t feel content until he came down and found me.  Something was definitely happening and I was powerless to stop it.  I couldn’t allow myself to compromise who I was, but I couldn’t stay away from him either. 

            I lay there in his arms in that hammock, for another hour, trying to convince myself that what I was really feeling was loneliness.  I told myself that I’d been missing the companionship I’d had with Jack, and that for the moment, Nick was filling that void.  It was a good argument.  After all, I was cuddling with a stranger in a hammock as I thought of it.  Nick and I may not have been having a sexual fling, but there was definitely an emotional affair happening.