Azure (Drowning In You) (2 page)

 
Dedication

To Barbara and Dieter — for being the most amazing friends

Acknowledgments

Heartfelt thanks to Arlene Webb for her help with this story and to Barbara
Peterke
for checking the German in the text.

Also, a huge thank you to all the people in my two critique groups for their constant support and great suggestions. Any errors in the story are of course solely mine.

Author note
: Scroll to the end for the hyperlinked
table of contents
,
a note on the background
of the story, a
translation of Greek and German words
in the text, and other links.

Greece
(and
Crete
) in the world

What is past is prologue.

Shakespeare

If life is a story, the words drip blood between the lines.

Myra
Crow

End of summer. The air shimmered with golden sunset light, and the beach stretched on either side, the sand made of colorful gems; shell shards and pebbles.

Olivia drew a deep breath of humid air, inhaling the salty scent of the Cretan sea, and wished she could feel happy. She was supposed to. That was what this trip was all about.

She fingered the ring hanging from the chain around her neck, then realized she was doing it and dropped her hand to the sand. Old habits — okay, half-year old habits were hard to break. She was used to the ring, used to its slight weight around her neck, although she hadn’t thought of it as anything important. It was simply familiar.

The sand was warm, but when she buried her fingers in it, she felt its deeper coolness. Her fingers encountered something smooth and cold, and she yelped, drawing her hand to her chest. She looked down.

A pebble. Olivia snorted to herself and picked it up. Oval and translucent, like a large fish scale with a convenient little hole on top.

It begged to become a pendant. It was as if the sea had thrown it out just for her.

New beginnings.

She hesitated for a second, then unclasped her chain and removed the ring Justin had bought her. Holding it in the palm of her hand, she weighed it and found its importance even slighter than its material worth. She never wore rings anyway.

Goodbye
, she thought, and pulling her hand back, threw it into the waves and watched them swallow it.

An involuntary shudder went through her bones, as if she’d committed an act the enormity of which she couldn’t yet fathom, and she reached out after the ring, drawing her legs under her to rise and run into the sea, get it back.

“Do you often chuck gold into the waves?” asked a deep voice from behind her and she gasped.

Jesus
.

A dark-haired guy was gazing at her from his perch on a low wall. He really perched on it, crouched down, knuckles pressed in front of him as if he was about to sprint or fly away.

“Not often, no.”

“So what’s the occasion?”

A new beginning
, but she couldn’t say that to him, a stranger. His dark eyes watched her intently, his lashes casting long shadows on his cheekbones in the low light. His lips looked soft and full. His hair fell on his forehead, shimmering blue, the sea somehow reflected on the glossy strands.

He cocked his head to the side, expectant. Oh, he was waiting for her reply. She tried to remember what he’d asked.

Right, the ring
. “No special occasion,” she said, her cheeks warming. “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

 
“Well, someone may find your ring, and a legend will spring up about this sad girl throwing gold into the ocean. Legends breed fast on this soil.”

“I don’t care about legends.”

He shrugged. “Are you sure I shouldn’t get it back for you?” He nodded at her short white dress, then down at his black swim trunks. “I don’t mind getting wet. It will only take a moment.”

“No,” she snapped.
Shit
. “No,” she repeated, softly. “I don’t want it back.”

“Okay, then.” He unfolded, standing up, lean muscles rippling in his legs and chest. His arms were nicely padded and he had a swimmer’s broad shoulders. “Are you here with friends?”

“Yes. They’re at the bar.” She waved a hand at the noise and snatches of music spilling from the bar further up on the beach. “I wanted some fresh air. And you, are you with friends?”

“No, I... I’m alone.”

Something in the way he said it made her look at him closer. A shadow had fallen over his eyes. Maybe it was the sun setting into the sea and the rising darkness.

“Do you live here?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” he said cryptically. His face had closed off, all playfulness gone. “And sometimes not.”

Whatever that meant. Slightly annoyed, undecided whether to ask or pretend to ignore him, she clenched the smooth pebble in her hand.

Then the decision was taken from her hands as laughter and steps on the sand alerted her to the approach by her two German friends.

“
Liv
, there you are.” Kirsten and Markus came stumbling down the beach, smiling and waving their beer bottles. “We looked for you everywhere.”

“Hey guys, I was just taking a breather.” She smiled at their flushed faces and got to her feet, brushing sand from her legs. She gestured at the low wall. “I was...” She stopped.

The cute guy was gone. Gone, as in nowhere visible on the long stretch of the beach, now bathed red by the dying sunrays.

“Come back to the bar. We should dance, the music is good.” Markus grabbed her hand, giving her one of his generous, huge grins. His blond hair, long to his shoulders, fluttered in the faint breeze. “You’re here to have fun.”

“Sure.” Olivia rubbed the pebble between thumb and forefinger, her eyes following the wall toward the road. A broad-shouldered figure was hurrying up the path to the hotel. Had to be the stranger. Why had he run? “Yeah, let’s go have fun.”

Truth was, her heart wasn’t in it, but she hoped that, given time, she’d come around.

***

The music inside the beach bar was deafening. Set on the floor, on a raised concrete platform, huge speakers blared a mixture of techno and rock music. Kirsten dragged her right into the core of the dancing crowd. The sweaty faces pressed around her were exotic, sun-kissed skin and dark locks, men with large, dark eyes and women with wild curls.

She wasn’t in
America
, or
Germany
. It was hard to believe she stood on the frontier between Europe, Africa and
Asia
, in a melting pot of civilizations, new and old. As she swayed to the rhythm, hesitantly at first, she fought to let it all in.

Crete
. Greek island in the eastern Mediterranean, north of
Libya
. Cradle of the Minoan civilization. Where Zorbas the Greek had been set and filmed. Where the sun shone bright every day.

The rhythm got faster and she rocked her body along with the others, laughing when Kirsten bumped into her and then jumped in circles until Markus caught her. He was bringing another round of beer.

Olivia rolled her eyes.
Germans
. She hadn’t drunk even half of her beer yet. She was a lightweight compared to them.

Sweat poured down her face and back. Wiping a hand over her eyes, she slowed down to take a sip from her lukewarm beer, when she felt eyes on her.

Skin prickling as if kissed by a cold breeze, she turned around and scanned the small crowd. The bar was open. White pillars supported the thatch roof and small tables stood outside, on the sand. The light had faded, and night was closing around them. Nobody seemed to be looking her way — including her friends who were so engrossed in each other they brought a bittersweet pain to her chest.

She wasn’t supposed to be here alone. Justin should have been there, the handsome American she’d met as soon as she’d arrived in
Germany
on her exchange program, and her boyfriend since then. But after the fight they’d had...

Alone
. She was here alone, like the guy had said on the beach earlier.

Ah screw it
. She took a big swig of beer, nearly choking on it, and walked outside, to look at the brilliant stars. She wasn’t alone, and she couldn’t begrudge her friends their obsession with each other.

She was here to have fun,
dammit
.

The moon was up, silvering the sea and a tiny island in the
Kissamos
bay with the name of some obscure saint or other, a bare rock in the water.
Let the past be the past
, she prayed,
let it release me and leave me in peace
.

Maybe an offering was in order. She tipped her bottle, poured some beer onto the sand. It was quickly swallowed up, leaving a darker stain.

A libation. To whatever deity might be listening.

Give me a sign
Andria
has forgiven me. That I won’t go to hell. That this personal brand of hell on earth will end and I can live again
.