Giving In: The Sandy Cove Series (Book 1) (8 page)

“Help, Harlow, please, I…” Back down he goes, then up again, coughing, splashing, then back down.

What is he trying to do?

Then he goes under again. And not resurfacing. I wait, and I wait. I peek over the dock to see where he is. Nothing but a few bubbles pop up.

Shit!

Did he drown? I look to the opposite side of the dock, nothing. I feel panic in my chest, so I yell for help.

“Someone, help. Come quick!”

My anxiousness overtakes me, and I pull at my hair, pacing until I see Max fly out onto the upper patio.

I get on my hands and knees and peer over the old wooden boards.

Oh, no! I can’t see him. The water is too dark.

I’m suddenly grabbed by my arm, thrown in the water, and I’m confused, not breathing correctly, gasping as I feel the water enter my lungs. I can’t stand, nor can I yell. I’m going to die. This is how I’m going to die. I can hear muffled sounds of people talking, yelling, splashing all around me, as I begin to sink deeper and deeper into the salty water. I close my eyes, wishing for a quick end and not a long, drawn-out, dramatic death. Flashes of my past come to play. Weaving a movie about my life, the good, the bad, the tragic. I don’t want that to be the last thing I think before I die. I plead with God, not that, oh, please, not that.

I feel my body jerk. There are arms around my waist, hauling me up from the water, and I feel my body hit a hard surface. I blink a few times after my cheek has been slapped and hands turning my head towards the side of my body. I expel water from my lungs. I shut my eyes again because of the sting from the remnants of the salt due to the saltwater.

“She can’t swim. God damn it! How did this happen!”

I can hear Willow yelling and hands making contact with bare flesh, the slapping sounds, the cries, and then two hands grasping my shoulders.

“Harlow, Harlow, can you hear me?”

I take a deep breath in. It hurts my lungs, but I do so, and momentarily I cough and spit more water from my mouth. Willow is looking at me, my face in her hands. She is focusing on my face.

“Oh, thank God, Har. Are you ok? Do you want to go to the hospital? What happened?”

There’s much confusion surrounding me. Lots of faces, in my face. Willow trying to pull me off the wooden boards. Her screaming at Cruz.

“You asshole. How could you do that to her? She can’t swim. Never learned how and you go and do this. If I thought you weren’t much of an asshole a week and a half ago, God, let me tell you what I really think of you now.”

She leaves me, gets in his face, they are shouting, pointing at me, to the dock, to the water, and to my… oh my God! My laptop! It’s soaked, ruined. Simply drenched. And then I feel the tears prick my eyes, sting them, and I regurgitate the salt from the bay. A heavy mixture of emotions is going through me. Sadness, anxiousness, and I’m just tired. So tired, I want to go back to bed, and it’s only seven a.m.

I hug my knees and rock like I always do when I’m anxious. Max comes to my side and bends down so he’s level with me. His hand rests on my knee.

“Harlow, are you ok? He didn’t mean it. He had no idea you couldn’t swim.”

I don’t reply. I’m still in shock, still shaking from seeing my life flash before my eyes.

I rise, and Max helps me up. I grab my laptop, water drips from it, and I feel defeated. Willow and Thea look at me. They come to my side and link their arms with mine as we make our descent back to the house.

Cruz stills my arm as he speaks, “Turnip, wait, I’m… I’m, well, you know.”

He can’t find the words. The only words that will make this okay, but he doesn’t have the power to say them.

Willow smacks his chest and follows the rest of us into the house. He remains stoic, and I faintly hear Porter yelling at him as we walk.

I need a shower. I smell like the bay. I need the warmth of the water on me, speedily. As I make my way to the bathroom, Willow asks what I want to put on after my shower. I just want my sweats, because when I get out of the shower, I’ll be packing to go home. I can’t stay here with that asshole.

I turn on the water, and I feel the temperature of the spray. I peel off my wet clothes and step in, automatically feeling the constant steady stream of water from the shower head on my body. I just keep telling myself over and over: ‘You’re okay. You’re okay. You are alive.’

All these emotions stirred up by one person. Now, I’m a sensible person. I know he had no idea I couldn’t swim, but it’s his insatiable need to play, to kid around, to trick, and to use sexual innuendoes every chance he gets.

I stand there, hands against the cool tiles of the shower, thinking of what I need to do when I get home. Buy a new laptop, re-do all the applications I began. Damn it, I should have pressed send sooner.

I’ll get a simple job until I have a teaching position. Maybe Daddy will let me fetch coffee for him at the office. All I know is I have to leave.

I’m finished with my shower. I wrap a towel around myself, make my way to my room, dress quickly and throw my suitcase on my bed, again, for the second time in less than two weeks. I hear a knock at my door.

“Come in.” Willow enters and sees what I’m up to.

She stands there, hands on hips, and a look of disapproval on her face.

“Gonna run again? Go home and sulk, let him win? You’re stronger than that, Harlow. Since when do you wimp out?”

That stings, but I don’t care. I can’t enjoy myself here knowing that immature ass lives ten feet away.

“Leave me be, Willow. It’s just not working out. I’m going home.”

She kicks the door closed with her heel and grabs the clothes I’m trying to pack out of my hands and throws them on the floor.

“What the hell!”

She grabs my wrist and turns me towards her, her eyes pleading with me.

“And what’s going to happen once you get there? Stay in your room for the rest of the summer, avoiding the outside world, risk running into him? You know what will happen if you do? I can’t go through that again with you, Harlow. I’m your friend, but I won’t allow another slip up with him.”

I think about it, about her words. What would happen if I did? What would happen if I fell back in? Under the spell, under the pull, under his forcefulness. It’s so easy for me to cave. She thinks I’m strong, but I’m as weak as they come, especially when the one we do not speak of is involved.

“I know, but I can’t stay here. I hate Cruz. He ruined my laptop. I was in the process of filling out all the online applications for the districts in our area, and it took a long time. I never sent them, now I have to start all over again.”

She tugs me down to sit on the bed next to her. Her demeanor softens, and she wraps an arm around my shoulder.

“You have been through so much, Har, and you have overcome a lot of it for the most part, but you can’t let him win. I want him out. Not sure why Porter hangs with someone like him. All I know is, you can’t let him win, and if you go home, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

She’s not talking about Cruz either.

We sit in silence for a few moments. I’m thinking about what she said. If I go home, he wins. He’ll know I’m defeated, that I came crawling back. I can talk to my brother Craw about things but Greta, my sister, no way. She’s way too caught up in her wedding plans to hear my sob stories. Mom and Dad aren’t aware of anything, so I can’t go to them.

Someone knocks at the door, and Willow gets up to answer it. She automatically slams it again, not giving me a chance to see who it is, but I have a pretty good idea.

She leans against the door and rolls her eyes. “Son of a bitch.”

I smile. “It’s fine. Let him in. It can’t get any worse.”

She eyes me for a second, not believing I just said that.

I nod my head as she pulls at the doorknob.

Cruz walks in, looking as pale as a ghost and holding a cardboard box in his hands. He looks awful, and that’s unusual for him.

Willow eases up to him, gets inches from his face, not saying anything. She just stares at him, because in the case of Willow, sometimes her scowl is worse than her words.

Oh, God this is uncomfortable. She’s so good at it.

She turns to me and winks before exiting.

The room is still, so is the air between us. I look to the floor, playing with my fingers in my lap, as he continues to stand.

“You’re leaving?”

I nod.

“I don’t blame you. I haven’t made this easy for you.”

I look up at him, pursing my lips together, my eyes agreeing with him.

“Look, I’m not a jerk. Really I’m not. I’m just not good with sorry’s or hello’s or goodbye’s. I’ve been really hard on you, but you don’t make it any easier.”

I start to speak to stop him, because I’m pretty sure I’m not the cause of this.

He holds his hand up to stop me.

“Let me finish talking, please.”

I let out a sigh. “Fine, continue.”

“You think I’m a stupid person. Well, I’m not. Just because I didn’t have an extensive education like you, doesn’t mean I haven’t been educated. The Marines paid for me to go to community college. I got my Associates Degree in Criminal Justice, and I haven’t pursued a full time position with a force because I just got back from my third tour in Iraq. The world has educated me.”

Oh, no. God forgive me. I had no idea.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Damn right, you didn’t.” His voice raises and appears a little sterner. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I’m just sensitive about it. I’m not usually, but for some reason, you bring it out of me.”

He told me he was in Afghanistan and Iraq when we were fighting on the dock, but I had no idea how many tours he accomplished. I owe him an apology.

“Cruz, I don’t what to say. You’re right. I haven’t been fair to you, and I guess I jumped to conclusions. I apologize.”

He comes to sit on the bed next to me. I flinch when he does, like I think he’s going to hurt me, and when I do it, he is a taken aback.

I sweep my hair behind my ears, feeling uncomfortable, and I’m not sure why. I mean I had sex with him. You’d think I wouldn’t feel like that, but in reality, I think that is the reason I’m feeling like this.

“I’m not going to touch you, don’t worry. I’m not going down that road again. No offense.”

I laugh. “None taken.”

He smiles at me, as I try to dodge my eyes from looking at him.

“Is that a smile I see? You actually have teeth? My God, I thought you just forget to put your dentures in all the time.”

I shove him and let out a small chuckle.

“Jerk.”

“You should do it more often.”

“What’s that?”

“Smile, it looks good on you.” He smiles broadly at me. I wish I could allow myself to smile the way he does.

I’m up. Time for me to try to make amends.

“I think maybe sometimes with you, I remember what happened between us, and I realize I didn’t know you, and I did what I did…”

He interrupts, “What we did. I was a part of it too.”

“Ok, us both, but I think I was angry with myself because I had never done anything like that. I disappointed myself, and I was well, embarrassed. It was totally out of character for me.”

He laughs and runs his hands through his already tousled locks.

“Yea, you’re right about that. Getting to know the Harlow this summer is totally different than the one I didn’t know last year.”

What he says is a little confusing, but I get it. I was a different person last year. Someone who sort of had an out-of-body experience.

I can’t tell him what encouraged me to do what I did with him. I have to try to put it behind me. Put behind me the circumstances which in turn brought Cruz and I together that night, but with this brain of mine, I hear the voices in my head, taunting me, fucking with my subconscious: ‘You can run, Harlow, but you can’t hide.’ ‘Fall into his spell.’ ‘Feel his spell.’ ‘Follow his spell.’

I shake my head, making the voices go away. Cruz is still talking.

He looks at me, and I must have just looked like a nut-job.

“Where’d you go? Looks like I lost you for a minute.”

I’m not sure where I just was. Lost in my thoughts, listening to the words in my head I do not want to hear.

“I’m sorry, just deep in thought. What were you saying?”

He shrugs and dismisses my daydream.

“I was saying that the past is the past, and maybe we can actually get to know one another and be friends. I can be a grown up and not torture you, actually be a stand up guy.”

I hear the sincerity in his voice. I believe him, and I have to allow myself to give him the credibility.

“And I can relax a little. I’m not as wound up as you think I am. I can be loosey goosey.”

He lets out a small ‘ha’ sound, and now I’m the one he doesn’t believe. I swat at his arm.

“I’m serious. I am a lot of fun, even though I’m very serious about life. I can party with the best of them.”

He has a glimmer of hope in his eyes when I tell him that, a combination of cautiousness and challenge.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

I stand up in front of him, and I feel relaxed, the most relaxed I’ve felt in a while. It’s odd that I feel like this talking to him, but I’ll take it for what it’s worth. This can work. We can try to put our differences aside, make this a great summer, and maybe, just maybe develop a friendship out of this.