Sacrifice (13 page)

“But the thing I remember the most is the way she used to look at dad when she thought no one else could see. She loved him so much, you could see it in her eyes. And he adored her… One night when I was about seven I heard music and laughter from downstairs. They’d had some sort of dinner party and at the time I didn’t understand it. I snuck down the stairs and watched them through the wooden slats on the railing.

“She wore a blue and cream dress, it was like a summer dress but I thought she looked like a princess, with her hair piled up and small curls hanging around her face. She was laughing as dad held onto her, his arm around her waist as they danced slowly around the living room to some record they’d put on…”

I cut myself off, choked with emotion. Sam continued to hold me as tears raced down my face and I was reduced to a sobbing mess. The salt water spray from the sea stung my eyes but it was good, it helped me to focus on something other than the pain in my chest. The pain of loss and grief, anguish over someone I loved dearly. And of course in another way anguish for everything her death had taken from me. The chance at a normal life, a happy family… Without her there was nothing but emptiness and pain, tragedy and loss… And Sam.

That one thought struck me and quietened my tears. He was the first person who had ever really asked me to talk about my mother. As though he understood the grief I held inside. As though he knew I needed to let it out somehow before it consumed me completely. Maybe because he had experience loss he understood the need to grieve?

When my tears finally slowed he continued to rock me. The air was beginning to warm and the sand beneath our feet suddenly didn’t feel as damp and cold anymore. When he pushed me to my feet and hopped up himself I wondered what it was all about. That was until he grabbed me around the waist and lifted me effortlessly into the air.

I screamed, my voice ringing out to bounce off the surrounding cliffs and sand dunes. The world tilted and whirled around me as Sam spun us around in a circle before making a crazy dash towards the water’s edge. I screamed again, my fingers digging into the tight knotted muscles of his back and shoulders as I struggled to keep a hold of him. 

He splashed into the water up as far as his knees, the water turning his jeans a dark blue. He tipped me down his back until my finger tips scrapped along the surface of the water.

It sprayed up at me, stealing my breath. I squealed and attempted to drag myself back up to his shoulder but he held me in place pinned as he spun us around again. If he fell I was going to end up in the icy water. But I wasn’t afraid. Instead I giggled and laughed my voice coming out verging on hysterical. 

Of course he didn’t fall but splashed back out of the water and dumped me back down on my feet. His cheeks were flushed and he was breathing hard. His eyes glinted at me, filled with happiness and mischief. In that moment he looked so young and handsome and I wanted to pause us there on the beach. Pause it so I could soak up the feeling of being there with him. I was happy and it frightened me. If I was this happy then what would happen to ruin it? But I pushed the negative thought away, pushing it down deep inside myself.

Playfully I pushed at him and when he growled at me I giggled and ran. Zig zagging along the sand in an attempt to escape him. But he was faster than me, caught me easily, wrapping his arms around me and spinning me around again until I was sure I’d pass out.

We collapsed on the beach in a laughing heap, his body landing across mine. And that’s when everything changed. He stared down at me, the look in his eyes growing serious. The intensity was back, a look I knew him for. But it was tinged with lust and desire and I could feel myself responding to it.

He lowered his face to mine, his mouth pressing a feather light kiss on my lips. I lifted my arms and wrapped them around his neck, drawing his face down to mine. The kiss ignited the longing I had for him. A longing I had been trying to deny, trying to push it down inside. I was afraid if we took it any further we’d destroy whatever it was we were building. Once that line was crossed, there was no uncrossing it, no going back.

Our kiss deepened, his tongue teasing my lips open. I wrapped my arms around the nape of his neck, my fingers running through his hair. He growled again and this time there was nothing playful in the sound. This time it was all animal instinct and lust. I wanted him. He lay on top of me, his arms propping his body up off me so that he didn’t crush me. Without thinking about what I was doing I wrapped my legs high up around his waist and he groaned in frustration.

He broke the kiss and dropped his face in against my neck. I could feel his hot breath against the skin of my neck but he didn’t kiss me, didn’t even move.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, my body going rigid beneath his.

He lifted his face and stared down into my eyes. “The things you do to me… You make me lose my mind, forget who I am and what I’m doing.”

Confused I shook my head and tried to climb out from beneath him but he held me in place, his body pinning me onto the sand.

“No I want to lie like this with you… It’s just you make me want to…” He trailed off. I grinned and wriggled beneath him suddenly understand his discomfort.

“Stop it.” He growled his one green eye and one blue eye flashing at me with lust.

I laughed and wrapped my legs a little higher around his waist pushing myself up to him. It felt right. And I realised at that moment that I wanted there to be nothing between us. I wanted him, plain and simple. I couldn’t keep hiding from the truth and there was no point in being afraid of things changing… I couldn’t live my life like that. It was too short to always be afraid. To always fear happiness. And with Sam I knew I could be happy.

“I don’t want to stop.” I whispered.

It stopped him in his tracks. His face softened and something lit up in his eyes. Something hopeful, happy. I didn’t want to guess at what the other emotion was. It seemed almost too good to be true. If I admitted to myself what I saw in his eyes. What I knew was inside me I might ruin the perfect moment. Irrevocably destroy it and I didn’t want to.

“Not here… Not like this.” Sam’s expression changed and he climbed off me. His shoulders were stiff and his back had gone rigid as he hopped to his feet. I pushed myself up in the sand and stared up at him in confusion.

What the hell had just happened? One moment everything was fine and the next…

He glared at me for a minute before striding away across the beach, his feet kicking up sand as he walked. I sat there watching him walk away from me, utterly baffled. Had I upset him? What had I done wrong to make him react in this way? It didn’t make sense.

I could feel an ache start up in my chest. It spread up from the pit of my stomach and out into my chest. It felt like someone held my heart in their hands and squeezed, slowly crushing it beneath their grip.

Climbing to my feet I raced down the beach after him. Grabbing his arm I spun him around to face me. Anger making my head hurt. There was no way he could just walk away from me. Walk away from and leave me like that, no explanation nothing. I was worth more than that. Or at least I thought I was.

“What’s going on? What did I do?”

“I’ll drive you home.” His voice was cold, devoid of all emotion.

I wanted to cry, to scream at him, beg him to tell me what he was doing. What had happened in those seconds to make him so cold towards me. What had made him seemingly forget what we had shared. It just didn’t seem possible that he could just switch off to me so completely.

“I don’t want you to drive me home. I want you to tell me what happened? Everything was fine and now?”

He shook his head and I glanced a moment of sadness pass over his face. Her ducked his head and stared at the ground, his voice hard, granite like.

“I’ll drive you home. I don’t think I can be with you. I don’t want to be with you. I’m tired of pretending.”

His words cut through me like razor blades, they glanced over my skin and I had a sudden image in my minds eyes. Me standing there, blood dripping from the thousands of deep cuts. Blood dripping onto the ground, mingling in the sand.

“Tired of pretending? I didn’t realise being with me required pretence?” I spun away from him and stomped away over the sand. How he could say that to me? Look at me and tell me that he didn’t want to be with me. After everything? Why bring me out here? Why make me dredge up painful memories if he was just going to turn around and do this? Was it all some sort of sick joke? 

An ugly thought crept into my head. Did he know Daniel? Ian had known Daniel, or at least he had claimed he did. And it seemed odd that Sam had come into my life at the same time. Was it all connected somehow and I was just too stupid to see it? Didn’t want to see it. I wanted it to be real. Wanted what we were building to finally be one good thing in my life. One good thing I could call all my own.

It was Sam’s turn to race after me. He grabbed me by the shoulder, halting my progress as he came around to face me. I glared at him and attempted to side step him but he held his hands out in front of him as though in surrender.

“Look, I said I’ll drive you home and I mean it. I’m not going to just let you wander around out here on your own. I brought you out here, I’ll bring you home.”

“No. I’ll get a bus.” Firmly I folded my arms across my chest and stuck my chin out in defiance. It probably looked childish but I didn’t care. I wanted to be childish, look childish. At that moment I wanted to be anywhere but where I was. I wanted to be away from him and I didn’t want to lay eyes on him again.

“Natasha, don’t be ridiculous. Let me drive you home.”

“No.” I shrugged past him and continued my walk up the beach towards the road. The only good thing was that the sun was now well and truly up and it was starting to warm the air. I tugged my jumper off and tied it around my waist. I followed the path up to the road and began to walk in the direction I hoped was back towards the city. If I was lucky I’d find a bus stop and I would be able to get back without any issues. Worst case scenario I’d have to hitchhike. I’d never done it before but I knew some people liked to tell terrible stories of tragedies happening to unsuspecting hitch hikers. I didn’t want to become a statistic.

The sound of an engine rumbling behind me made me turn and glance down the road. Sam was slowing his blue car to an almost crawl as he pulled up along side me. The passenger window was down and as I glared in at him I noticed that his expression had changed. If he hoped to win me over by pretending to be nice to me again he had another thing coming.

“Natasha, please get in the car.”

“Nope.” I increased my speed quickly outstripping the slow moving car.  But all Sam had to do was speed up a little and he was back level with me once more.

With a sigh of relief I spotted a small bus stop just up ahead. I could feel shame and embarrassment burning my cheeks as practically ran to it. I was ashamed of the fact that I had practically thrown myself at him. How had I not seen how he really felt? Was he that good of an actor that I couldn’t even recognise someone playing me? Or was it just simply a case of, me really liking him and not wanting to believe that he didn’t care about me? That all the time we were spending together could really mean nothing to him?

The car ground to a halt as soon as I reached the bus stop. Sam glared at me through the windscreen and I glared back at him. He started to climb out of the car but quickly changed his mind as a bus appeared in the distance. I was in luck… At least something was going right for me.

I expected him to just drive away. To pull the car onto the road and disappear before the bus pulled to a halt in front of me. But he didn’t. Instead he sat in the car, watching me through the half tinted glass. From the corner of my eye I could see him. My pride had finally kicked in and the last thing I wanted now was for him to see how much he had hurt me.

When the bus pulled into the stop I could hardly wait for the doors to open before I was up the steps and handing my cash over to the driver. He started to speak to me, no doubt to ask did I know the man parked in the blue car that watched me with such intensity. But whatever the driver saw in my eyes made him stop. Instead he handed me the ticket and smiled sympathetically at me as I moved down the bus to take my seat.

I took that opportunity to glance out the window. Sam still sat in the lay by. Climbing into an empty seat I dropped my head down into my hands and finally let my emotions get the better of me. But I didn’t have anymore tears to cry. Instead, I sat there, sobbing quietly, the only real signs of my anguish, were the quiet hiccups that escaped me ever so often.

When the bus pulled away I didn’t try to look back. I didn’t try to see if he was still sitting there. I simply let it go. He had made his choice and now I was making mine. The only problem in all of it was that the choice I had made felt like the wrong one. How did you live with a choice if it was the wrong one? How did you make you up your mind when the choice was taken from your hands?

I didn’t know the answers to the questions I had. The only thing I knew for certain was that something had happened on the beach. Something important and for some reason neither Sam nor I were ready to face what it really meant…

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sam

The moment he saw the look in her eyes he knew it was a mistake. It was one thing for him to have fallen for her. Quite another to see her falling for him. She deserved better than that. She deserved a man who could give her what she wanted. Not someone who was there under false pretences… How was he supposed to look her in the eye when he knew the truth?

No as far as he was concerned the best thing he could do was let her go. If he let her go now, then she wouldn’t get hurt. He could simply go home, tell them it hadn’t worked out and let Natasha move on with her life. If he continued with things the way they were then she was only going to end up getting dragged down.