The Same Deep Water (14 page)

Chapter Twenty

Mullaloo Beach is a short drive from my place and Guy picks me up from the house with two surfboards strapped to the roof. We arrive in the car park near the limestone-bricked surf club, and I catch a glimpse of the sparkling Indian Ocean beyond the trees. I grip my hands together as Guy hops out, bashing around as he unstraps the board from the roof. He opens my door. “Ready?”

“No. But let’s go.”

“We’ll take things easy, I promise.”

We’re not the only surfers on the beach, mid-morning and already a few are pausing for a break; the serious surfers with their wetsuits peeled to their waists sit, drinking and eating. Nearby a group of people line up on boards with an instructor, five boards in a row.

“Hey, man.” A man around Guy’s age with cropped brown hair nods at Guy as we approach.

“Hey. How’s the surf today?” Guy props the worn surfboard in front of him.

“Yeah. Fine. Too busy though.” He points at the nearby pupils, a row of people on the sand learning how to stand on a surfboard. A second group is in the ocean, the instructor calling directions at them as they paddle around. “You should’ve come down early.”

“Waited for Phe.” I give a small wave to the man sitting on the sand. “Phe, this is Gordy.”

Gordy holds his damp hand out and I take hold. His grip is hard as he shakes. “Good to meet you. This your girl, Guy?”

“I guess she is.” He slips an arm around my waist. “We were travelling companions.”

“You been away?”

“Nah. Soon though.”

“Cool.”

I shift from foot to foot, gauging the strength of the waves, relieved that closer to shore the break is low. Guy chats to Gordy and I switch off, unable to follow their conversation filled with surf jargon. Before he drags me onto a surfboard and pushes me out to sea, I need to acquaint myself with the water.

I approach the edge of the beach where the warm ocean laps the shore, staring at the foam. The water trails across my sandals and I slip them off, allowing the warm water to touch my feet. The closest I’ve come to swimming since the accident is ankle deep in water. I had a freak out at school swimming lessons two years after the deaths and have avoided the pool and beach ever since. An Aussie girl scared of the surf; I definitely don’t fit the image Guy does.

I look back over to where he chats to a friend, butterflies swarming behind my navel. His appearance is the same as the second time we met, defined muscular legs in blue board shorts and a loose t-shirt across his broad back. His hair is still shorter, a reminder of the other Guy, the one who holds himself at a distance.

As if aware of my inspection, he turns and flashes me a smile before leaving the board and wandering over. “You might have to go a bit deeper than that.”

I shove my hands in my shorts pockets. “I know. Is it okay if I just paddle first?”

“Sure. We have all day.”

I thrust my bag at him and peel off my shorts and t-shirt, revealing a blue bikini I bought several weeks ago, in a move to tell myself I was going to do this. Guy stares as I unzip the bag and shove my clothes in.

“Jesus, Phe,” he says eyes zoning in on my chest.

“What?”

“Good thing I’m holding this bag because I’m thinking about the other evening and the thoughts aren’t very clean.”

“Well, stop. I’m sure you’re used to seeing girls in bikinis.”

“Oh, yeah, but you’re different.”

“I was going to kiss you, but I’m not now,” I retort.

“Aww, go on.” He puckers his lips.

With a small sigh, I place a hand on his chest and rest my lips briefly on his. “Go put the bag down and stay with me while I’m in the water please.”

“Sure thing.”

A shirtless Guy returns and takes my hand in his. We wade into the shallows where the waves break against my knees. I can do this, but the idea of the water dragging me under churns fear in my stomach. As we reach the point the water reaches my waist, the movement of the waves threatens to pull my feet from the sand. I grip Guy’s arm with both hands.

“Ouch. Watch those nails.”

Red marks appear on his arm and I smooth them, with an apology.

A larger wave splashes further up to my chest, and a panicked sound escapes my mouth, as I grasp at Guy again.

“Hey, Phe, Don’t worry. Look out at the ocean, the water’s calm.”

“Then where did that wave come from?”

He smirks. “That wasn’t a wave!”

“And that’s what bothers me.” Every cell in my body screams at me to turn and wade out of the water, but I can’t move, swaying in the push and pull of the tide, hanging onto Guy.

“You want to keep going?”

I shake my head, hair flying around my face because words aren’t possible. I gasp as my chest tightens.

“Phe, take deep breaths. You’re fine.”

“I’m not,” I manage to squeak out. “Take me back.”

“Stay here. Just for a few minutes.”

“I can’t move and they’re coming. Guy, please.”

“What’s coming? The waves?”

“The memories. I can’t do this. I can’t let them in.” Tears push into my eyes, head aching with the attempt to control them and my voice rises in pitch.

“I’ve got you.” Guy lets go of my hand and wraps me to him. “When was the last time you went in the water?”

“Eight years ago.” I shake away the blackness coming in, the breathlessness as the water took me. “Don’t. Please. Take me back.”

“We’re close to shore. Turn round. We can walk back.”

“I can’t! I can’t move!” I suck in a breath, heart skipping out of time and magnifying the anxiety. “Guy!”

“Phe, shh. I’ll take you back.”

“The sand’s sucking me down!”

Guy chews on his mouth and doesn’t respond. I’m not surprised; he’s in three feet of water with a hysterical woman. In a swift move, he picks me up, arms beneath my damp legs and I wrap my arms around his neck, burying my face into his shoulder. His skin is warm from the sun, scented with the ocean and sunscreen, soothing. I focus on him, on pushing away the memories. How stupid, thinking I could do this all at once.

“I don’t think I can surf today,” I say into his shoulder.

“You think?” he says with a laugh.

“This isn’t funny.” We reach the ankle deep water and I become aware of curious onlookers. “God, I’m so embarrassed. Get me out of here.”

I struggle against Guy, he drops me to my feet, and I stride back to where he’d left the surfboard and my bag. He catches up as I stumble, on one leg attempting to pull my shorts on.

“Phe…” Guy envelops me in his arms. “You’re shaking. I’m so sorry.”

I fight to control my breathing, which isn’t helped by the fact Guy’s gripping me so tightly I can hardly breathe. “I need to get away from here.” My voice is muffled against his chest.

“No worries.” He delves back into the bag and hands me his car keys. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

The ocean mocks me as I watch from the safety of Guy’s Jeep, my clothes damp and uncomfortable from where I pulled them over my wet bikini. Calm, blue, and beautiful, the Indian Ocean is part of a paradise other people long to visit, and to me all the place brought was the blackness I avoid.

I’m angry with myself.

Guy appears with the board and his bag, walking barefoot across the car park with sandy feet. I chew a nail, waiting for his teasing, not ready to deal if he’s unable to appreciate my situation.

Placing a striped blue and white towel on the seat, Guy climbs in, and looks at me. “You’ve some colour back in your face.”

“Mmm.”

“Okay now?”

“I will be.”

He closes a hand around mine, the comfort and his understanding soothing. “I overestimated what you could do. Sorry.”

“No, don’t be. Without you, I wouldn’t have got this far.”

“I know you feel terrible right now, but what you did was a good thing. Fear. You’re feeling.” He kisses my forehead; holding his lips on the spot between my eyebrows.

“Feeling? I’ve felt for a long time.”

“But bad feelings. You’re dealing with them; that’s good. I’m surprised you didn’t have a total meltdown.” Guy strokes my cheek.

“Being carried back to shore by you wasn’t a total meltdown? You have no idea how embarrassed I am by that.”

“Not really. I’ve seen you worse.” He looks ahead as he pushes the keys into the ignition.

“I think you like rescuing me,” I say.

“Rescuing you? No, you’re rescuing yourself. I’m just watching.”

“And you. Who’s rescuing you?”

“I don’t need rescuing.”

“I haven’t forgotten what you told me a few weeks ago, Guy. You need help with your fears, too.”

“I’m not scared of anything apart from hurting you.” He doesn’t look at me, glancing over his shoulder as he reverses. “We should have lunch. Celebrate what you just did because you’re bloody awesome.”

As we drive away, my panic recedes the further we move from the beach. I don’t believe him – about his fears or about my supposed awesomeness.

Chapter Twenty-One

#10 Fall In Love

My body aches after dealing with the panic and I’m tired, I want to go home and hide; but instead, we head back to Guy’s place.

I like Guy’s house – who wouldn’t want this level of luxury – but there’s an air of sterility to the place. The living areas don’t look lived in, everywhere neat and clean. I’m keen on a tidy house; but sharing a place means no possibility of having a home exactly as I’d like, so I don’t worry.

“Want to watch some movies this evening?” he asks as he pours himself some water. “Or go out somewhere?”

“How about more planning?” I ask. “Something to take my mind off this morning’s disaster.”

Guy breaks into a huge grin. “Awesome! Wait until you see what I have.”

He disappears and returns with a manila folder. We sit side by side at the counter and Guy pulls out pictures of places he wants to visit. Gradually, he draws me away from the incident on the beach as I look at pictures of London and English landmarks. Perhaps, now it’s time to focus on items outside of the ocean-surrounded country I live in.

I scrawl notes as he flicks through printed research he’s completed on hotels and flights, items highlighted in fluorescent colours. “This is thorough, Guy!”

“Truthfully, I’ve planned this for years. I have folders full of plans starting from when I was a teen.”

“You should’ve done the backpacking thing – Aussie rite of passage, work in a bar in London.”

He flicks through the pictures. “I considered going, but there wasn’t anybody to take with me.”

“I’m sure you’re the sort of person who could meet up and make friends pretty easily.”

“Sometimes.” He spreads photos of green English landscapes and contrasting cityscapes of grey buildings across the counter. “England would be best in the summer.”

“I agree.”

He side glances me. “I was waiting for the right person to go with.”

“And going is on your bucket list,” I remind him.

“Yeah, and that.” He hops down from the stool and returns with a packet of chips. “I’ve noticed something strange, Phe.”

“Stranger than us?” I take a chip and bite in half.

“About our lists. I was thinking about this again the other day. We can complete nearly all of the items in Australia.”

“Because we live in an awesome country?” I reach for another chip.

“Do you think we’re avoiding the rest of the world?”

“I just thought your list was deliberately local. I was surprised to see you’re going overseas.”

“Why?”

“The planning and... the time you have left.”

“Oh, right.” He rubs his head. “But you have no excuse. There must be other countries you want to visit.”

“There are.”

“Then why aren’t they on your list?”

“I don’t know. I guess I could do those later.”

Guy stiffens and for a few minutes falls silent. “So yours isn’t really a bucket list, is it?”

“Yes!”

He shuffles the papers into a pile and pushes them back into the folder. “Did you write a list you thought we could do together and leave some items off that you want to do?”

“No. I’m just not brave enough to go far I guess.” I sigh. “Don’t start analysing things again, Guy. One minute you’re teaching me to live in the moment and the next you’re pulling things apart.”

“Do you think we should change our lists?” he asks.

“Change them? You mean add things?”

“Put something challenging on the list, impossible to complete.” The old intense Guy is back, a swing away from the carefree surfer at the beach. Strange that I’m more attracted to this Guy; that the energy he radiates at this time pulls me closer. I recognise the deep thoughts in his eyes, the emotion he submerges pushing upward. He’s more of myself at times like this, and I consciously have to pull away.

“I think you’ll find you have that on your list already, ghost hunting.”

Guy raises a brow. “Don’t you believe in an after-life, Ophelia?”

“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“They haunt your dreams though, don’t they?” He reaches across the counter and touches my hand.

I swallow hard. “No. They don’t.”

“They do. I’ve heard you in your sleep.”

No.
The nightmares live inside me; nobody hears and makes them reality. “Sorry if I woke you.”

“I tried to wake you, but couldn’t. You wouldn’t let me hold you either.” He pulls my hand to his lips and kisses me gently. “I wanted to wake you, tell you everything was okay.”

“Thank you for caring.”

“Of course I care. I worry though. I don’t want you to be sick again.”

I hop down from the stool and go to him, smooth his hair. “I’m fine. Better. Not the girl on the rocks.”

The concern doesn’t leave his furrowed brow. “But she hasn’t disappeared completely. You have her under control, that’s all. I don’t want to be responsible for bringing her back again.”

“You do the opposite, you know that,” I whisper.

“I hope so. It was insensitive of me to think I could push you into overcoming your fears. Arrogant even.” He slides an arm around my waist and holds me closer.

“Your mad yoga skills will help me recover,” I say and wrap my arms around his neck. “Kiss me. I don’t want to talk about this.”

He does, slowly and tenderly, and then buries his face in my neck. Does he have the same fear for my future as I do?

“I think we need one impossible thing on our lists, that way we’ll never finish them,” he says and tightens his grip on my waist.

“Do you want to talk about what’s happening to you?” I whisper into his hair.

“No. I can’t.”

“You never do, Guy. Sometimes I think talking might help you face what’s happening. How are you right now?”

“You don’t want to talk about you. I don’t want to talk about me.”

I move Guy’s head, wishing I could dig my fingers inside and pull out what’s killing him, and then hold his face so he has to look at me. “Just promise me you will if you need to. You can talk to me about anything. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

Guy switches to what he does every time we touch on the subject of his death: he kisses me. The pattern has become predictable, as he pulls us from the edge and into life through the force of his passion. I can gauge the depth of his need to escape by whether his touch is rough and his lust uncontrolled, or whether he gently makes love to me. Either way, we push away the future threatening us and keep our heads above the water.

Guy lifts me onto the kitchen bench and presses himself between my thighs, hands wrapped in my hair as his mouth bruises mine. Desperate to join his attempt to throw us away from the direction our conversation headed, I grip his hips with my legs and match his intensity.

Sometimes when Guy’s hands are on me, his skin against mine, I want to cry. Not because one day he’ll never touch me again, but because he stirs in me something new. Guy’s touch and kiss delves to the heart of who I am and frees the emotions I’ve hidden for years. We’ve spent days and nights exploring each other’s bodies, in denial that with each moment we’re together, we become more than lovers.

Guy rests his hands around my waist, holding me in place. His fingers bite into my skin, but I don’t care, barely notice. Only when he stops kissing me do I realise my lips are swollen from the fierce passion of the last few minutes.

Guy drags a thumb across my mouth. The hidden is unguarded for a moment as our eyes meet in understanding.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I love you, Phe,” he says, pushing damp hair from my face.

His admission knocks down the foundations of the lies we’ve lived out, and the tears I promised I wouldn’t cry over him sting my eyes. “I knew this couldn’t stay simple.”

The eyes searching mine aren’t filled with tenderness but with confusion. “Why do I love you?” he asks, wiping my face with both hands. “Why did we do that?”

“I think sometimes love creeps up on you however hard you try and hide,” I whisper and pull him closer. “I love –”

“No! Don’t say it!” Guy’s eyes widen in alarm.

“Why? I’m telling the truth. Look at us. Think about us.” Our bodies remain joined in a way that feels so natural my heart hurts. Even though our skin touches, I’m aware of nothing but the strange energy that surrounds us when we’re together.

“I know and I never thought I’d meet somebody like you. I never thought I’d fall in love. I didn’t think it was possible.”

Again, the words should be affectionate; but he’s unhappy, as he grips me against him.

“Guy, can’t we live in our moment as usual?” I whisper.

Guy moves his head and gently places kisses across my face, the warmth returning. “I’m okay to love you but please, don’t love me,” he murmurs.

He’s not allowed to avoid this, to be in this on his own. “Too late. I love you. Who you are and how you make me feel. Now. Here. In this moment.”

I gaze back into the dark blue water of his eyes, watch as the sadness lifts, and he relaxes. “I guess we fell under together,” he says.

“I guess we did.”

“Come here.” Guy pulls me to him and I settle against his chest; his heart thuds against my ear. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For whatever happens next.”

“Us. We’re what happens next,” I whisper and hold him tighter.

The words are spoken, a line crossed greater than the one we stepped over when our relationship became sexual. This changes everything – and nothing because we’ve been in this place for months.