Page 5 of Hot Island Nights

I haven’t felt this way in ages and it confounds me that this tiny woman with the lost, angry look in her chilly gray gaze is the one that brings it back to me. I barely know her but yet it feels like I know her too well.

I tug at her, yanking her a little off-balance. “Come on! Let’s go watch the ceremony. I bet you love it.”

Her guarded eyes watch me for a moment and she looks like she’s gonna say no. I can almost see the words forming on her pretty pink lips.

Instead she nods and reaches for her towel and cover-up on the sand. Most women around here wear a sarong or a wrap around their hips. She tugs a black dress that has tank top sleeves but otherwise covers her from her shoulders all the way down to her dainty toes.

When she’s got her things gathered up, I try to grab her hand again but she walks ahead of me, her eyes locked on the figure climbing the rocks, fire lighting their path.

We reach a good viewing spot and it seems like the crowd holds their breath as the glowing orange sun hits the water, tendrils of fire licking in the azure blue depths of the ocean, lighting it into a flaming beacon, trailing out to capture all of us in its warmth and glow. Behind it, dark navy and deep black follow the blazing glory around us.

The figure high above us seems to take a deep breath along with the collected figures around us and then the slim, muscular body leaps off the rocks and everyone gasps, eyes locked on that lone figure, enraptured by the symbiotic feel of this moment. This moment where we all belong together, we all feel the awe of the past, present and future ceasing to exist as separate entities. It’s all part of this one, amazing moment.

And then his body carves into the water and the little splash hits us and the tourists around us gasp and clap.

The sun sinks below the horizon and the night moves forward to swallow all the warmth of the sun’s rays.

“That was amazing,” she whispers. “Really beautiful.”

I keep my eyes on the wild curls drying in the warm air and flying in the breeze, the soft curves of her lush body mouthwateringly visible where the fabric is pushed against her figure. The pain from earlier is a little hazy in the creeping light and her slim shoulders that were so high and tight have relaxed. She’s the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen on this island.

“Yeah….beautiful,” I whisper, my eyes never leaving her delicate face.

CHAPTER 5

Sarah

Waking in the morning to the sounds of horns honking, barely on the same level as the quietest street around my little house confuses me. My stomach sinks when I sit up and pull my legs in, curving my arms around my knees and resting my cheek on them. I don’t want my home. Don’t want the feeling that I get every time I walk in that door and see that I haven’t gone through his clothes yet, haven’t thrown out the things that neither of us need anymore. The little notes that he used to leave me. Usually lists of what I needed to get done for the day. The bedding that he bought for our bed because he didn’t like the one that I bought. All the bad things that he deliberately used to push and prod at me to prove that my decisions were bad, to prove that I needed him, that I couldn’t make good decisions without him.

That I was worth less than him. That’s how it always was. Sarah, come on. Why didn’t you ask me before you bought this new computer for work? This one has horrible reviews. I know I would have picked something out that would work better for you.

Aqua for a bedroom? And this quilt has such cheap fabric. What were you thinking?

And on and on and on. Every single day in so many different ways. Little cutting digs at how much I didn’t know. How I couldn’t learn things as quickly as him. How I was useless at cooking. So many complaints. So many little cutting digs at who I was, all the way down to the very heart of me. Until it felt like every second of the day was a waiting game for when he would change from the charming man I married and start nitpicking. He was like Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.

I loved him desperately though, even though in some ways he broke something inside me. His death was overwhelming, almost crippling. All of a sudden, I had no one telling me what to do or how to do it. I couldn’t function anymore.

Tears crowd my eyes and I lean over, trails of wetness dripping down onto the bedspread. It hurts to breathe, to remember. But it isn’t all because of what we had, a lot of it is that I kept waiting for things to go back to how they were when we got married. When he died…that hope was gone. It was just…over.

Part of me had already been lost. I remember the way he used to make me feel when I first met him. He was so handsome and strong. He didn’t question my decisions constantly. He seemed happy with me.

I was happy. I thought we were meant to be. I thought we were perfect for each other. I wasn’t as confident as him. It seemed like he gave me space to spread my wings but he gave me a safe place to land and not feel out of control. It didn’t take long after we were married before the adrenaline junkie in him took over and because I wasn’t interested in things like that, I was somehow less.

Unlike the women that I know he was with on the side.

I close my eyes and suck in a sharp breath. I don’t love my husband anymore. I don’t worship him like I did when we first met. But the damage he did to my self-worth seems insurmountable.

I drag myself out of the bed that looks like a wild night happened in it and stand straight and tall, stretching my arms over my head.

As soon as I pull out my long, dark dress, I feel the sudden urge to pitch it aside and wear something else. Anything else.

My hand flutters over a pair of old jean shorts that I haven’t worn in ages.

“You probably won’t fit in them anymore. Might as well not even try.”

I push them aside and instead grab a lighter color dress even though it’s still practically ankle-length. The pale blue color makes me think of Leon’s eyes and I stop, my heart seizing in my chest. What am I thinking? I don’t know this man. I’m not in the market for a man. I don’t think I’ll ever trust another person again. Especially a man.

I pull the dress over my head and then as if to banish any wayward thoughts of men and love or lust or anything good, I yank at my curls and scrape them back on the sides and back.

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