Page 21 of Marlin's Faith

Eventually, he pulled along a lonely lane and rolled us gently to a stop, putting down the kickstand and leaning the heavy bike onto it.

I had no idea where we were, but it didn’t matter, because deep down inside, I knew I was safe. I was always safe with Marlin.

11

Marlin…

I was stiff in more ways than one, and I needed to get up and walk it off. I needed a break from the beach every now and again, and so I came out here to some of these farm access roads near the ‘Glades and some of the orange orchards for a change of pace.

I looked back over my shoulder at Faith’s too-pale face in the moonlight and put a damper on the sigh that tried to escape me as I shut off the bike so she could hear me. She woodenly pulled back her arms from around my waist and the stiffness I mentioned before? Yeah, it damn near became unbearable.

“Sorry, Baby Girl, I just ain’t what I used to be. I’m stiffening up from earlier and I need to walk. I should have said something before pullin’ off in what looks like the middle of fuckin’ nowhere.”

“Isn’t it?” she asked.

“Isn’t what?”

She gestured around us, “The middle of nowhere.”

“Naw, my buddy growin’ up all through school, this ishisfarm.” I smiled reassuringly and heaved myself to my feet, helping her down off my bike.

“You’re safe with me, Faith. You ain’t ever gotta wonder, or question that,” I said and popped the helmet off her head.

“I should know that,” she murmured and I could hear the frustration in her voice, “Idoknow that, it’s just…”

I plucked the safety glasses off her face and tried not to think too hard about how soft her skin was where my fingertips grazed.

“You’re good, I get it. I figure after as long,” I didn’t want to say it out loud, so I just skipped over it, “…anybody bein’ around that would be the same. You just do you, Baby Girl. You just do you.”

She nodded and hugged herself tight, even though it was as far from cold as you could get out here. I figured I should warn her I was gonna pull a blanket out for us to sit on, so I did.

“Got a blanket to lay down to sit on, I figured we could walk out a ways and lay it out on one of the tracks. Good night for some stargazing, and it’ll give me a chance to loosen up some for the ride back to the Captain’s. You good with that?”

She nodded carefully and was bein’ so fuckin’ brave. She didn’t remember half the shit she went through during the worst of the withdrawals. I know she didn’t, so while bein’ around her was familiar for me, bein’ around me must have still felt pretty new, and me bein’ a dude besides? I’m surprised she wasn’t begging me to take her back right this minute, which I would have if she’d asked.

She tucked herself as close to my side as she was comfortable with, as I set out walkin’ down one of the side tracks along the neat row of orange trees. I’d done some growin’ up around these groves myself. Wasn’t until our mid-teens that my folks moved us out closer to the water, when Dad was closer to retirement. I found myself telling Faith all about it, as much to fill the silence as to startle any wildlife into getting the fuck outa dodge while we were there.

Faith listened, surprising enough. She’d put her headphones away and walked, shoulder mere inches from my arm. I laid out the blanket over the dirt and sat down, laying back. It was a big thing, and I was surprised Faith lay out next to me. A healthy distance between us, studiously not touching, which who could blame her?

“What about you?”

She startled a little bit and replied softly, “What about me?”

“How’d you grow up?”

“With Hope. After our mother died, it was all Hope and our grandmother,” she sighed, “I was nothing but a pain in the ass,” she said and I could hear the weight of sorrow, almost taste the regret on the air.

I stared at the star scatter above us as the silence back filled in, like when you dug a sandcastle on the beach, and you watched the sand trickle back down and the water filled the hole, steadily… it was a lot like that. She lay beside me in silent reflection, and when I glanced over, tears slicked from those luminous eyes of hers down her temples.

“Hey,” I said softly, but she just closed her eyes and covered her mouth with her hand.

“Hey, hey, hey; none of that, come on now.” I couldn’t help it, my arm snaked out and surprisingly, she rolled, and tucked herself into my side, taking the comfort that was on offer. The weight of her head on my shoulder felt incredibly good, and the way the slight curve of her body fit against mine? Well, it felt like two puzzle pieces coming together.

I knew right then and there, that it might be impossible in the here and now, but that I would be keeping my options open for the future. It might be a long fuckin’ haul, but someday, when Faith was as close to whole again as we could get her, I wanted to visit the possibility of an ‘us.’

It wasn’t just the attraction, it was more than that. I think, on a deep, fundamental level, she understood the kind of guilt I carried over Danny. She felt something akin to it, even though there was no reason for it. We’d all exhibited a wild streak in our younger days to some extent. There wasn’t anything unusual about that. We’d all, at one time or another, done some stupid shit to hurt or disappoint the ones closest to us. It was a fact of life. It was part of the learning curve, but in that moment, it snapped together and became clear, one of Faith’s issues.

“Wasn’t your fault, Baby Girl; none of it was your fault,” I soothed and knew it was inadequate. That as much as I could, and would say it, she couldn’t and wouldn’t believe me. Not with her trust shattered into a million pieces so fine, that they were blowing away like sand up a beach. All I could so was lay there and comfort her with what amounted to nothing more than a bunch of meaningless bullshit.

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