Break My Fall (No Limits)

by Cameron, J. T.

  Just by chance, Charleston was where I stopped driving that first night, and the next day I explored the area, loved it, and decided it was as good a fit as I’d probably find anywhere on the East Coast.

  I didn’t know a soul in the area and that made it an even more ideal choice. By the end of the week, I had landed a job working in a surf shop and I’d found a place to live.

  Isle of Palms is a barrier island just a few miles away from downtown Charleston. I’m not a city girl, I’m a beach girl, so I knew I wasn’t going to live downtown, and I also wanted to be able to walk or bike to work when I felt like it, so living close to the surf shop was ideal.

  I found the carriage house rental on the local Post & Courier newspaper website. An older couple lived in the main house. They’d been there for close to fifty years and only recently had the room over the detached garage in the backyard converted into a modestly furnished studio apartment, complete with its own bathroom and kitchenette, and maybe most importantly, air-conditioning—perfect for what I needed. Also perfect was the price, a mere five-hundred dollars per month, with all utilities included. I gave them the first month’s rent and moved my stuff in that evening.

  Within two weeks of arriving in the Charleston area, I had a pretty good start on rebooting my life.

  The first time I saw Drew, I was finishing up a morning of surfing before going to work. I had gone out early in the morning, around eight, and the water was calmer than I’d hoped so there weren’t many good waves to catch and I eventually decided my attempts were in vain so instead I paddled around on the board for a while, enjoying the ocean another way.

  When it was time to head home, I decided to stop by the public restroom building at the beach entrance where they had several outdoor shower heads for rinsing off.

  My eyes were closed as I let the cool water wash over me, taking with it the salt and sand from my hair. That’s when I heard his voice for the first time.

  “Mornings are bad for surfing.”

  I tilted my head back and let the water clear my face so I could see again. He was sitting on the short concrete barrier that separated the walkway from the restroom and shower area. He was wearing shorts, sunglasses and a baseball cap on backwards. He held a soccer ball at his side, under his forearm. He was shirtless, and I saw a tattoo on his bicep. It was a Celtic knot.

  I wrung my hair out. “Thanks for the tip.”

  “Water’s too calm.” He looked from me, out to the ocean. “And, you know, this is when sharks feed.”

  “I think that’s mostly at dusk.”

  “Dusk and early morning. Not that you don’t know what you’re doing. You look like a girl who’s been around the beach her whole life.”

  He looked like he could be a surfer, maybe not, maybe just a guy who likes the sand and the ocean. Either way, he had the “beachy” look. The curly ends of his sandy blond hair had been lightened by the sun. His skin was a smooth bronze tan, with a light dusting of fine blond hair on his arms, legs and chest that caught and reflected the sun’s rays. And despite the fact that he was sitting, I could tell he was tall, maybe an inch over six feet.

  He was right about my being around the beach my whole life, but that was none of his business, so I deflected the conversation. “Do you surf?”

  “Nope. Want to teach me?” He dropped the soccer ball, kicking it back up with the side of his foot, then started juggling it with both of his feet, never letting it hit the ground.

  “I don’t give lessons. And I’m not that good, anyway.”

  He grinned, then gave me a line: “You looked pretty good from what I saw. Where are you from?”

  I wasn’t going to let him persist at digging into my past, so I told him I was in a hurry and that I needed to get going.

  As I gathered up my towel and board and started to walk away, he said, “What’s your name?”

  But by this time, I had already put my earbuds in. I hadn’t turned on the music yet, but he didn’t know that, so I was able to ignore his question as I made my way off the beach and headed home.

  A few weeks later, I was lying out on the beach when I felt some sand hitting my leg, followed by heavy breathing and some kind of snorting sound. I looked down near my legs where the sand had hit me, and saw a blue racquetball. A second later, a large brown dog swooped in and picked the ball up in his floppy jowls.

  “Sorry,” the voice said from behind me, and when I turned to look, there he was again.

  “Sorry? As in you’re sorry your dog threw the ball right to where my towel is?”

  “He’s pretty athletic, but he can’t throw a ball. Yet. Maybe I’ll start on that next week.” Then, in a stern voice: “Cliff, get back here.”

  Cliff, the chocolate lab, had been running down the beach, probably looking for someone else to terrorize, but he came back when called, sitting right next to his master.

  “You didn’t tell me your name last time.”

  Because I didn’t want to, I thought, but instead I said, “You didn’t tell me yours, either,” and it turned out not to be such a great retort because it allowed him to force an answer out of me.

  “I’m Drew.”

  “Leah,” I said, the reluctance in my tone obvious.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  He took the ball out of Cliff’s mouth and threw it toward the water. Cliff was so fast, he was almost there before the ball landed. He scooped it up and pranced around proudly in the inch-deep surf. It looked like he was showing off for the people who were walking by, and it occurred to me that he’d probably picked up some of that confidence from his owner.

  As Cliff ran around, Drew stayed next to me. “You’re new in town, I take it?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  He sat down in the sand. “I have an innate ability to spot people who haven’t been here very long.” He smiled, looking pleased with himself. “Do you like it here?”

  “What are you, the Welcome Wagon?”

  He let out a soft laugh, then shot back quickly. “You don’t have a reason not to be nice to me.”

  He was right, but I still felt the burn of what Kevin had done to me, and trusting people would take a long time. I still worried when people showed an interest in me. Especially guys. For all I knew, they recognized me, knew who I was and what had happened, and their interest in me was solely based on that. Some might call me paranoid. I don’t care. This was my life, these were my feelings, and I’d feel as I damn well pleased. I owed that much to myself.

  Still, I knew I could tone down the unapproachable bitchy attitude a bit. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, shaking his head and giving me a genuine smile.

  I looked away from him, out to the ocean. A huge container ship was making its way toward the harbor, a blight on an otherwise perfect seascape. “I’m just here for the summer. What about you?” I looked back at him.

  Drew’s eyes scanned the beach for his dog. “Dammit,” he said. He shot up, said, “Sorry,” and took off running down toward the pier, where Cliff had just sprinted after another dog.

  I took that opportunity to wrap everything up in my towel and leave.

  The next time I saw him was in the surf shop. Rebecca and I were working that day when he came in. It was early July, several weeks after the beach encounter, and about ten days before Tropical Storm Andrea approached.

  Rebecca and I were already work-friends, and we had hung out a few times, and one night I told her about this guy.

  She encouraged me to talk to Drew, see what he was all about, maybe go out with him if he asked, and all of that was before I told her how cute he was. Once she heard that, she turned up the encouragement a notch or two.

  I did all I could to discourage her, short of telling her why I had absolutely no interest in dating anyone at the moment. I hadn’t told a soul here about my recent past. When I got the job at the surf shop, my cover story was that I’d been through a bad breakup and I also
wanted some new and fresh surroundings for my last summer of college. A new beach, new town to explore if I felt like it, and most of all a new place to surf. No one at the shop questioned that desire.

  When Drew walked into the store that day, Rebecca knew immediately that something was up just by the way I reacted.

  “What?”

  I tilted my head in Drew’s direction, and looked out of the corner of my eye. He had his back to us, facing a wall of t-shirts. I whispered, “That’s Drew.” I turned around so he couldn’t see my face if he happened to look in our direction.

  I watched Rebecca’s expression as she eyed him, and when I saw her eyes grow larger, I figured he must have moved and she caught sight of his face. Her reaction, along with her uttering the words, “Oh shit,” confirmed that she had indeed seen him and she thought he was hot—something she’d asked about several times and I’d downplayed it.

  “Leah.”

  I heard his voice behind me and I turned around. “Hey.”

  He took a few steps toward the counter. “I didn’t know you work here.”

  “Yep. Couple of months now.”

  He moved his sunglasses to the top of his head. “Well, I never come in here.”

  “You don’t surf?” Rebecca asked him.

  “No. But I’m thinking about trying it out.” He looked from her to me. “You want to help me pick out a board?”

  Rebecca’s phone rang. She answered it, saying, “Hey, baby,” and went outside.

  It was a slow morning, and that left only Drew and me in the store.

  I showed him some of my favorite boards and as we looked at them, he asked me why I had left the beach that day.

  I felt my face blush with guilt. “I wasn’t sure you were coming back.”

  “I said, ‘Be right back’.”

  “Actually, you didn’t.” It was true. He hadn’t. But his insistence that he had left me with the upper hand.

  “I didn’t?”

  “Nope.” I crossed my arms, striking a rather sanctimonious pose, then realizing I was overdoing it, I relaxed.

  “I’m not the type of guy to just walk away.”

  “Good to know.”

  He ended up getting the board I said was my favorite, and by the time we were at the register, Rebecca had come back in and taken a seat on one of the stools behind the counter, twirling a strand of her long brown hair around one finger. “Good choice. That’s a great board. Leah steered you in the right direction.”

  Drew put his wallet back in his pocket. “Now I just need her to give me some lessons.”

  “Surfing or…” Rebecca teased.

  I shot her a glance. She looked away from me.

  Drew didn’t even crack a smile. “Yeah, surfing. I’ve never done it and it’s on my bucket list.”

  I handed him the receipt and shook my head. “Sorry, I don’t give lessons.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll see you out there one day again. I’ll watch and learn.” He grabbed the board, which reached from the floor all the way to a couple of feet above his head. “Can I have a bag for this?”

  I laughed.

  Rebecca did, too. “You know, I’ve worked here for two years and no one has said that. That’s pretty damn funny.”

  He kept a straight face. “I’m serious.”

  I just looked at him, then at Rebecca, who said, “Well, we don’t—”

  “I’m kidding.” He smiled at me. “See you out there.” He grabbed his new board and left the store.

  When he was gone, Rebecca slid off the stool and stood by me as we watched him walk down the sidewalk. “He’s funny.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And hot, so that’s good.”

  I moved out onto the sales floor so I could get the number of the board I’d just sold him and replace it with one from the back room.

  That was all we said about him the rest of the day. Business picked up, and I didn’t want to talk about him anyway. I was conflicted about him—most of it stemming from my recent past, but some of it definitely the result of his persistence.

  That was the last time I had seen him until he bailed me out of jail during the storm and I found myself sitting across from him in a beachside bar eating grouper tacos.

  Chapter Three

  The restaurant was still open, and the girl behind the bar said they were going to stay open as long as the power stayed on or unless they got flooded out. I left my board by the front door.

  The place was a typical beachside restaurant, with creaky wood floors and walls decorated with hanging nets, a mixture of dramatic seascape pictures along with sleepy beach scenes, and the obligatory plastic replicas of oversized crabs and fish.

  A couple of the tables were occupied, but business was predictably slow on a day like this. We sat at a booth near the bar—they wouldn’t seat us near a window because of the frequent strong gusts—so the only view I’d be enjoying was Drew sitting across from me.

  He took off his soaked hat and put it next to him on the seat.

  After the waitress took our order, Drew broke the ice. “Some storm, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “I hear it’s supposed to be gone by tomorrow and we’re supposed to have a nice, clear day.”

  I looked at him as I nervously fiddled with the silverware that was still wrapped in the paper napkin.

  He grinned. “Hey, Leah, I’m just kidding. I didn’t bring you here to talk about the weather.”

  I was grateful to hear that, because it was beginning to shape up to be the most boring lunch I’d ever had.

  The waitress brought our glasses of sweet tea to the table and said the fish tacos would be out shortly.

  Drew thanked her and then turned his attention back to me. “How come you’re so isolated?”

  “Isolated? I’m not isolated.”

  “You don’t like letting people get too close to you.”

  I sipped my tea. “That’s true, but it doesn’t mean I’m isolated. I have friends. You met one of my friends that day in the shop.”

  He guzzled the tea, nearly finishing it off. “I remember. But she’s a she. Maybe you’re just isolated from guys.”

  I didn’t waste a second firing back. “Why are you so nosey?”

  He leaned back in the seat. “Sorry, you’re right. I’m asking too many questions and you don’t even know anything about me. Ladies first. Ask away.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five. Why?”

  “It’s just a basic question.”

  He rattled the ice around in his empty glass. “And you?”

  “I thought I’m the one asking questions. But, for the record, I’m twenty.” I watched for a reaction, but he didn’t give me one, so I proceeded. “Why me?”

  “Why what?”

  I gave him a sideways glance, as if to say, You know what I’m talking about, without having to say the actual words.

  Just then the waitress brought our food, refilled Drew’s tea, topped mine off and told us to wave her over if we needed anything.

  I watched Drew chew for a moment, wondering if he was always this brazen, confident, loose.

  I tore my gaze away from him. I took my first bite and discovered he was right about how good they were.

  “What do you think?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the napkin.

  “I think you did a good job avoiding my question a few minutes ago.”

  He sipped his ice tea, then set the glass down perfectly on the ring of moisture it had left on the table as he reached for a taco. “You’re right. That was rude of me. But these tacos—”

  “Right, the tacos, they’re great. I get it. Why are you so interested in me, Drew?” I thought maybe adding his name to the question, along with some intense eye contact, would add a little seriousness and formality to it, forcing him to answer me.

  “You interest me.” The way he looked at me when he said it, it was almost as though the gaze of his blue-gray eyes bore a hole right through
my head. I had to look away, so I shifted my eyes over his right shoulder, looking at the window, which by now was covered in a sheet of water and I couldn’t see beyond that.

  There was silence between us. It was as though he wasn’t going to elaborate unless I asked him to. “You’re waiting for me to ask why I interest you, right?”

  The left corner of his mouth arched up a little, the beginning of a smile that conveyed very clearly the fact that he was pleased that I wanted to know more. He took a quick sip of his tea, then let his tongue graze his upper lip before he spoke. “There’s something about you that reminds me of myself.”

  Okay, that was a weird start to the explanation. It sounded like something an older person would say to a young person before imparting some kind wisdom about life. Drew was only twenty-five, so I was quite sure he wasn’t in possession of any advice I couldn’t live without.

  He left the sentence hanging there, so I said, “And what might that be?”

  Drew’s facial expression became serious. “I went through a period of withdrawal, too.”

  “What makes you think I’m withdrawing?” I asked, with more than a little note of irritation in my voice.

  “Hear me out, then you can object all you want.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, unsure whether I really wanted to hear what he was about to say. “Okay.” I took another bite, surprised at how much I liked this lunch.

  As the rain picked up outside, so did the gusts. Drops of water battered the windows, sounding more like gravel, and a low hum filled the room as the wind whipped around the building.

  I tuned all of that out, though, as Drew spoke. What he said next came out in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he were telling me he’d just bought a new toaster. “I was in a plane crash three years ago.”

  “Oh my God.” As soon as I said it, I regretted letting the words escape from my mouth, and I just barely prevented some of the food from flying out, too.

  Despite the serious look on his face, there was still a part of me—that damaged trust part—that wondered if he might be bullshitting me. Again, the lingering distrust I had for virtually all members of the male contingent of our species.