In the Wind

by Lilliana Anderson

  My breathing changed, and I began to lose focus, my legs shaking as if I was about to fall over. I even let out a slight moan as this warmth tingled all over my body, and I grabbed onto her for support.

  I didn’t want her to stop.

  “Let go,” she whispered in my ear, and I did. My body jerked as my centre seemed to explode and send ripples of pleasure coursing through my body as she continued to hold her hand between my legs. “That’s the way.” She brushed the hair back from my face, speaking to me gently as if she were my mother as small prickles of electricity seemed to run rampant through my body.

  All at once, my senses seemed to return from me. I stepped back, holding my arm out to keep her away while the other still clutched at the robe. “What are you trying to do to me? I’m not a…I…” I had to blink rapidly to fight my tears. It all made no sense to me. This wasn’t what I was… I really had to fight to stop myself from getting hysterical. “I’m in love with Zeke. Not you.”

  Smiling, she clasped her hands in front of her and looked at me as though she thought I was adorable. “I know that, Dawn. Consider what just happened a…an experiment; a bit of fun between friends. See it as me opening your mind.”

  “I don’t want you to do that again,” I whispered, feeling so angry and hurt. I didn’t understand why she did that to me. I didn’t understand what it meant that I reacted the way I did. I didn’t understand…

  Shea nodded, still smiling. “Very well, Dawn.”

  “I think you should leave.” My eyes were burning. My lungs were aching. All over, I felt…wrong. That wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

  Looking amused, she again nodded then began to walk out of my room. “Oh, and Dawn?”

  “What?” I snapped, becoming agitated over this entire encounter. She had no right, and I was furious with myself for just standing there and…and letting her. I needed her to go.

  “Your nipple is showing.”

  With an embarrassed gasp, I pulled up my robe to properly cover my breasts, a tear snaking out of my eye. “Just get out,” I cried.

  She laughed, and in that moment I never wanted to see her again. “I’ll see you through the window.”

  Then she was gone. I burst into tears. I’d never felt more lonely.

  11

  “I really think you should consider doing this with me,” Zeke said as he opened pamphlets about the hang gliding course he wanted to take and laid them out on the table between us.

  Being a Saturday night, The Palms was packed and Luke had three extra staff members on to cope with the orders coming in from the bistro. A girl who was a couple of years above us at school brought out our three meat and sundried tomato pizza and set it on the table between us.

  All the while, I was sitting there fidgeting, wondering if he’d somehow know what happened between Shea and me today. After she left, I did everything I could to put the event out of my mind, but it was all I could think about. I didn’t understand what it meant. I should have stayed home, being out in public and having Zeke – the person who knew me best in this world – sitting right across from me, I felt exposed. I felt as if everyone was looking at me differently.

  Or maybe it was me looking at them…

  I stared up at our server and she frowned. “Anything else?” she asked.

  Did she know? Could she tell? Did I look different?

  “We’re fine.” Zeke dismissed her and continued his pros and more pros list as to why hang gliding was a great choice.

  The girl eyed me curiously as she took our table number, and feeling paranoid, I followed her with my eyes as she went back to the kitchen and said something to one of the other servers.

  Were they talking about me?

  I watched as she collected the order for another table and left the bar area without another glance at me. It was then that I caught Luke looking over from behind the bar where he was busily making drinks for the constant stream of patrons.

  Nervously, I smiled at him, and he smiled in return. Something about that tiny interaction relaxed me. Perhaps I was being paranoid. Why would anyone know anything? I was being ridiculous.

  “Are you listening?”

  Folding my arms in front of me, I turned my attention back to the pamphlet as I pulled at the gold necklace that sat against my chest and moved the small gem back and forth, my fingers brushing lightly against my skin. “Of course I was listening, I just…”

  Glancing up at me, his eyes dropped momentarily to what I was doing with my hands and widened. I stopped immediately and placed both hands on the glass table to still them.

  “I really don’t want to learn hang gliding, Zeke. I’m sorry.”

  Clearing his throat, he glanced at my necklace again then used his long finger to point at one of the pictures. He was talking about how amazing the view would be from up there, but honestly, all I could think about was what those long fingers would feel like if he were to touch me intimately with them. The way Shea had…

  Would it feel the same? Better? Different?

  As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Shea’s visit had awoken something inside me – a curiosity of sorts that meant my mind kept drifting to consider exactly what it would be like have actual sex. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and my body seemed to ache every time I did. To my shame, I’d touched myself as well. I needed to see if my body would do it again. It did. And just thinking about it made me blush. I didn’t know what it all meant. I was losing my mind. I was losing control.

  “Are you all right?” Zeke asked, his brow creasing as he looked at me with those eyes. Oh god, I loved his eyes. I wanted him to touch me and pin me down with those eyes of his. I…

  I inhaled sharply, forcing the images out of my mind. What the hell was going on? I was never like this. “What?”

  “Fine. If it’s that boring, I’ll put this stuff away.” Zeke moved the pamphlets to the side, but I quickly clapped my hand over his to stop him. “No. I want to hear about it. Maybe…can’t we just do the tandem option or something?”

  His eyes met mine, peeking through that long fringe of his with a hint of surprise in them. At first I thought it was because I’d actually agreed to compromise on this whole hang gliding thing, then I realised it was because I was still holding his hand, and I’d said ‘tandem’ – was that considered sexual?

  I released him immediately, my cheeks heating all over again. I was seriously becoming the queen of embarrassment. This summer would be remembered as the summer I died from self-generated heat stroke. I needed to start thinking before I acted, before I spoke. I was normally more careful.

  “Well, that was awkward.” I laughed it off and tried not to feel hurt when he pulled his hand from the table, taking the pamphlets with him and hiding them all in his lap. “How about another drink?” I suggested to change the subject.

  “Sure,” he said, his voice squeaking slightly before he cleared his throat. “I’ll wait here though. Do you mind?” He adjusted the pamphlets on his lap again and looked away from me. While I winced inwardly, feeling as though I was fucking up yet another moment with Zeke by my constant fantasising over being more than just friends. I needed to stop.

  Pressing my lips together in a smile, I stood then headed to the bar, standing near where Luke was working.

  “What am I even doing?” I moaned, leaning on the bar and holding my head in my hands.

  “Have you two sorted everything out?” he asked, his eyes glancing at me quickly as he continued to serve other customers.

  I shrugged. “I think I’ve made him feel weird,” I admitted. “The consequence of drunken actions, I suppose.”

  “Alcohol tends to make people very honest. It’s why I tend not to drink.” The side of his mouth curled up in a way that made the light laugh lines around his eyes crinkle adorably.

  How is it that men got better looking as they aged?

  “Seriously? You don’t drink at all? What secrets are you hiding in that head of yours that yo
u’re afraid of letting out, Luke MacIntosh?”

  He finished with the other patrons then went straight to serving me, making our usual order up. “You’d be surprised, Dawn Tucker. There’s quite a lot going on in this old head of mine.”

  “You are so not old, Luke,” I said as I pulled a twenty out of my pocket and handed to him.

  “Compared to you I am,” he responded as he entered the drinks into the register.

  “Age is just a number.”

  “Let me know if you believe that in another eighteen years.” He gave me that same lopsided smile as he dropped my change in my hand then set three drinks on the counter in front of me – a Jack and Coke, a Bundy Draught and a vodka orange.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw that Shea was now sitting with Zeke laughing about something he said as she ate a slice of our pizza. My stomach started flipping flopping all over the place. Was she telling him what we did? Were they laughing at me? Oh god, I wasn’t ready to see her yet.

  I turned back to Luke. “Listen, is it OK we get these taken over to the table. I kind of need to use the ladies.”

  “Sure,” he said with a kind smile. Then he tapped the service bell behind the bar and yelled “Drinks up.”

  I slipped around the side of the bar and into the ladies room, grateful that there wasn’t a line inside, and I could go straight into a cubicle. I didn’t really need to go. I just needed some time to myself to think. Seeing Shea there had surprised me. After the whole awkward series of events that led to her, well…touching me the way she did, I kind of needed some time to get it straight in my head. That time would mean I wouldn’t allow her to convince me to do anything else I would consider stupid and regret later. I didn’t know what it was about her. She just seemed to get her way. Maybe she really was Mary Poppins and had a little magic in her, but instead of using it to bring families together, she used it to make virgins turn wanton.

  Rolling my eyes, I laughed quietly at my own thoughts, knowing she was nothing of the sort. I was the problem. I was the one who was like a deer in headlights whenever she was around. She was like this bright light I couldn’t look away from, even though it was burning my retinas. She fascinated me in the way she interacted with people and everyone just seemed happy she was there. I saw it in the way Zeke looked at her, and I saw it in the way she’d interacted with the Wannabes and the Sunshine Barbies at the bonfire. Everyone just accepted her – they wanted her. I didn’t understand how someone could fit in so easily with people I’d struggled with all my life.

  Perhaps I was jealous.

  Perhaps I wanted to be her.

  Perhaps I just wanted her.

  I didn’t know where my true motivation laid, but any of those thoughts were unsettling. I’d felt so sure of the person I was before she’d come to town, and since then, I kept questioning myself and seemed incapable of making my own decisions or standing my ground.

  Flushing the toilet, even though I didn’t use it, I emerged from the stall and set about washing my hands, looking at myself in the small oval mirror. My makeup was perfect. My hair was set in waves that fit with my rockabilly styling, and my outfit was a fitted black top with a white Peter Pan collar paired with a set of denim capris and the black bat shoes that I’d thought I lost to the beach last night. I leaned toward the mirror and reapplied my lipstick, pressing my lips together as I clicked the cap back on and slipped the gold tube back in my pocket.

  “Maybe you should just go home,” I said to my reflection when my feet refused to move. I obviously wasn’t ready to go back out there.

  Quickly, I convinced myself that leaving was the best idea I’d had all day then opened the door with a view to dart straight for the exit door without being seen.

  Unfortunately, my plan was foiled the moment I stepped out of the bathroom when Shea caught sight of me and loudly called out my name. With a broad smile she rushed across the room and took me by the hands. “Dance with me.” Her eyes were wide and sparkling as she spun about to the tune of Ben Howard’s In Dreams. The caramel coloured halter neck maxi dress she wore floated about her body as she laughed and grabbed my hands again. “Come on.”

  “No, Shea. I really don’t want to,” I objected, but Shea just kept on smiling and placed her hands on my hips, making me sway from side to side with the rapid beat.

  “Come on, Dawn. Lighten up and stop being so serious all the time. We’re just having fun.” She placed emphasis on her final words, and I took them to mean that was what she wanted from me – fun.

  Taking my hands again, she pulled me back toward the table I’d been sharing with Zeke, while still dancing. I glanced at him, rolling my eyes during my awkward dance when he met mine with a laugh and a shake of his head. Shea lifted my hand above my head and spun me as the rapid plucking of guitar strings filled the air and some of the patrons began to clap as we danced and laughed.

  I was laughing.

  I was having fun.

  I couldn’t help it.

  Without even trying, I was back under her spell and having the time of my life, forgetting all about the fact that only a moment ago the solitude of my own home had seemed like the place to be. I’d been trying to get away, but she pulled me right back in. Like everyone in the room, I was under her influence, and when the song finished, the room applauded. She gave a curtsy, and I applauded her too, because really, it was her show. I was just being carried along like everyone else.

  For fun.

  As the next song started, the music dropped to its normal level. I turned toward the bar, seeing Luke adjusting the volume with the twist of a dial. He’d turned it up while we were dancing, and when I met his eyes, he winked at me and looked proud. Something about his reaction made me feel a little proud too.

  Shea wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek in full view of everyone. “You were wonderful. Come. Sit.” She hooked her arm with mine and guided me back to the table so I was sitting beside her. “Who knew Dawn could dance like that.” She said it just as we sat down across from Zeke. I knew exactly what she was doing, and I shook my head with a laugh.

  “No. I can’t dance at all,” I responded dismissively.

  While at the same time, Zeke said, “I knew.”

  I met his eyes and smiled. “That was all Shea. I just went along with it.”

  “Well, I like seeing you happy. You should laugh like that more often.” His statement implied that I wasn’t often happy and very rarely laughed, and I wondered if that was how he saw me. Most of our time together had been spent planning for a future that was outside Hargrave Cove. We’d sat on the outskirts, watching all the popular kids be happy and carefree. All the while, we’d been mocking them, mocking this place, mocking this life. We’d spend our lifetime hating and waiting; even judging…

  Was our friendship based on mutual misery?

  “Zeke was telling me about his hang gliding aspirations. Are you going to learn as well?” Shea asked after a moment, her hand floating up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

  I glanced at her, blushing from the attention, then reached across her and took a slice of lukewarm pizza. “It looks cool, but I don’t think I want to learn how to do it myself.”

  Shea let out a dreamy sounding sigh. “I think it would be wonderful – as if you were a seabird floating on the ocean breeze.”

  “So why don’t you go and learn with him then?” I suggested, thinking that Zeke had already mentioned it to her.

  She picked up a pamphlet and looked at it more closely. “You know, I think maybe I might.”

  A smile broke across Zeke’s face. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and they had this moment of excitement between the two of them before she thought to turn to me. “That is, if you don’t mind of course.”

  “Why would I mind?” I couldn’t really say, No, don’t you dare spend time with him. It had been my idea after all. So I went with the most appropriate answer and hoped she was enough of a friend that
she wouldn’t purposely cut my grass in her bid for free love – not that there was really any grass to cut, I knew that. But still, I didn’t want to think about Zeke doing those things I saw through the window with Shea. She could have anyone. She didn’t need to choose Zeke.

  Chewing quietly on my pizza, I sat and listened to them talk excitedly about the hang gliding course. Shea touched Zeke more than she needed to, and at the same time, she slid her hand under the table and onto my thigh. She glanced at me, that same look in her eye that she’d had when she came to my house earlier in the day. Pulling away, I excused myself to get another round of drinks, although that time I really did leave the bar and go home.

  When they came knocking on my door later, I pretended I wasn’t home, drowning out the sounds of their knocking and calling out with a set of noise cancelling headphones and a vampire movie.

  Back in my own world, I felt so much better. Although, I did everything I could to avoid looking out my bedroom window. I had a terrible feeling about what I’d see. What if they were in her room? What if they were on her bed? What they were doing the things I didn’t want to know about? It was better not to know. It was better to stay away.

  I slept on the couch downstairs that night.

  12

  “You know you’re eighteen right? You should be sleeping this early on a Sunday.”

  “And you know you’re thirty-whatever-you-are right? Shouldn’t you be sleeping too?”

  Luke chuckled. “I’m thirty-five.”

  I knew that. I don’t know why I pretended I didn’t.

  “Exactly. So, surely you have arthritis or something by now.”

  “I thought you said I wasn’t old.” His green eyes twinkled with amusement.

  A smile spread across my lips. “You’re not. But, you did say you’d teach me.”

  “And you said you already knew how to surf.”

  “I do. It’s just been a long time. I need someone to keep an eye out for me. Can you be that guy for me, Luke? Can you be my spotter? After all, I did watch a vampire movie for you.”