Where the Sea Takes Me

by Heidi R. Kling

  Dreams like the one about Deni.

  Deni and I…we fixed each other. And I knew that sounded lame, cliché, overly sentimental and all the rest, but it was true. We did. I was broken when I found him and so was Deni, and after we…weren’t.

  And now here I was falling apart all over again.

  “Sienna.” My dad’s voice hardened. “If you don’t come out right now, I’m driving to the airport without you.”

  “Coming,” I said, because no matter how conflicted I was feeling, I was never going to leave Deni anywhere ever again.

  We waited anxiously inside the loading/unloading zone under the screen that alerted waiting loved ones which plane had arrived and when. I scanned the screen for Deni’s, alternating pacing with jumping up and down to see over the heads of the crowd.

  “You okay?” Dad asked again.

  There was no way I was risking missing Deni walking out of customs and back into my life.

  I paced some more.

  Landed, his listing finally read. “Oh my God, he’s here.”

  “Breathe,” Dad said with a laugh.

  How could he laugh? “No chance,” I said.

  So yeah. I couldn’t breathe, because now the listing read Coming through customs.

  I wiped my sweaty palms on my knees.

  “You okay?” Dad asked me.

  “Sure thing.”

  Sure thing. I didn’t even say that. Dad said that!

  When he checked his phone, I leaned over his shoulder, wishing Deni’s name would pop up with a message.

  Was his English stronger? What did he look like? How had time in Taiwan changed him? He went from a penniless orphan to a successful student—I was so ridiculously proud of him, his resiliency. That sounded weird, to be proud of someone practically my own age, but I was. That was the only way to describe the heart-swelling warmth in my chest when I thought about all he’d accomplished against such odds.

  Against all odds.

  If I’d had known any of that, I could’ve…

  “Is that him?”

  Dad leaned past me, waving to someone. I clambered around him and spotted a taller, more filled-out version of my Deni. A Deni who didn’t have to scrape for food or carry the bulk of twenty orphans’ problems on his back. Deni, wearing a faded long-sleeved, light-blue button-down shirt and khaki pants, not the only nice outfit he’d ever owned, given to him by the pesantren owner to impress the donors who visited the orphans. Deni, with a loose, beige bag tossed casually over his shoulder. Deni, with unmistakable brown eyes deep as the earth and wide as the sky. Deni, whose whole face burst into a smile that latched hold of mine as I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck. He held me tight, low on my back, smelling like all my memories of that summer. I clung to him like he’d risen from the dead, because in a way, he had.

  After a few minutes—I had no idea how long we stood in that airport lobby clutching each other—he pulled back and touched my wet cheek, wiping away my tears with the pad of his thumb. So, so soft. Softer than I remembered. Dream soft. Was he a dream? Was I still dreaming in my dorm room?

  It would’ve been both easier and devastating to wake up now.

  “How are you here?” I breathed, not wanting this to dream to end.

  He smiled and peered into my eyes. “I told you I would find you,” he said.

  I felt his words everywhere.

  Gasping, I backed away from him, so I could see his whole face. Study it. Remember every edge and curve. I could barely breathe and had to strain to listen as he spoke.

  We could be anywhere in the world, the two of us, his hands in mine after all this time.

  “My dad said you went to school? You lived in Taiwan?” I grabbed his elbow. “Deni, that’s amazing.”

  “Yes. I will share with you all about it.” He grinned. “And you are in university? Will you show me? Did you buy the motor you promised you would?”

  When we stood on the beach saying our goodbyes, he’d made me promise to live. Part of that promise included buying a motorbike like the one he’d driven us around on. “I did.”

  But it’s not the same without you.

  My eyes filled with tears and his smile fell. He’d always known what I was thinking. I didn’t even have to say it.

  I never thought I’d hear his voice again, never mind hold him in my arms. Touch him. Feel him touching me. He remembered. He remembered everything, the way I did. I wasn’t crazy for thinking it was as important as it was. Meeting him. Being with him. It was as important to him, not only then but now, too. I swallowed back emotion as I held his hands tighter. He was the only other person in the world who knew, out of all the people I knew. The only person who understood this. The secret part of me that swelled and swayed and took up a bigger part of my life, my world, my heart, than even I knew.

  We inched closer, pressing against each other, our hands still conjoined between our chests.

  His eyes were the sun, and I was suddenly warm, warm like I’d forgotten I could be. I’d been cold ever since I left Indonesia. I’d worked hard to get my life back, to build on the healing Deni and I had started, but I’d never been warm. Not really.

  “Deni,” I whispered.

  “My rambut kuning,” he said in a throaty voice. Blond hair. Then, looking amused and delighted, he touched a strand. He cocked his head and eyed me. “Your hair? It’s not yellow anymore? It’s like the sky at sunset over the hazy river.”

  He remembered that.

  Tugging on my recently dyed pink hair, I laughed. My hair was cotton candy pink. It’s was just a rinse—Bev did hers purple—but I’d forgotten all about it. Deni and his love for my golden teenager hair. “It’s not permanent. Hope I’m not a disappointment.”

  “You will never be a disappointment to me.”

  Jesus.

  Deni cocked his head, a question, no—a time machine—in his eyes. He was looking at me in the rain in the alley before he kissed me for the first time.

  His lips were so close to mine, and I knew. He wanted to kiss me again.

  “Sienna? Deni? Seems you remember each other well.”

  Dad’s voice filtered in my ears as if from the far side of a long, winding tunnel. Not angry, but definitely firm. The same voice he used when he found us behind the building at the pesantren, alone, plotting to run away. We’d been so determined to find Deni’s missing and presumed dead father, but who Deni, like me with my mother, believed to be alive. It had been the beginning of the end, but what a beautiful beginning it had been.

  And from the look on Deni’s face, he remembered, too.

  I looked at our conjoined hands, and it hit me like Maverick’s wave.

  Spider.

  No matter how much Deni meant to me, I had a friend who wanted to be more.

  A friend who’d just asked me to move in with him. Who’d been so incredibly patient, waiting for me to finally be ready again. I owed him more than this.

  I let Deni’s hands fall.

  He was married.

  And I had Spider.

  Blinking, I faced Dad.

  “Ha ha.” I forced my voice to stay as steady as possible. “Of course, I remember Deni.” Immeasurably sheepish, my heart pounded from guilt and passion and the close proximity to this boy…no, man who just walked off a plane, back into my life, and shifted my world like an underwater earthquake.

  He must be…twenty-one now? I’d missed so much. Two whole years. I couldn’t wait to grab him alone and find out every single detail.

  “Sienna is not a woman I could ever forget,” Deni said, touching my hand.

  Never one for saying anything other than exactly what he meant, he shifted my world. Dad looked like he accidentally knocked a wasp nest out of the gutter when he was only trying to sweep out leaves.

  I realized something devastating and wonderful, tragic and hopeful: I’d been content these past two years—eventually even happy—but I hadn’t been deliriously, excruciatingly alive until this moment.


  But it didn’t change anything.

  I was quiet on the way to the car.

  Perhaps wanting to separate us, Dad had Deni sit up front, which was smart. I couldn’t imagine how the car ride in the dark, both of us alone in the back seat, would go otherwise.

  I sat in the back, reeling, listening, studying the back of Deni’s head, watching his profile, listening to the familiar cadence of his voice as he filled us in on the story of where he’d been.

  “I went to the college in Taiwan soon after you left Indonesia. Rema stayed back at the village with her family…”

  Rema! Oh God, Rema.

  I leaned in.

  “I learned so much and brought things home to my family and my friends, and soon I made the movie. The movie…it brought back all the memories of your visit, and I thought about it and worked on it all the time. Sorry, my English is still not perfect.”

  “I think it’s great,” I blurted out.

  “Terimah kasih,” he said with a soft voice, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. He held my eyes.

  My stomach leaped into my chest. I was not going to survive this car ride.

  Before he got a chance to finish his story, Dad launched into one of his lectures/monologues about what he was up to at work, his book, and our upcoming trip to Cambodia. Deni’s interest was definitely piqued. “You are going, too?” He turned all the way around to ask me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You travel a lot?”

  He held my eyes. I gulped.

  “Not a lot, but some.”

  “You like it now?”

  I grinned. “I do.”

  Pleased, he nodded. “I am glad. I was hoping you were traveling.”

  And I am very glad you are in my car, I thought.

  When we got home, Vera rushed out to meet us, hugging Deni. We had some snacks around the table, chatting happily. Max was asleep.

  “So, a baby? That is wonderful,” Deni said. “I love babies.”

  “Do you…are you and Rema thinking of having kids?” Vera asked.

  I held my breath while I waited for him to answer.

  “I wanted to have children but…things changed.”

  What changed? What?

  “MAMA. SEEEENA!” a voice screamed from upstairs.

  “Speak of the devil,” Vera said. “Kids are great. But wait. Wait until you are old to have them. I mean old-old. Done with life, old, because they are youth suckers.”

  I laughed but Deni looked disturbed. And a little confused.

  Vera rubbed her red eyes.

  “I’ll get him,” Dad offered.

  “Good. I’m going back to bed. Deni, there are plenty of extra blankets in the den, and I made up the pull-out couch for you. Make yourself at home, and let me know if you need anything.”

  “Thank you, Miss Vera.”

  Vera smiled. “It’s good to see you, Deni.”

  Dad and Vera retreated into their room, and Deni and I stared at each other.

  “Hi,” he said, a smile in his eyes.

  “Hi,” I said, smiling back.

  “I am just remembering, I left my suitcase on your front porch.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I said without hesitating.

  I slipped open the front door, and he followed me out. I carefully shut the door behind us.

  He touched the handle on his suitcase but didn’t look at it. He looked only at me.

  For a moment, he didn’t say anything and neither did I.

  “Are you okay?” he asked me, sounding like himself again.

  “Deni, I…” Frowning, I floundered. Tugged on my earlobe. Tucked my hair behind my ear. “I hardly know what to say. I never thought I’d see you again. I’m sorry if I’m acting weird and not talking much, it’s just…overwhelming to see you.”

  Why mince words? There was never a moment of falsehood to our relationship. That was what made it beautiful. Well, one of the thousands of things.

  “I know.” He took a step closer to me, scanning my face. “It is a surprise for me, too.”

  I could hardly breathe. The rest of the world evaporated and we, Deni and I, were finally alone.

  He grabbed my hands in his. “I was afraid to feel hope because travel visas are hard. Even student travel visas. I knew if I hoped and then I couldn’t come…” He gulped. “So I sent in the documentary to a contest and it won! My mentor, he makes many films, and he said this is good. It feels real. You feel like you are there.”

  “You have a mentor?”

  “Yes. I will share with you all about him and the film project. You had your camera, remember, and I said I wanted to be a movie star? Ha.” He leaned back, dropping my hand, and jumped up on the porch rail. “Where is your motor?”

  “I’ll show you in the morning. I’ll show you everything.”

  A voice called from the darkness. “Sienna?”

  What now?

  “Hey,” Spider said, coming into the streetlight.

  “Oh. Hi,” I said, taking a step back from Deni. “What are you doing up this late?” Or, more importantly, at my house this late.

  “You’re back,” he said.

  “Yeah, we just got back from the airport and had a snack. It’s daytime where Deni’s from, so I’m keeping him company.”

  What.

  “Why are you still up?”

  He eyed Deni suspiciously. “I couldn’t sleep. I’m Jesse,” he said, reaching out his hand to Deni.

  Deni took it and shook it. They held eyes.

  “This is Deni,” I said, stating the obvious. “I mean, obviously. We were just…”

  Standing on the porch talking, trying to catch up on two years lost in five minutes. Struggling to find out where in the world his fiancée/wife/whatever was. Because that’s what people do at one in the morning.

  “How was the flight?” Spider asked.

  “Long,” Deni replied. “And Jesse?”

  “Jesse, well, Spider is what I call him. He’s our…neighbor.”

  Spider cocked an eyebrow. “Neighbor?” He turned back to Deni. “Sienna might move in with me this summer.”

  “Spider!” I gasped.

  “What? You said you might so that’s not wrong? And neighbor?”

  I’d offended him. And felt terrible.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean. Um. Deni, yes, we grew up together. I told you about him in Indonesia.”

  “You did?” Deni asked.

  “Yes,” I said. Hadn’t I? Yes. I was certain.

  Deni was messing with Spider.

  And Spider was messing with Deni.

  “Where’s your dad?”

  “In the house.” Asleep.

  “Okay, well, I just wanted to make sure you got home safely,” he said.

  “Oh. Thanks,” I said.

  He pulled me in for a quick and unexpected hug and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Oh,” I said as a reaction.

  “Good night.”

  He flashed Deni a hard look before walking off, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his sweatpants.

  “So…is this Jesse your boyfriend?” Deni asked as soon as he was out of earshot.

  “No,” I said.

  “But he wants to be,” Deni said, matter-of-factly.

  “No. Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know. He wants to be, and I’m not sure. That part. It’s new.”

  “Oh. Why are you not sure?”

  Because you’re here.

  “I don’t know,” I said instead. “Does that make you mad?”

  He grinned. That irresistible Deni grin. “Maybe.”

  He scratched his head, as the front door pushed open. Vera stood there, in her bathrobe. “Kids, can you keep it down? You just woke up Max. Now he’s crying for you.”

  Kids.

  Classic.

  Kids at camp, kids at the orphanage sneaking around. It brought me back, and I didn’t feel bad about it.

  Her eyes looked red and puffy. Sleep deprivation didn�
�t look good on her.

  “Sorry. Spider came up and…”

  “Okay, well come on in; Deni must be exhausted. Why are you keeping him up?” she asked me. Deni and I locked eyes and suddenly we were back at the pesantren sharing an adults-are-crazy look.

  “Good night, then,” he said to me.

  “Good night, Deni,” I answered back, a wisp of voice on the wind. All I wanted to do was follow him, follow him forever, wherever he was going.

  Deni was back.

  I was so, so screwed.

  Chapter Five

  After a fitful sleep, I wandered down the stairs. Deni and Vera were enjoying croissants and coffee together in the sun-drenched breakfast nook. For a moment I watched them, hardly believing my eyes. Deni was in my house, straight up chilling with my stepmom.

  When he saw me, he immediately stood and excused himself from the table. Vera frowned, watching him walk toward me with purpose. Me, on the other hand—I practically melted under the intensity of his gaze.

  “Good morning, Sienna,” he said.

  “Um…” Jesus. Pull it together. “Good morning to you, too. Did you sleep well?”

  “I did. I am looking forward to you showing me around.”

  “Oh. Of course.” I looked down at the sweats and T-shirt I still had on after crawling out of bed. I wasn’t in any shape to go sightseeing. We’d just have to start more…local.

  Swallowing hard, I directed him down the hallway and paused at the first door. “So, you might have explored last night, but this is the bathroom, well, one of them. I don’t really like the color, but there are flushing toilets and no frogs,” I said babbling, referencing the pesantren.

  Deni smiled at me. “No frogs. I’m disappointed.”

  No eye contact was broken.

  Deni was completely different than the American boys I knew. Whether it was a cultural thing, or a Deni thing, I wasn’t sure—but he was completely, unabashedly direct. There were no mind games or I’ll Pretend I’m Bored So She/He Will Offer This or That.

  “I missed you,” he said. Just like that. Bam.

  “I missed you, too,” I said.

  “I miss you still,” he said. He pulled me into the bathroom and nudged the door shut. “You are beautiful. Even more beautiful than I remember.”