Where the Sea Takes Me

by Heidi R. Kling

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “And this is Arunny, which means the ‘morning sun.’”

  “Nice to meet you. Your names are gorgeous.”

  “And what’s her name?” I asked, pointing to the smallest girl.

  “Bubbles,” she said, after a pause, narrowing her eyes at me a little.

  “Bubbles?”

  Dr. Chhim laughed, as did the teen girls Daevy and Arunny. She was messing with me! Another good start.

  Cautiously, the girl who’d decided to be called Bubbles teased her toes into the water, wiggling them around. I’d never forget the look on her face as she peered over the edge into the pool and watched her toes wiggle under the clear blue pool water, her expression shifting into something resembling joy. She jerked her toes back and hugged her knees to her chest, her expression a mix of fear and excitement.

  Dr. Chhim exchanged some words with her before turning to me to explain their conversation.

  “It’s the first time she’s seen through water. Clear water. She thought water was meant to be brown and thick and full of icky things. Her toes scared her.”

  Here I was thinking her reaction had something to do with something bad that happened to her, when it was just the sight of her toes in clear water.

  With a childlike look in her eye, she stuck her toes in the clear water again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Hi. How was your first class?”

  “Oh, hey!” I said, surprised to see Deni waiting for me on the other side of the pool gate. “Pretty good, actually. The girls were really sweet.” I looked up at him, and a wave of disbelief and pleasure washed over me. It was still so shocking to be traveling with him again, it was a sweet miracle each time I saw him. He looked so cute standing there, his camera slung casually over his shoulder like a legit documentarian.

  “Were you filming me?”

  “May-be,” he said, picking up on my slang.

  “Oh gosh. This swimsuit is not exactly the most attractive.”

  If Deni was watching me, I’d rather be in a bikini.

  Whoa. What?

  I blinked.

  “You are always the most attractive,” he said, locking eyes with me.

  Oh boy.

  I flushed all over, wrapping the towel around myself.

  I was once the stranger in his home, then he was the stranger in mine—now we were both strangers, together.

  “You did well.”

  “Not really.”

  “You got their toes into the water.”

  “I guess,” I said with a pleased shrug.

  “Before they would not go in. Can I film you again tomorrow?”

  “Sure. I mean, I’ll ask.”

  The clouds broke above us, and it started to rain.

  “What have you been up to, other than sneaking some footage of me poolside?”

  “Filming the clinic, interviewing the doctors. Amelie is an interesting girl.”

  A siege of jealously nipped at me. I didn’t necessarily want Deni spending a lot of alone time with Amelie. She was a gorgeous girl—the kind who got exactly what she wanted.

  “Oh. How was that?”

  “Good. But I am better now.”

  “Oh?” I shifted closer to him as the rain fell around us.

  Deni and I back in the warm rain.

  I grinned. He grinned back, remembering.

  “Yes. Better than okay,” he said, his fingers swiping mine gently as I shivered all over. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starved.”

  “Me, too. Time for dinner.” He waited a beat before eying me sidelong. “I hope we are not having goat.”

  At dinner, I shared Bubbles’s story and asked for the therapist’s advice on how to proceed and get the girls deeper into the water.

  “Sounds like you had fun,” Tom said.

  “I’m not sure ‘fun’ is the right word,” I said. “It’s so hard to stop thinking about what happened to them, but I was happy to be there with them. They did much better than I hoped. And the look on Bubbles’s face when she saw her toes in the water was priceless.”

  “What is Bubbles’s real name?”

  “She didn’t tell me. I’m not sure. The other girls shared though.”

  “She will when she is ready.”

  “Yeah. And they wanted to know what my name meant, and they laughed when I said it means orange-brown dirt.”

  Tom laughed. “It’s also the name of the Italian village, you know.”

  “True.”

  “Hunt said you were great with the girls. Thanks, Sienna.”

  “My pleasure.”

  After we ate, Tom got the idea for us to head into town to a dive karaoke bar, and he invited Dr. Chhim, Hunt, and Amelie along.

  The city was hot and dark and bright all at the same time. Vibrant. New. Tom said the establishment wasn’t far from the hotel, so we decided to walk. We all chatted as a group for a while until Deni and I slowly and naturally lagged back so we could talk alone.

  “So,” Deni asked as we pass trinket shops and loud bars, “what have you been doing the last two years?”

  The question surprised me, almost stopping me on the busy sidewalk. I didn’t answer right away.

  “Sienna?”

  “Uh. School? I don’t know really. Life?”

  He didn’t let me blow his question off so easily. “When you got back from Indonesia. What was that like?”

  What was it like? Deni, without you?

  Horrific. Terrible. I cried myself to sleep every night for six months.

  I wasn’t about to tell him that though. No way.

  “I learned to surf again,” I said honestly. “I went out every chance I could.”

  And it helped. Being in the water, pushing myself to new limits, feeling the cold salt water rush over my skin, and the hot sun on my face, for a moment, sometimes made me forget the boy I left behind.

  “You surfed with Spider?” he pressed.

  “Sometimes. Eventually. Deni, what do you want to know exactly?”

  He stopped. He stopped walking and looked right at me. “I want to know if it was as hard for you to leave me as it was for me when you left.”

  Oh my God.

  That was not what I was expecting.

  Again, with the full-blown honesty.

  I started walking away from him and was almost hit by a bicycle. Deni yanked me out of the way and pulled me closer to a shop door, close to him.

  I could barely look at him.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “Harder. Because I was alone and you had Rema.”

  “I…” He yanked on his hair. “I was also alone. Alone without you.”

  I swallowed as his eyes grazed my lips. I bit mine, daring to look into his soulful eyes.

  Remembering the alley in the rain in Indo.

  His lips on mine.

  My hands in his wet hair.

  Our first kiss.

  “Kids! Hurry up! Hunt is waiting.”

  Tom’s booming voice brought me back to the surface.

  We spun around, and he was grinning at us. “Oh no, not this again,” he said, teasing. “I don’t have time to chaperone you two lovebirds.”

  “It’s not what you think, Tom,” I said, backing away from Deni.

  I’d moved on. Or tried to. Was in the middle of, anyway. The fact that we were still attracted to each other? Well. How was that something we could turn off or on? I was beginning to suspect it was something that simply was. Trying not to be attracted to him, only made me want him more.

  And Deni had his own…situation. One he really needed to explain soon if he was going to keep looking at me like that.

  Sigh.

  “Later,” Deni said to me under his breath.

  Later.

  Later what?

  More truths? Mine or his?

  If he wanted mine, what would I say?

  What would I be comfortably sharing?

  We caught up with the group and fo
llowed Tom into a karaoke bar filled with a mix of Cambodian locals and tourists—loud, flashy, techno music blaring.

  I loved it immediately, the energy, the pulse.

  Immediately, several beautiful Khmer girls in tight, short dresses surrounded Tom. “Long time or short time?” they asked him.

  “No time,” he replied.

  They didn’t take no for an answer and prodded him for a minute or two before he firmly brushed them off.

  “What was that all about?” I asked when they finally left and moved on to another group of men.

  “Bar girls,” Tom said, like that meant anything to me.

  “So they work here?”

  “You can say that.”

  I waited.

  He added, “As prostitutes.”

  “Really?” I watched the girls circle around a new man, stroking his shirt sleeve. That guy seemed pleased with the attention and flirted back. Gross.

  “Really. This is one of the nicer establishments. They work here with the idea their ‘date’ will pay their bar tab and then take them home, wear a condom, etc. ‘Long time’ is for the night. ‘Short time’ is, well…” He shrugged, like you’re a big girl now. You get it.

  “Wow,” I said with a grimace.

  “Yep. Sex tourism is huge here.”

  “Which leaves girls like the ones we’re helping all the more vulnerable.”

  “Exactly,” Tom said. He slung his arm around me and led me into the booth where Hunt and Dr. Chhim were waiting and looking particularly cozy themselves.

  “Oh, hello,” Tom said, clearing his voice.

  Dr. Chhim scooted away from Hunt and smiled in our direction.

  “Hello, Thomas.”

  “Hello.”

  I looked from one to the other.

  Was Tom jealous of Hunt?

  I made a mental note to ask my dad via email about Tom’s past with Dr. Chhim. I looked around. Where was Amelie?

  Deni and I squished into the booth with them. It was so loud inside the bar we simply sat and relaxed and enjoyed the ambiance, me thinking about the questions Deni asked me outside, him chatting casually with the group, until Amelie ran up, out of breath and dressed in a tight little dress, squished in next to Deni.

  Girls really dressed up here.

  I should’ve put forth a little more effort.

  “Hi,” she said. “What are we drinking?”

  Tom ordered beers, which the group happily slurped down. Hunt gregariously told stories about Ozland and beer. Deni and I both ordered tall orange sodas.

  Amelie cocked an unpleased eyebrow. “Boring,” she said.

  “Deni doesn’t drink,” I said by means of explanation.

  “What’s your excuse?”

  “I’m not twenty-one?” I tried, sounding like a goody goody, but I wanted to be loyal to Deni. Not that he would’ve minded, I just didn’t want him feeling awkward being the only one not drinking.

  “Ha. Twelve is Phnom Penh’s twenty-one.”

  “Great,” I said, with a half eye roll. She wasn’t helping my solidarity.

  To think, I was starting to like Amelie back at the clinic. Now I wasn’t so sure. She shifted her attention to Deni and talked into his ear, while he nodded replies. It was so loud I couldn’t hear a word of what she was saying to him, though I certainly inched closer and tried.

  Suddenly, she jumped out of the booth, grabbed his hand, and pulled him toward the stage. What the…

  “We’ll be back,” she said, flashing me a grin.

  She paid someone and then typed something into a large machine that looked like a slot machine before jumping onto the small, clear stage with flashing, built-in lights shining through the clear surface. Deni looked at me with an apologetic shrug, and she shuffled him to one microphone while she struck a pose at the other.

  The music started.

  I recognized the tune right away.

  The cheerful, upbeat lyrics to “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” boomed through that bar in Phnom Penh. For some reason, Deni knew the song—from his college years in Taiwan?—and sang it clearly and loudly.

  It was the first time I’d heard him sing, and it melted me in place.

  His voice was deep and sexy with just the right hint of playful.

  And although Amelie continued to look at him, trying to engage as a duet, he stared right at me when he belted out the chorus, “Right from the start I gave you my heart. Ooh, I gave you my heart.” He placed his palm over his heart…and it…yes. No. It was like he did when we first met. Our initial greeting at the drum circle.

  My heart swirled. Sang. My soul danced, leaped, and caught fire.

  I clutched my heart back and smiled so hard it hurt.

  This was the feeling I’d been missing for two years.

  This was what I wanted with Spider. What we lacked. What broke my heart to miss.

  If I could bottle this feeling up and sell it I’d be a zillionaire.

  He flashed me a wink and when they finished up, after their last note faded, everyone clapped. Deni sheepishly crawled off the stage with a cute wave to the admiring crowd.

  No one louder than me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A couple hours, several songs, and many drinks later, we left the bar laughing like old friends. Amelie was quite drunk by then, and Hunt was unhappy with her behavior. Although he was one to talk, having sucked down at least a half-dozen beers himself. Only Tom seemed totally sober. Tom the giant.

  And Deni and me of course. Though I felt drunk.

  Drunk on life. High on happy. Whatever that fridge magnet said.

  It was a short and magical walk back to our hotel—hot and steamy and everything midnight in another country should be.

  Deni and I lagged behind the arguing drunkards amongst us, and when the others weren’t looking, he took my hand in his.

  “You liked my song?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You did good up there.”

  “Thank you,” he said and bowed. “Should I try for professional singer?”

  “Um. No.”

  He laughed. The moon shone down between thick, dark clouds. The air smelled of burnt marshmallows and some sort of exotic spice.

  “Did you have stage fright? It didn’t seem like it.”

  “No. Like drumming at home. I saw you in the audience then, too. Do you remember?”

  “Yes. Of course, I remember.” I leaned into him, nudging my shoulder against his.

  It had been a moment I would never forget.

  “Only this was a lot brighter in my eyes.”

  He pantomimed the stage lights and squinted. I laughed. Dazzled. Basking in his Deni-ness.

  “You were awesome. Both times. Well, maybe a little better with your drums, but…” I teased him but didn’t mean it. I felt like I’d swallowed cotton candy. I couldn’t think of what to say. The feelings between us felt like they were suddenly and rapidly heating up. I was both spooked and smitten, wanting to savor every second for later in case it was our last walk in a foreign country together.

  What if our second chance was our last?

  “So, the question you asked earlier? I want to tell you the whole thing, everything, like I want to know yours, too. But for tonight, let’s just have this, okay?”

  Obviously, I wanted to know the whole story about Rema, just like he wanted to know the whole story about my adjustment back to real life after he broke my heart on the shores of Banda Aceh. But we had time to share all of that.

  Tonight, we were free.

  We were young.

  We were hand in hand in a foreign country.

  And I was sick of wondering.

  Under the neon light I studied his jawline and wondered how I could have innately trusted someone I knew for two short weeks over two years ago? A guy I hadn’t heard a word from him since who was back in my life turning it upside down.

  But I did.

  Somehow, I did.

  But was it logical to trust my instinct
s? They were sharp, but not bulletproof.

  And my heart certainly had no heat shield to protect it.

  “Okay,” he told me. “I promise. It is just…not an easy story to tell. And it sounds like maybe yours is not so easy, either?”

  Rain began to fall.

  “What is with us and rain?” I wondered out loud, and he took my hand again.

  Rain and secrets and second chances.

  “Yes,” he said absently as if he could read the poem in my mind.

  I squeezed his hand. “I’m glad we’re here,” I said. “Even if it’s only just this, just tonight. Maybe this is enough somehow.”

  I didn’t mean it though. Even as I heard the false words spill out of my mouth and into the air, I didn’t mean it. I wanted it to be true, though. I really did.

  “I’m glad we are here, too.” He looked up at the rain, then at a shop, then back at me. “But this is not enough.”

  I turned to him. Stopping. If I took one step closer to him…or he came closer to me, the distance between us would finally vanish. I sucked in a breath.

  His hand moved, lingering on my wrist. He held it gently, but firmly. I felt safe and warm and I wanted him. So badly.

  “Hurry up, you two!” Tom called from ahead of us, jarring me back. “Catch up or you’re going to get hit by a car and your dad’s gonna kill me.”

  By “hit by a car” did he mean heart spillith over, or runneth over, or whatever something? Maybe I was drunk.

  Deni and I did what we did. We looked at each other, laughed, and caught up.

  “Another day,” he said.

  Teaching swimming lessons wasn’t as easy as one might think. First off, swimming doesn’t come naturally. We aren’t organically equipped and predisposed to hold our breath and move about in waters that could drown us.

  About half of kids sink. One-third fear the water. And of the floaters, some can’t hold their breath.

  Starting out with simply treading water worked best at home, so I figured, once I got my three students into the water beyond their toes, anyway, that would be my number one priority.

  Day three and we were still only halfway in.

  Bubbles, shockingly, led the way. The other two held back.

  When Dr. Chhim, translator extraordinaire, stepped away, I communicated through simple gestures, much like I did with Elli back at the pesantren.