I Need You

by Jane Lark

  I was weird.

  Fucking crazy!

  I’d always wondered if Jason knew. But he hadn’t said anything the other night when we’d got everything out in the open. I figured he’d have said something then if he’d known.

  “I can’t believe you still wear that thing.” She leaned over and flicked the leather bracelet as my hand gripped the wheel.

  How the hell did she not know?

  I glanced at her, giving her a twisted, guilty smile, as something hard grabbed my heart. “Yeah.”

  “I made you that years ago.”

  “I’m just lazy, I can’t be bothered to cut it off.” I let a fake sound of amusement slip from my throat, acting as if it was nothing––like I had every other time she’d mentioned it.

  She’d made it at high school. It had been the thing all the girls were doing at the time, braiding these silly leather bracelets and threading beads into them. It was before she’d been seeing Jason. We’d been fifteen.

  Yeah, I had been wearing it that long. Pining over a girl that wasn’t mine.

  But shit I can still remember the feel of her gentle fingers touching me as she’d tied it off, and it had done stuff to my cock. I’d liked her before, but that was the day she’d got me. It was like her fingers had touched my heart too. I’d had this burning need for her ever since.

  I should cut the thing off.

  I glanced over at her. Her hands were in her lap and she stared ahead. I didn’t know what to say to her. I was too anxious to hold a meaningless conversation and I didn’t want to quiz her, ‘cause I was taking her away to forget all the stuff that made her feel bad.

  I said a few things and she answered, but then I couldn’t think of anything to add. She said some things and I nodded, not knowing what to say back.

  In the end we were quiet most of the drive.

  I was relieved when I finally pulled up in the apartments’ parking lot on the coast.

  “Wow, this is nice.”

  The ocean rolled up onto the miles of beach before the parking lot. This place just calmed me. I’d come here the summer we’d left high school and it had been the best therapy. This beach and the ocean was my psychiatrist. I’d come back every summer since.

  I hoped it was gonna work for her too.

  I freed the door and as it opened the sound of the ocean swept into the SUV.

  I looked at Lindy.

  She was wide-eyed, watching the beach.

  “Let’s go get our keys. I’ll get our stuff later.”

  She looked at me, uncertainty creeping into her eyes, but she nodded.

  I wanted to grip her hand as we walked across the parking lot. There was a whole minefield of protective energy bubbling around inside me. But it had blown up in my face before. I was steering clear of too much touching.

  The thing with Lindy was she was so tiny it made me want to just put my arms around her and wrap her up. She was like a precious, breakable doll, five-two, to my six-one.

  I glanced over at her. The ocean breeze flicked her wavy blonde hair against the curve of her cheek.

  Her fingers tucked her hair behind her ear.

  I’d wanted to do that for her. There was a hard need to touch her in my belly. But I’d spent years ignoring that instinct. That was nothing new.

  She didn’t look at me. She looked ahead at the apartment block.

  She’d won beauty pageants as a kid. Her Mom had been into all that shit, driving her to loads of contests and Lindy did have the look for that sort of thing, perfect symmetry.

  At high school she’d been full of confidence. At college that had died for some reason.

  She glanced at me, her blue eyes seeming bluer under the clear sky.

  “I’ve ordered adjacent places, is that okay? I can ask them to change them if you want?”

  “No, that’s okay.” She nodded.

  The apartments were stacked and set out in rows spread along the edge of the beach. The guy at the desk said ours were on the top floor. The place was something between a hotel, a motel and cabins, and the rooms ‘slash’ apartments were accessed via a long hallway, with stairs at either end of the block.

  When we got up there, I slid the card key through the lock, then stepped back and shoved the door open for her to go in. “You can have this one.”

  It had a small kitchen and a sofa that turned into a bed. But most importantly, at the end of the room was a big window that looked out on the ocean. It had a balcony too.

  “I’ll go get your stuff.” I left her in her room. But before I went back down to the SUV, I went into mine.

  Shit. I combed a hand through my hair, then realized I’d fucked it up, and rubbed it so it spiked again.

  It was going to be a hell of a couple of weeks.

  I walked over and slid the glass door to the balcony back, letting in the soothing sound of the ocean. It pulled me outside.

  Lindy stood out there, on her balcony, gripping the wooden rail and looking at the ocean. I turned my back on it and rested my butt against the rail. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just taking in the air.”

  “Look, Lind––”

  “I’m not in the mood to talk.”

  Well, there was probably nothing I could say that would make anything better anyway. “I’ll go get our things.”

  I dumped mine in my room, then went round to her door and knocked. She opened it, but stood there, stopping me from going in.

  “Here you are.” I dropped her case and backpack just inside the door. “Are you ready for something to eat? We could walk downtown and then walk along the beach if you want?” I leaned against the door jamb, watching her, waiting on her answer.

  I’d spent hours in this position, on the border to Lindy’s and Jason’s bedroom at college, talking to one or the other.

  “Yeah, I can unpack later.” She turned away, knocking the door open wider, before walking back into her room.

  I stayed where I was. “Did you call your dad to say we got here okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s okay with it?”

  She turned, her eyes flashing impatience, a little of the real Lindy shining through the dark clouds hanging over her. Like a beam of intense sunlight catching me off-guard and blinding me.

  “He may be a cop, but he doesn’t order me about. I’m twenty-two. I can do whatever.”

  Yep, she could. When she was herself, she always did whatever she wanted, with a just-deal-with-it attitude. That attitude had made Jason go silent. He’d always let her have her way.

  I lifted my weight off the door frame.

  “You ready to go then?”

  “Yeah.”

  When she came out of the room, my hand hovered behind her. I had no need to touch her; it would have been strange to do it and yet it felt strange walking down the hall not touching her.

  Lindy barely came to my shoulder.

  I’d picked her up once or twice, messing around, and she was as light as anything. So frickin’ tiny.

  Her thick blond hair flowed in waves about her shoulders as she moved. My hand itched to touch that. Literally.

  Crap.

  I lifted my hand to touch her shoulder. I didn’t. Instead I slipped my hands into the back pockets of my pants to keep them tamed.

  The way out from our apartments was a wide wooden staircase, leading down from the third floor.

  The view was amazing, the beach and ocean stretching into the distance. I breathed the salt air in. It felt good. Like it healed.

  “Wow.” She smiled at me.

  I hoped the healing would work for her. “Just being by the coast always makes me feel different, better somehow, lifts the weight off my shoulders––”

  “What weight have you got on your shoulders?” Yep, the old snappy Lindy was coming back.

  I didn’t answer, and that killed the conversation.

  But, it wasn’t really the old Lindy. It was just the pre-overdose Lindy. College Lindy. That wasn’t
the girl I’d fallen for originally. She’d been pushy and self-confident at high school… but not snappy and not the bitch she could be at times. Those elements had slipped in while we were at college.

  We didn’t talk much the rest of the way into town, but we’d been friends long enough that our friendship could take silence.

  When we got there, though, we wasted half an hour arguing over which restaurant to stop in.

  She wasn’t hungry. I was ravenous.

  In the end we chose a place that did the salad she wanted and a huge portion of fried chicken that would do me.

  She was quiet again when we sat down.

  “What do you wanna do this afternoon?”

  Her head came up. She’d been looking at her food, but not eating much of it. Her gaze hit mine. “You said we’d go for a walk along the beach.”

  “Well, I just wanted to check that’s what you want, Lind. You haven’t said much; you might’ve just wanted to go back and be on your own.”

  “I didn’t come here to be on my own, did I? I could be on my own at home.” There was sore-headed Lind again. The bitch.

  I took a breath, to call her out––

  “So you and Jason have patched everything up. Are you buddies again?”

  That’s why she’d been quiet. She’d been spinning that around in her head.

  I wondered how it made her feel. Betrayed by him? And then betrayed by me? But I was friends with Jason again, and I wanted to be his friend. I wasn’t gonna change that even if she asked me to. “Yes.” I lifted an eyebrow, waiting on her judgment.

  “So everything’s forgotten?”

  Not everything. “Lind, don’t. I like him. He’s been like a brother most of my life. I want him around.” A brother whose girl I’ve wanted to fuck for years, but hey.

  Her lips compressed as anger flashed in her eyes, but she didn’t vent it at me.

  Looking down at her salad, she stabbed a piece of chicken with her fork. Maybe she imagined it as part of Jason’s anatomy––or mine.

  “Have you seen it?”

  “It?”

  “The baby?”

  “The baby is called Saint, and, yeah, I went ‘round to Jason’s parents’ one night this week, before we went for a drink, and saw Rach and the kid.”

  “Saint’s a stupid name.” She stabbed a piece of tomato.

  Annoyance and exasperation rippled inside me as I took a bite out of a piece of fried chicken.

  This is what I needed to fix for her. I hadn’t only brought her here to get her away. I wanted to smash open this fucking ball of anger she wrapped herself up in. It had been there for years, but not when we were kids. It wasn’t who she was, it was what she’d become. The only way she’d be happy was to be who she’d been at high school. I had no idea why she’d changed.

  I leaned back, watching her. “The baby isn’t going anywhere when we go back, you know. It’s you who has to learn to live with Rach and Saint in the town, and Jason being with them. Not the other way around.”

  She glared at me, standing up and dropping her fork on the tray. Then without a word she turned and walked out.

  Cool, we’d been here a couple of hours and we’d clashed already. I pulled some dollar bills out of my pocket and left them on the table to get the check, then followed her.

  She’d headed toward the beach. I ran to catch up with her and grabbed her feeble little bicep to stop her. Then made her turn and look at me.

  “I said I’d get you away, give you chance to breathe out here. But I’m not gonna lie to you, Lind, or put up with your bad moods. I’m not Jason. Don’t expect me to just let you bite. I’ll bite back.”

  I wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know. At college we’d had some really loud arguments. The neighbors had bashed on the wall a few times to shut us up. I’d never put up with her shit like Jason did, and she knew it. We were both fire and we’d flare quick and fast at each other.

  Jason––he was calm, cooling water.

  But we’d always been okay when the air cleared, and if she’d had problems and needed to talk, or just moan and shout, she’d always come to me, not him… Cause Jason would either have a solution or walk away from an argument and sometimes people like us just needed to shout.

  I sighed, letting her go. My fingers lifted and ran through my hair. Shit. I ruffled it when I remembered I’d knocked it flat.

  Her coming to me had been the beginning of how everything had got messed up between us. A year ago, when Jason had gone to New York to live and left her behind… It had been the first time he’d stood up to her and not just done what she wanted. She’d hated that. So who had she come to, to moan and shout about it? Me.

  She turned away and started walking again, her movement stiff with anger.

  “You’re gonna have to get over him!” I called after her, following.

  She headed on down to the beach. I followed a dozen steps behind her, my fingers now in my front pockets.

  Maybe this had been a stupid idea…

  I held back a bit more, to give her some space, and let her go on ahead alone and storm her anger out. She’d calm down soon.

  When I sauntered onto the beach a while after I’d seen her walk down there, I spotted her about two hundred yards on. She’d taken her shoes off and held them in her hand, and she was heading toward the ocean.

  The sand worked its way into my sneakers. I stopped and toed them off, then carried on, holding them in my hand. My feet sank in the warm sand. The air was way cooler than the sand. But the sun’s heat seeped into the ground while the breeze from the cold ocean stopped the air feeling so warm.

  Lindy was a silhouette in the distance, outlined by the waves rolling in.

  I hit the compact, flat, wet sand. It oozed under my feet. The tide was out, so I was still a long way off where she stood.

  When I caught her up, she was looking at the last ripples of the waves wash over her bare feet.

  She stepped back a couple of paces with a little run, dodging a higher one as I got near her.

  “Hey.”

  She walked into the ripples of a different low wave, ignoring me.

  She didn’t look angry anymore, just thoughtful, like not only had she walked away, but her mind had left me behind.

  That was my problem. She was on my mind constantly and I think I was hardly ever on hers. “Lind?”

  She glanced at me, her eyes really blue out here where the sky and ocean reflected in them.

  I gripped her arm gently, so she couldn’t run away from this again. “I’m sorry, but that’s it now. He’s never gonna come back to you. He’s got a new life. You’ve got to move on too.” I was glad she didn’t try to pull loose or look away. “I’ve got you away from there. You’ve got two weeks. But in these two weeks, Lind, you’ve got to let him go. For your sake, not his, or anyone else’s. Because you need to start your life over without Jason.”

  She didn’t answer.

  Shit. A wave rolled in, a lot bigger than the last. It washed right at us, sweeping up and swilling about our legs, over our jeans, coming over my knees and even higher. The water was freezing, like bathing in firckin’ ice.

  Lindy screamed, trying to rush backwards, but stumbling, just as I felt the ocean dragging the sand out from beneath my feet, sucking it away as the wave headed back out.

  With my shoes gripped in one hand, I only had the other to save her. I caught her arm but she’d lost balance. She went down, tumbling into the water as it pulled away, dragging the wet sand from all around her, pulling it down the beach and out toward the ocean.

  She laughed and grabbed my arm, then pulled on me to get up. But I was off-balance too, as the sand got dragged out from under my feet…

  “Shit.”

  I landed on my hip, on the far side of her, my legs all tangled up with hers as the water swilled away, leaving us there like a couple of fish flapping on the sand.

  She still laughed, her head on the ground, her hair in the sand.
It was a laugh-or-cry moment for her. I was glad she’d chosen laughter. I hadn’t heard her laugh for months.

  As much as we’d used to shout at each other in college we’d used to laugh a lot too. We always used to piss Jason off when we’d be arguing one minute and then laughing the next. This was us. This was how we were.

  The girl was meant for me.

  Why the fuck had she never been able to see it?

  She needed my fire, like I needed hers.

  She looked at me, her head turning as she stopped laughing.

  I smiled when her blue eyes looked right into me and my fingers stroked her sticky, salty, damp hair from her forehead. “Two weeks, Lind. Promise me? Two weeks to mourn him, then let him go, and go back and make a life for yourself without him.” I didn’t expect her to pick me instead. We’d travelled that road and it hadn’t worked out…

  If she was ever gonna be into me, she’d have known it by now. But I was into her and I couldn’t bear to see her hurting. It had to end, and if I could do nothing else for her, then I’d get her over it and help her start again.

  But fuck, it was going to hurt me once she’d pulled herself together and moved on to someone else.

  I sat up. “Damned sneaker waves!”

  “If that was a sneaker it was a wimp…” She laughed as she sat up too.

  “I’m not on about that one…” There was another one coming in, a huge one.

  “Ahh,” she screamed, but she laughed as she struggled to get up.

  It rolled in at a fast pace, foaming and frothing, we were on our feet, but it crashed into us, coming up to my waist.

  I caught her up off her feet, gripping her in one arm, and stepping off the shifting sand as it tried to drag us with it, while holding my sneakers up above the water.

  When the wave swept back out, I got us away from the water and set her on her feet.

  “Oh my God.” Her laughter turned to horror as she caught her breath, looking at me, her shoes lifting to point at me. “You look a mess––”