Set Me Free

by London Setterby

  “What brought you here?” I asked.

  “My parents split up.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Even back then, I could tell it was the right decision. My dad’s mellowed out a lot since he met my stepmom, but he used to be really hard to live with.”

  “But still, it must have been hard to change high schools.” I couldn’t imagine leaving all my friends halfway through high school and moving to a new place. I had no idea what I would have done without Rosa, Luz, Everett, and the rest of the group.

  “It wasn’t easy,” Owen admitted. “It was a lot smaller than I was used to.”

  “When did you start dating Suzanna?” The question popped out despite my best intentions. I expected him to be angry with me for asking, but when he glanced over at me, his expression was gentle.

  “I was eighteen, and she was nineteen. Actually, I asked her out the first day we met, when I was sixteen.” He gave a quiet laugh. “She turned me down. And kept turning me down, for two whole years. She always said I was too young for her.”

  “What changed her mind?”

  He shot me a mischievous grin that made his handsome mouth look more delicious than ever.

  “Ah. I see.” I looked down at the sand under my flats. A few moments passed while I composed myself. “Do you miss her?”

  “No one has ever asked me that before. I… I miss her sometimes, yeah. It’s been difficult, since she’s been gone.”

  Are you still in love with her? But even I couldn’t ask him that.

  The pebbly sand ended at a field of white and gray rocks. A boulder towered in the distance. Other equally huge boulders lay behind it, like giant marbles cast into the shallows. High tide had left dark slashes along their sides, but for now, they sat in puddles and trickling waves.

  “I would just like to say…those are not flat at all.”

  “Trust me, it’s worth it.” His smile didn’t quite meet his eyes this time, and I felt a pang of guilt for asking him about Suze. I didn’t mean to make him relive painful memories, but I was curious about her, about him, about what their relationship had been like.

  We wound our way through the field of boulders. Most of them were even taller than Owen. It was impossible not to step in ice-cold puddles, but I still felt warm, this close to him.

  As we walked, the spaces between the boulders narrowed. Above us, a slope of grassy earth slowly rose into a cliff. Its granite face sparkled with veins of crystal quartz.

  Owen stopped walking so abruptly that I almost bumped into him. I seized one of the boulders for support and dug my nails into its cold, coarse surface.

  He turned back towards me. The mist had begun to seep into his hair, making the ends curl. “We have to climb over this one, but then we’ll be there.”

  I looked uncertainly at the algae-covered base of the boulder behind him. “Climb over it, huh?”

  At my expression, his eyes twinkled. “I’ll help you. Come here.”

  I took a step towards him, wondering if he was going to give me a boost. Instead, he put his hands on my waist, underneath my leather jacket. His hands were warm and solid through the thin fabric of my dress.

  Neither of us moved. We just looked at each other. With me in flats, our height difference was more noticeable than ever.

  The breeze blew a strand of my hair into my mouth, and Owen brought one of his hands up from my waist to brush it away. This time, I didn’t flinch when his hand came near my cheek. I leaned into his callused palm and sighed with relief. He trailed his thumb over my cheekbone, and his eyes looked darker than ever. His eyebrows were drawn together as if he were worried.

  “What is it?” I asked him thickly, finding it hard to speak.

  “It’s you. I just—forget myself around you. It’s so easy, being with you.”

  I didn’t tell him I felt the same way, or that it scared me. I licked my lips and said, “I hope that’s a good thing.”

  “It is,” he murmured. “It is so good.” He drew me in until our bodies were touching and slid a hand up my back underneath my jacket, holding me close.

  On impulse, I reached for his brilliant hair, twining it between my fingers. It was even softer than I had expected.

  He took my hand in his and brought it to the blond stubble on his jawline. His eyes closing, he touched my knuckles to his lips.

  “I shouldn’t—we should go.” He let go of my hand, sadness shading his expression, and I wondered, more than ever, what was going through his head.

  I stood up on my tiptoes and pulled his face down towards mine. I touched my forehead to his, letting his hair fall against my temples, silently praying: let this last a little longer.

  I could feel the raggedness of his breathing in my own ribs. His fingers tightened in the back of my dress, tugging the fabric taut across my chest. I wanted him so much I could hardly think. “Owen…”

  He took a sharp hard breath in at the sound of his name and kissed me. The whole world—the salt spray, the icy water trickling over our feet, the cry of seabirds high above us—had focused down to one point, to him, his mouth, his scent of nutmeg and allspice.

  Then—weightlessness—as Owen picked me up, holding me flush against him, kissing my face and neck. He set me down on a ledge on the side of a giant boulder, so that for once we were actually eye-level. I wrapped my legs around his waist, seized his shirt collar, and drew him in for another kiss, wishing he could be even closer.

  He skimmed his palm over the curve of my hip and down along my leg, only to suddenly draw back.

  My dress had ridden up around my thighs, revealing the bandage on my knee.

  “Is this—is this where you cut yourself?”

  “Yeah,” I said, embarrassed. “It still hasn’t really healed.”

  “I knew I should’ve taken you to get stitches.”

  “It’s fine, it’s getting a lot better…”

  “It’s been weeks.” He brushed my hair back behind my ears again. “Are you sure I can’t take you to a doctor?”

  “I’m fine. Really. But thank you.”

  “It’s such a strange place for you to cut yourself,” Owen said distractedly. “Almost like…”

  “Almost like what?”

  He shook his head.

  “I still wish I knew what I did,” I said, thinking back to sketching Suzanna White on my picnic blanket. “Why were you up that way, anyway? One of your walks?”

  “I don’t know. I never go up that way. I just…felt like it that morning.”

  The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I couldn’t help imagining the island plucking Owen and I from our beds and setting us down on the granite hilltop—chess pieces on a board only the island could see.

  A shrill beep came from my handbag, jerking me into the present. Rhys.

  “Do you need to get that?” Owen asked, gently cupping my face.

  It beeped again, and I flinched. “I should turn it off, or it’ll just keep doing that.” I started to pull away.

  “I can get it,” Owen said. “If you want me to.”

  No one had ever seen any of Rhys’ texts or heard his voicemails. I’d never had anyone to show them to, but even if I had, I would’ve been afraid to. What if they’d sided with Rhys? Told me to go home, as if I were a disobedient pet?

  But I’d told Owen about Rhys, and he hadn’t said anything like that.

  “Okay,” I said.

  He kissed me lightly on the lips. “Wait right there.”

  He went to the rock where I had, apparently, dropped my handbag and the tote bag holding our picnic.

  “What does it say?” I asked.

  He glanced down at the screen, then back at me, his face pale. I would have called that expressionless once, but now I could see that he was upset. “Someone wants to know when you’re coming home. He says he misses you.”

  Late last night, Rhys had left me a voicemail calling me a whore and every other imaginable slur. Today, he missed me.r />
  “It says Rhys Bristow,” Owen said. “Is that—?”

  “My ex.” I hugged my arms to my chest.

  “He’s still contacting you?”

  “Yes.”

  I could hear Owen’s boots sloshing against the wet pebbles underfoot as he walked towards me, but I didn’t look up.

  “Is he dangerous, M.?”

  “I don’t know.” Some of it had always just been bluster—more threats than actual violence, long periods of relative calm.

  “You said he used to hit you.”

  “Yeah.” I passed a hand over my face.

  “You think he’s looking for you?”

  “I don’t think so.” My theory was that, soon, even the bluster would fade. The voicemails and texts were already becoming less frequent. Eventually, he would decide it was too much work to keep after me, and he’d find someone new to put under his thumb. “I don’t think he can find me here, anyway, even if he tries to,” I said. “I didn’t leave any loose ends.”

  While I’d been packing up my lipsticks and my Shakespeare plays, I’d also been disabling location services on my phone, buying myself a prepaid debit card for my online bill payments, secretly setting up a P.O. box. I’d been careful, meticulous, focusing on one small piece at a time, as if trying to do too much at once would have stopped me altogether.

  Owen was studying me, his mouth a concerned line.

  “What?” I swallowed.

  “Nothing.” He glanced at my phone again, then handed it to me. I turned it off and slipped it into my jacket pocket, a dull weight I felt all the way up to my shoulders.

  “Does he really think he can bully you into going back?”

  “Don’t you?” Sometimes, in the darkest hours of the night, even I was waiting for the moment when my will would crumble under the pressure of my fear, and I would go back.

  “No,” Owen said at once, his voice hard. “No way in hell.”

  I looked up at him, surprised, and he cupped my face again, stroking his thumb across my cheekbone the way he had before, casting a tingling warmth across my skin. “You are so brave, Miranda.”

  I gave a hollow laugh. “I’m not brave. I ran away, like a coward.”

  “It’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard of,” he said. “You left him, and now you’re free. That’s more than most people can imagine doing in their lifetimes.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed him, but he believed what he was saying, and that meant the world to me. “Thank you,” I said softly, looping my arms around his neck. I wanted to kiss him again, but suddenly felt shy. He smoothed my hair back and kissed my forehead. Gradually, he worked his way downwards: my temple, my cheekbone, my lips. I gave a little sigh of relief. Once again, the rest of the world fell away; it was just us. And for the first time since I’d left, I did feel free.

  “Lunch?” Owen suggested eventually, between kisses.

  “Good idea.” Before I lost my head completely. “Assuming you’re taking me to a real place, and not making me climb over huge rocks for no reason.”

  He grinned. “It’s real, and I think you’ll like it.”

  He steadied me as I clambered to the top of the boulder and slid down the other side, landing with a splash on the wet sand and rocks at the bottom. My flats looked a bit worse for wear, but otherwise I’d escaped unharmed. Owen jumped down after me and took my hand in his, and we walked through the remaining boulders towards the cliff face.

  The beach shrank into a narrow path, with the cliff face on one side and the gray sea on the other. Eventually, we turned a corner and came upon a nook about four feet deep. It faced north to where the spine of the island curved around Fall Island Bay. A blanket lay across the sandy floor, with a bottle of wine and two stemless wine glasses in the center.

  “This is wonderful,” I said, utterly dazed. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me before. You must’ve had to get here so early…”

  He shrugged. “Worth the rocks?”

  “Completely.” I beamed at him, my heart swelling, then looked back at the staggering view. The forested mountains that made up the northern part of the island were just visible through the mist. I supposed if I were a millionaire I’d want to live up there, too. There would be more privacy for swimming around in piles of money, like Scrooge McDuck.

  “How did you find this place?” I asked him, as we sat down on the blanket. “I mean, even for you, this is pretty remote.”

  “I walk along the coastline a lot,” Owen said. But he didn’t quite look at me when he said it.

  He poured us both a glass of wine while I shucked off my leather jacket. Realizing he was watching me, I turned to him with a smile. To my surprise, he blushed.

  “What?” I asked curiously.

  “Nothing. You’re just…I don’t know. Different. A city girl.”

  “I know I’m not very outdoorsy—”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant…I could see you in a big city. You’re so multicultural.”

  “I am?”

  “Yeah, with your dad living in England. And your accent.”

  I laughed. “My accent? What about your accent?”

  “I don’t have an accent.”

  I edged towards him until our knees were touching, his jeans rough against my bare skin. “Say ‘wicked.’”

  “No.” His grin widened.

  “Okay, say ‘lobster.’”

  “Only if you say something about the Queen.”

  “I don’t have an English accent,” I protested.

  “No,” he agreed, “it’s more a mix of English and something else. Spanish, I guess?”

  “My mum’s family is Puerto Rican,” I admitted. “And I had a lot of Latino friends, growing up.”

  “There, you see.” He touched one broad fingertip to my chin, tilting my head up towards his.

  “If you say so…darling.” I dropped the ‘r’ and drew out the ‘a’ the way my dad would. Owen’s cheeks pinked. He stroked his thumb once across my bottom lip, then released my jaw and twined a lock of my hair through his fingers, as gentle as if he were smoothing the scroll on a violin.

  “Do you look like your mom?” he asked, watching the light play on my black hair.

  “I look like the photographs I’ve seen of her,” I said. “She died a long time ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  His fingers slid from my hair down along my bare arm, to the delicate skin in the crease of my elbow. “What about the rest of your family? Where are they?”

  “My mum’s family is in Puerto Rico, and my dad’s is in England.”

  His brow creased, as his fingers made slow, soothing circles on my skin. “That sounds pretty lonely, M.”

  “I don’t feel lonely right now,” I said softly.

  Owen set his wine down on the sand and took both of my hands in his, frowning down at my rings and bracelets. “Miranda, I’m not…I have to…”

  “What is it?” I thought about the way he’d kissed me earlier and wanted to feel his lips on mine again. Everywhere.

  But, his expression pensive, he didn’t answer me. I forced a smile and reached for the tote bag. “How about some lunch?”

  Owen nodded, his face still shuttered. I pulled out the lunch things I’d brought and started asking him questions about how Ferdinand was settling in with the rest of Claire’s dogs. We worked our way through the sandwiches and snacks and the bottle of wine, talking about Claire and her menagerie until the smile had returned to Owen’s eyes. After lunch, he helped me out of the cave, back onto the narrow path.

  “What are you doing tomorrow, beautiful?” he asked, as we neared the parking lot.

  “Working a double,” I said. “But the next day I’m only on for the lunch shift, if you…”

  “Come over for dinner,” he said at once. “I’ll make you something delicious.”

  Chapter 12

  I drifted from table to table, struggling to reme
mber the most basic things, like actually bringing people their drinks instead of letting the full beer glasses sweat on the bar. Since my afternoon at the beach with Owen, time had seemed all confused, too fast, too slow, while I waited for tonight. Dinner at his place, with Suzanna just upstairs.

  I realized I had a new table—a high top that sat two—and hurried towards it. “I’m so sorry for the wait,” I said, as I put down two coasters and two sets of silverware.

  “It’s just me,” said a familiar velvety voice. “One place setting is fine.”

  I glanced up at the man at the table. He wore a dress shirt and tie. A hat and a pack of cigarettes sat on the table in front of him. That sensation of stepping into another era came over me again, like sliding into a warm bath.

  “It’s you,” I said, bewildered.

  “That’s what I said.” He smiled. “Miranda, wasn’t it? The artist and aspiring bartender.”

  “That’s right,” I replied, trying to regain my chirpy waitress demeanor. “And your name is—”

  “James,” he supplied, before I could admit I’d forgotten it. “James Emory.”

  I stuffed the extra coaster and silverware back into my apron pocket. “Can I get you something to drink, James?”

  “A Manhattan, please.”

  “Oh, good choice.”

  He arched a dark eyebrow. “Do you drink them?”

  “Sometimes. Usually I drink whiskey on the rocks.”

  “Interesting. I wouldn’t have guessed that, looking at you.”

  I blinked at him.

  “You seem,” he added, by way of clarification, “so delicate. I imagine you drinking fine white wines.”

  “I like wine, too.” Delicate? Me? People usually called me curvy, at best.

  He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. Muscles rippled under his dress shirt. I had a vision of him working out with a personal trainer at a very expensive gym. “Remind me to show you my wine cellar. How long have you been on the island? Have you had a chance to try out any local specialties?”

  I doubted he meant the island’s burger joint, Beer n’ Buns. “I wouldn’t really know where to go.”

  “Do you like seafood?”