Page 56 of Nine

I feel him pull my hair back as I keep heaving onto the sand.

“Please tell me this is your first and last time doing lines.”

I nod as I try to catch my breath.

“You have no idea how long it took me to find you tonight. I’m so furious with you right now,” he says.

I don’t respond. He reaches his hand down and pulls me up.

“What do you want to do, Nine?”

My eyes are glassy and probably the size of saucers.

“I want to go back to the hotel with you. I want to go home,” I say, as I grab his arm.

The word home sinks in at the same time for both of us. This place is our new home, and we still need to figure out what that means exactly for the both of us, but not tonight.

He takes my chin and tips it up.

“Don’t ever in your life pull the shit you did tonight. I won’t deal with it again. I don’t care how I feel about you. I won’t do it. The escort talk, tell me it was bullshit.”

“It was bullshit. I wasn’t going to sleep with that guy in there. I guess I just felt like I needed to get back to who I was, and how I see myself and how I thought you see me. I’m not good at anything else, but I don’t want to sell my body, Trig. I don’t want to do it. I’m just so tired.”

I break into a slight cry, and as dumb as I feel, I can’t help but be emotional. Is this what coke does to you, because I don’t like being this way.

“Take my hand then,” he demands. I do.

We walk along the beach and I slowly start to feel some of the nervous energy wear off from the drugs. The only sound I hear is the ocean waves. After walking what feels like a million miles I can finally see our hotel close by.

“I want to hear you say it again,” I say, as I stop my feet dead in the sand.

“Say what?” he says.

“Tomorrow, both of us will wake up and it’s going to be a new day, and maybe we’ll blame it on the moment. I just want to hear you say what you said back there at the bar. Please. I need to hear it again, even if it’s a lie.”

Trig licks his lips. He knows what I’m talking about.

“No one has ever loved you more than me.” He steps closer and twirls a strand of my hair around his finger. “Today, tomorrow, and even next week. It’s all the same, girl.”

I grin and turn to walk, but he stops me.

“Your turn.”

“What?” I say, flustered.

“I said, your turn.”

“Oh no. I’m not in the right state of mind to be telling you things.”

“You’re in the perfect state of mind. Liquor and drugs are truth serums. Now go.”

He stares a hole through me.

I fumble with the right words and then I decide that there is no perfect way to say all this.

“You’re right. I hate the way I feel about you, and what’s worse is that I love every minute of it. It’s not easy for me to understand that at all. Trust me, I’ve tried. I’ve put overtime into these thoughts. And they all circle back to one thing.” I pause. “It’s so damn easy to be Nine, because she’s everything I wished I was growing up. She’s confident and in control, but with you, I’m just Storm, and I can’t understand why you make me feel good about being a weak little girl who I left on the front steps of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I can’t stand that you do that to me. It makes me feel out of control. My heart is hanging by a damn string and for the first time in my life I think I love someone, and I’m not sure if I know anything about love, but if what I’m feeling is it, then I do.”

Trig squints his eyes. I put my head down, embarrassed.

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