Page 14 of Blind Sin

“You okay?” she asks, padding barefoot over the tiled floor to me. I count her steps as she walks. I’d forgotten to do it myself in the excitement of having my own room - one that has no locks on the outside.

I turn and smile as she takes my hand and gives it three squeezes. For a moment, everything falls back into place. I don’t know how to tell her that I’m not okay. We are finally living our dream, but it feels as though it’s hanging by a gossamer thread and the only thing keeping it together are three men who did things to me that I’m still not sure that I wanted.

“Let’s go outside and really feel the sun,” Lucy suggests.

The pain from the bruises has subsided thanks to the pain meds, but I’m still sore as I step down off the bed.

She takes my hand and the pair of us wander barefoot over tile to the front door.

“You two off to the beach?” Nolan calls out from somewhere to our left. “I’ll come with you.”

I hear his shoes hitting tile, but Lucy stops him. “No. Lauren and I need to talk alone.”

My stomach drops at the stoniness of her voice. She’s never going to warm to these men, no matter what they do. They’ve saved our lives and yet that’s not enough. Lucy’s hand grips mine more tightly as she guides me out onto the beach.

As my feet sink into the warm sand, a thrilling sensation courses through me. Lucy laughs as I let the grains of sand sift through my toes. “Come on, let’s see how warm the ocean is here.” She pulls me toward the sound of the sea.

When Lucy and I talked about one day running away to the beach, it was always an abstract thing in my mind. I knew about the sea and I knew it was huge, but talking about it failed to fully convey the size of it. The biggest distance I knew before escaping was the roughly ten foot corridor between my bedroom and bathroom. I managed to keep it together on the boat, but now the exhilaration has worn off, the sheer expanse of sea is overwhelming.

Approaching the water's edge, the sound of the waves grows louder, and I pause, feeling the subtle vibrations under my feet.

I let the waves lap over my toes. It's invigorating, and for a few moments, I forget about everything else. It's just me and Lucy and the ocean. But as Lucy lets go of my hand to walk further into the water, I feel rising panic threaten to engulf me. Lucy splashes in the waves, her laughter ringing out in the warm air and I try to calm down, if only for her sake. I can’t let some stupid fear ruin this. It’s just water, like a really big bath. “Come on, let's swim!” she exclaims, tugging at my hand.

My heart races as I realize how deep it's getting. I'm not sure if I'm ready for this. But then I give in, letting her lead me out further, feeling the warm rush of water against my skin until the water is up to my knees. It's like a shock to my system, and I'm fighting the urge to hyperventilate. I take a deep breath and try to calm myself down, but the fear is overwhelming.

“Lauren?” I hear the concern in Lucy’s voice. I can feel her hand on my arm, offering me support. I never was good at hiding anything from her, lest of all my emotions.

“You ok?” she asks again, her voice soft and comforting.

I nod, but as I do, I take a step back toward the shoreline. I can feel the water tugging at my legs, trying to pull me back in. It's like the sea is alive and wants to swallow me whole. I'm not sure if I can do this, but I don't want to disappoint Lucy. She's been through so much for me already.

“I...I think I need a minute,” I say, my voice trembling. I turn and start to walk back toward the shore, feeling the water recede as I do. I feel like a failure, like I can't even do something as simple as wade in the ocean.

I’m just beginning to centre myself as I step out onto dry sand when I hear voices. I recognize them as Nolan and Alexander. They are on the beach up by the house somewhere and I wonder if they saw my ridiculous defeat. Anxiety floods back, and I feel exposed and vulnerable.

Lucy notices my sudden shift in mood. “What are they doing here?” she mutters under her breath.” I told them I wanted to be alone with you.”

“We’re the only people on a desert island. We can’t spend the next few weeks avoiding them... they did save us.” They saved me in more ways than one. Not that I can tell Lucy that. She wouldn’t understand. She knows I slept with Josh, but I’ve not told her what happened between me and Nolan and Dacre. She’s already angry. She’d have me swimming back to the US if she thought that all three of them had touched me.

“And I’m grateful,” she says, handing me a towel. “But it doesn’t mean I trust them.”

“They didn’t hurt me, Lucy,” I say, a little too loudly, though I’m not even sure if that’s true or not. I’m so ashamed that I don’t know something so simple as to whether I should feel hurt or whether I enjoyed what they did to me.

“Okay, Lauren. I’m sorry.” Lucy walks away, leaving me with my own thoughts.

How do you set boundaries with people who have risked their lives to save you? How do you balance gratitude with caution? I take the towel and wipe down my legs, feeling even more self conscious. I want to ask if they are still watching, or if Josh is with them, but I know if I do, she’ll question my interest. I swallow back a lump in my throat as I realize I’m going to have to pretend to be someone I’m not again, and this time I’m going to have to be even more convincing than before, because this time I’m going to have to convince Lucy.

9

DACRE

Istare at the screen on my laptop, not really taking it in. The promise of a generous and false donation by my parents to the University has enabled it so that we can finish out our year virtually, sitting our exams via Zoom, and by some miracle, Letterman has agreed to put my apprenticeship back a couple of weeks which gives us a month to sort our shit out and come up with a plan that won’t have the five of us ending up dead.

I’ve got what I want using nothing but my name... again. Clenching my hands into fists, I attempt to silence the nagging doubts that are once again plaguing me. I should be happy. No one else would get away with as much bullshit as I seem to, but I don’t want to. I want people to respect me, not the name given to me at birth. One that my parents would gladly take back if they could. Years of anger and resentment spill out as I slam my fist into the bedcovers. None of this even matters if Waldgrave catches us... which he will. I know what he did to Lauren is the actual source of my frustrations, but neither money nor my name will help me get out of this situation. The five thousand dollars Mercier managed to squirrel away from the Fifth Avenue apartment won’t last us that long. Not even in French Polynesia. We have to eat and then there’s gas for the boat, not to mention plane tickets to get us off the island when we do eventually come up with a plan.

Not that any of this matters, because I can’t get Lauren out of my mind. I realized somewhere between the plane and the boat that I was her first kiss. Sure, Nix stamped her V-card, but her first kiss belonged to me. I experienced the flavor of her lips, then I indulged in the sweetness of her pussy. It’s not a taste easy to forget.

Trying to put Lauren to the back of my mind isn’t an easy feat, but I browse to one of the financial websites. My heart nearly bottoms out as I take in a photo of my father shaking hands with Peter Waldgrave.

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