Page 84 of A Life Chosen

“Out,” he said, tossing Rayan his clothes from the floor.

It was midmorning, and the promenade along the beach was virtually empty. Mathias led them down the stairs to the sand, pulling off his shirt and dropping it on the ground. Rayan stood, dumbstruck, feeling as though he was missing an important piece of information.

“You figure out how to float, and the rest is easy,” Mathias explained, stepping out of his shoes.

Rayan blinked. “You’re going to teach me how to swim?”

“What does it look like?” Mathias scowled, turning and striding toward the water. “Hurry up.”

Rayan shed his shirt, kicked off his shoes, and followed him. Mathias waded into the sea and dove under a wave as it broke. He emerged with water streaming down his shoulders, pushing his wet hair back from his face. Rayan walked into the waves until they were up to his stomach.

Mathias moved to him and eased him backward into the water, holding him up with his hands. “Find your center and trust it. Like riding a bike.”

“Never learned to do that either.”

Mathias snickered, glancing down at him. “Well, shit.”

Rayan stared up at him, clouds parting above to let the morning sun shine through. The water lapped around his ears, moving like a giant swollen cushion, jostling him. He felt unsteady, but Mathias’s hands on his back kept him from sinking. Soon, he discovered a strange calm. Rayan let his body relax and found his legs could stay afloat on their own, his arms keeping his chest up. Slowly, Mathias released him, and he floated with his arms spread, buoyed by the sea.

“At least now you won’t drown.” He smirked. “Try to move without sinking.”

After Rayan attempted several strokes with varying degrees of success, they lay on their backs in the ocean as the sun crawled higher in the sky. Rayan glanced over at Mathias, whose eyes were closed, water slipping across his bare chest. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, the reflex to hold everything inside weakening, its purpose no longer useful.

Mathias opened one eye, looking at him. “You’ve swallowed too much water.”

Rayan grinned, staring at the cloudless canvas above. He recalled the man’s admission that first night, lying stiffly on his bed, and was filled with a heavy sadnessat the thought of Mathias growing up believing he was living a borrowed life, bound to a mistake that wasn’t his. He wondered what kind of shadow it had cast and decisions it had tainted.

Later, they sat on the sand, drying in the sun, while Mathias smoked a cigarette. Along the beach, people began to appear—couples, families with umbrellas and chairs, children in swimsuits venturing tentatively into the water.

“Who taught you?” Rayan asked, watching as a little girl filled a bucket in the waves and ran back to her mother, who was sunbathing on a towel.

“Made us take lessons at school.”

“Some school.”

“The best money could buy,” Mathias said dryly.

There was a collection of shrieks as a group of kids chased a soccer ball across the sand.

“You go on holidays growing up?” Rayan asked.

Mathias exhaled and made a sour expression. “Maybe. If we did, they weren’t memorable.”

“My mother always said we’d go to Beirut one day,” Rayan said with a half smile. “Even if we had the money, my father wouldn’t have let us. Probably figured she’d leave and never come back.” He drew his fingers through the white sand by his toes. “It happened anyway, except we didn’t make it out of the country.”

“Will you go?”

He shook his head. “I have no ties there. Or anywhere, for that matter.”

Mathias studied him carefully, the cigarette perched between his fingers. “Then you’ll stay here?”

Rayan stared back, his heart thudding. He wanted the man to say it—to make the decision for him. “If you told me to go back, I would.”

Mathias held his gaze for a moment before looking away. Stabbing the cigarette out in the sand between them, he pulled himself to his feet and shrugged on his shirt. “I don’t give you orders anymore.”

Mathias picked up his shoes and walked back toward the stairs. Rayan stared out at the sea—vast and sprawling, as remote as ever.

When Rayan woke the next morning, the other side of the bed was empty. He found Mathias standing in the kitchen with his bag. He was already showered and dressed, the first coffee of the day in his hand.

---