Page 74 of Our Hearts Knew Better

I wanted everyone to disappear so it would just be the two of us again, me eating his fries and reading him scenes from my books.

Those are the next memories that follow me, until someone entering the diner looks at me twice and I speed away and up, shielding my face more with the towel, feeling like Rose when she was hiding from Cal.

I’m back less than a couple hours and living anotherTitanicmoment.

But my returning flush is for the first one.

The beach part of the bay is quiet, vacant, when I step onto the sand, people who want to be in the water doing so from their boats. There are quite a few in the distance, other people’s shouts and laughter mixing with the memories of mine and Adam’s and his friends’, echoes off the surrounding trees.

Levi’s is always an edging, coming in like the period at the end of the most run-on sentence.

The water pulls me closer, the rippling glow so inviting. I’m clammy, my hair already curling in places, like it knows where we are, who I’m supposed to be. . .

I spread my limbs so no skin is touching, my elbows poking out and my wedges scraping a sideways path in the sand.

I want these clothes off. But all I have is the towel, my hands not collecting a change of outfit when I was unable to use my brain. I need to be cooled down physically and emotionally. Better to be thrown into a vat of ice water, but what do they say? Beggars can’t be choosers?

I stomp away from the thought with a spark of determination, moving a bit farther down to a more secluded spot in case I do get company. Then I drop the towel, and I strip.

Come on. It’s just us. It’ll be fun!

Swimming with suits is fun too!

Adam tried to talk me into skinny dipping with him several times after his joking first, but I wasn’t ready to show him my body. Not until I was ready for what would come next. Until I felt his hands all on my skin and his mouth tasting me, our bodies learning the waves of the other’s.

But by then, we were leaving this town, heading off on a new adventure.

Now, I’m back, and naked, and squealing like a kid again as I run and splash and slip under the water.

I don’t come up until my lungs ache, familiar but different, gasping in air as I finger my hair from my face. The water is warm, but refreshing, and when my eyes sting and a knot forms in my throat, for the first time in a long time, I welcome the feeling, tilting my head back toward the sun in a tread, comforted by the waves.

If my nipples weren’t out, I’d float…away…

I feel a presence before I hear it moving. Shuffling. Soft rustling.

Despite the warmth of the water and the day, goosebumps tickle along my skin, telling me exactly who I’ll see as I spin around, sinking down some so I’m covered to my neck.

We freeze, my breathing also stilling at the sight of Levi, standing in shorts and a loose white tank top that shows off his muscles.

It hasn’t beentoolong since we’ve seen each other in person. He visited us in Virginia once in a while. But it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other in person at the scenes of his crime.

He’s glancing down at my pile of clothes, where my panties lay right on top. He stares a long moment, probably processing that I’ve taken a nude swim, and I wish I were closer to see the changes in his expression.

I’m sucked back in time as I watch him, my heart wanting to immediately run away, after him, the boy I should’ve run away with at seventeen.

I also want to shake him for what he did to me.

I want to claw at him with how much I feel I need him, at just this sight, at this place.

I claw at the sides of my boobs instead, leaving dents in my skin, where I’m hugging my chest, concealing myself more.

Everything is being dug up from deep inside me. Like we’ve picked up where we left off back at that bridge, the true aftermath and the years between only hours, our recovered friendship faulty, for all his faults. Vulnerabilities that belong to him, that I haven’t had to feel, while I’m literally naked in his presence.

I’m hurt all over again.

I’mmad.

When he lifts his villainous blond head back up, he appears to lock his eyes with mine, but I spy movement, flutters to his lashes, like he’s blinking.

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