Page 27 of Unworthy
“Does he often bail on her when she’s teaching?” I yelled back when she drew up next to me.
“I’ve seen Yaz dragging all the equipment in by herself more times than I can count over the last month,” she said. “He’s a lazy git, if you ask me.”
“Haven’t you spoken to Yaz about it?”
Dee shrugged. “That girl lacks self-esteem. I’ve told her he should pitch in more, but she’s worried if she asks too much of him he’ll abandon the business. She won’t believe me that she doesn’t need him helping her at all. Nobody comes here for Bodhi. I don’t know who’s made her feel that she should accept his bullshit,” Dee gave me a significant look at this point. “She doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of support from her family or any other backers either, so she feels without Bodhi she’d be a bit lost.”
My chest felt tight. I was seeing for the first time that Yaz was very much on her own. All her family, and I for that matter, did was erode her self-esteem to the point where she felt she should ‘accept bullshit’.
“Crap, I’d better go in,” Dee said, before wading into the water, leaving me on the water’s edge. I hesitated a moment and then, cursing under my breath, kicked off my shoes and followed her. The reason Poole Harbour is so good for learning to windsurf is because of how shallow the water is. Even a good fifty yards from the shoreline, it was still only up to my waist. I made it out to the furthest kid who was attempting to heave her rig against the rain and wind. I shouted that I was a friend of Yaz’s, then told her to hold on to the board. I dragged her rig and board over to the next kid and told her the same. Then I pulled both rigs, with kids attached, to the shore. Yaz met me halfway. She and Dee had already managed to get most of the other kids and their rigs to shore – they were now huddled under the shelter of the canopy with Dee.
“What are you doing here?” she yelled over the wind as she grabbed one rig, smiling at both the children before she scowled at me. The wind had picked up speed now and the sail of one rig suddenly flipped over the board and smacked Yaz on the shoulder.
“Midge! Are you okay?” I was desperately trying to keep hold of both boards when all I wanted to do was to go to her and check her bloody arm wasn’t broken.
“I’m fine,” she yelled. I’d seen her flinch of pain as the mast came down, though. She wasn’t fine and now I could see she wasn’t using that arm. But all her focus was on the children. She moved past me and manoeuvred both girls so they were holding onto the foot straps of each of their rigs. Then she wrestled one of the rigs from me. The wind was so strong that I had to let her take it or risk losing hold of them. We dragged both rigs and children to the shore. As soon as we got there, she bundled the other two up into towels and Dry Robes under the canopy and thanked Dee, insisting that she head out to go kiting. Parents had started to arrive now. Yaz was talking to them. One dad spoke mostly to her chest. I crossed my arms over mine and stared at them until pervy dad noticed me. When he did, he jerked his chin up and gave me a weak smile before hustling his kid away. Once the last child had left, Yaz walked back towards me and the rigging. The rain was nearly horizontal now, and the wind had whipped some of her hair free of the elastic band.
“How’s your shoulder?” I said, instinctively reaching towards her to check that the joint was okay, but freezing when she flinched away from me. That hollow feeling was back.
“Where’s Bodhi?” she snapped as she struggled with the rigging of one of the kid’s windsurfers.
“He flaked – went to ‘catch some waves’. Real reliable guy you’re in business with.”
“You don’t know him.” She shot me an angry look and went back to what she was doing, but I could see the red stain on her wet cheeks.
I wasn’t about to argue with her about Bodhi – that would be counterproductive. She rolled her shoulder a couple of times before bending down to roll up the sail, which was blowing in the wind.
“You shouldn’t be doing that, Yaz. You’re hurt.”
She straightened from what she was doing and put her foot on top of the sail to stop it blowing away. “Listen, thank you for helping me get the girls in,” she said through gritted teeth, sounding anything but grateful. “But you can go. Now.”
The wind was dying down now, but the rain was still pelting us. “I’ll help you pack this all up. Then you need to let me look at your shoulder.”
“I don’tneedto do anything. Why are you even here? I don’t want your negative energy pulling my chakras out of whack. Bugger off.”
I was proud of myself for suppressing an eye roll and holding in a short laugh. In Yaz language, “negatively affecting her chakras” was a serious insult.
“I wanted to talk to you and you’re not answering my calls.”
“Listen, if you’re worried that I’m going to tell Max about… what happened – I told you I won’t breathe a word. The last thing I want him to know is that I was a notch on your bedpost.”
“You’re not a notch on my bedpost! I don’t–”
“Oh my God, spare me, please. Go and peddle your bullshit to someone who wants to listen to it. So, we had sex. Big deal.”
“Itisa big deal. I told you I–”
She stopped what she was doing and her eyes flashed as she looked up at me. “If you mention your pathetic offer of a pity relationship ever again, I shall forget my oath on non-violence I made at the last solstice and hang your balls from my kitesurfer.”
“Yaz–”
“I mean it, Heath.” The anger faded from her voice now, making it all the more heart-wrenching to hear. “I can’t take any more of that from you. Don’t go there again. You’ve no idea how much it costs me.”
I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. Rivers of water were rolling down her face and dripping off her nose and eyelashes as the rain continued to pound down on us. She looked so beautiful it almost took my breath away. Seemingly of its own accord, my hand reached up slowly to her face. This time she didn’t flinch away, as though she was frozen in shock watching my hand’s progress. My fingertips grazed the side of her cheek to her jawline as my thumb swept water from her cheekbone. I’d moved forward and there was only an inch separating us. It felt like an outside force was drawing us together. Like it was out of either of our control.
“Please,” I whispered. Absolute desperation threaded through that one word. Her lips parted as she stared up into my eyes. I thought for a moment we were going to kiss. We both swayed towards each other a fraction, but then Yaz blinked. A frown marred her forehead as she seemed to come back to herself. Both her hands went up to my chest and she pushed away from me, hard. As she moved back, I was left standing with my hand raised, just air now where her face had been.
“Don’t youdaretouch me. Ever again.”
