Page 53 of Beyond the Horizon

Nineteen

Connie

“I’m headingoff to the beach, Grandma,” I call from the front door, slipping on my trainers and grabbing my sunhat.

“Lola doesn’t need you today?” she asks, stepping out of the living room with her hands wrapped around a large mug of coffee. She’s grown her hair out over the last year and now it falls in soft silvery waves around her shoulders. Her pale skin is smooth with a few wrinkles and her eyes are still a deep blue without any of the colour loss that sometimes happens to people of the same age. Her beauty is still evident. She’s a striking woman, a woman who’s been alone for almost thirty years. Grandpa John was her one and only love. She once said to me that their time together, however fleeting it might have been, has sustained her all these years. I believe her.

“Today’s my day off. Anyway, Lola locked up after the breakfast rush this morning and took the ferry to the mainland with Rob. They’re meeting some friends for lunch and staying until tomorrow afternoon. I’m opening up tonight and tomorrow for her though.”

Grandma Silva smiles knowingly. “Love’s young dream, eh?”

I nod, giving her the barest of smiles. “Yeah, I guess they are.”

I’m not jealous of Lola and Rob’s relationship. Far from it, in fact. I’m happy for them both. Rob lost his wife to cancer a few years ago and Lola has needed someone to ground her, to help her ease the pain of Malakai’s desertion. They’re good for each other. They’re happy.

“I’ll see you later at dinner time before I head back to The Shack, okay?”

Grandma Silva gives me one of her looks. The kind of look where she knows I’m keeping something hidden and she’s trying to figure out what it is. For the past couple of weeks since I received Malakai’s text, I’ve been distracted. Grandma is no fool, she knows me better than anyone. She’s seen through all the smiles that I’ve plastered on my face over the past year since he left. She’s tried to talk to me about Malakai, but I’ve refused to engage in conversation. I know she didn’t want him to stay. I know she thinks he’s dangerous for my heart. I understand her fear about his family, his past, about the damn curse, but that doesn’t give her the right to try and choose my path for me. She had her time with Grandpa John, she got to love and be loved, even if that was for only a short time. Alfred Lord Tennyson was right when he wrote:“Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.”He knew what he was talking about.

Iwantto love, tobeloved, for however long I can, and it pisses me off that Grandma keeps trying to prevent me from experiencing that. I know it comes from a good place, from a place of love, but that doesn’t mean it’s right.

“Connie…” She begins, but I give her a quick smile and head out the front door not willing to hear what she has to say, because sitting in my back pocket is my mobile phone and it’s just vibrated with a new message.

Somehow, I know it’s from him, from Malakai, and I can’t be around Grandma when I read it. Too afraid to reach for my phone and check if I’m right, I head towards Broken Shores, needing the comfort of my most favourite place in the whole world before I find the courage to see what he has to say. It’s been two weeks, almost to the day, when I received that one and only message from Malakai. A whole year had passed before then, and in all that time he never once responded to any of my messages, except that last one.

The day I’d sent that message I’d convinced myself Malakai was never coming back. After a year of waiting I’d let go of the hope he’d ever return, I was saying goodbye. Then he messaged me back.

We need to talk, Little Siren.

Those six words had thrown me into a spin, and I’ve been on edge ever since. Funny how that message came a short while after Peter arrived on the island. Peter with his sandy blonde hair and pale grey eyes. Peter with his cheeky smile and his warm laughter. Peter, a man nearer my own age, who had stepped off the ferry from the mainland a few weeks ago now and who’s shown no signs of leaving.

Like Malakai, he’s travelled the world. Originating from Australia, he’s been hitchhiking around Europe for the past six months. Like me, he’s fallen in love with our little island.

From the moment we met, Peter has pursued me religiously, and whilst I’m flattered, he doesn’t hold a candle to Malakai. He doesn’t make my heart sing. He doesn’t make my head fill with passionate words and painful song lyrics. He doesn’t set my skin on fire.

But he does make me smile and Grandma Silva likes him. So one day, after spending the whole afternoon and evening on Broken Shores thinking about my life, my future, and considering developing my friendship with Peter, I sent that last message to Malakai. I let him go.

A few hours later he texted me back, fucking with my head.

Now as I step onto the beach, slipping off my sandals and looping them over my fingers, I make my way over to my favourite spot to read Malakai’s text message. The tide is out, and the black stone is warm as I settle onto the rock. Sliding my feet into the pool of sun-warmed water, I realise how significant it is that I’m here. This is where I first laid eyes on Malakai.

Man-god. Poseidon. A broken man with scars that run deeper than the ink tattooed across his skin. A man I don’t really know, but long for anyway.

Pulling in a deep, steadying breath, I stare at my phone’s lock screen. A photo of Grandma Silva and me, stares back. We’re both grinning widely, wearing silly party hats. The photo was taken on my nineteenth birthday a month ago. Only my smile isn’t real. If you look close enough you’ll see the sadness in my eyes. You’ll see the longing for a man who stole my heart and sailed away with it.

Despite itching to call Malakai since he sent the message, I haven’t. I’ve waited. Living here on this island has taught me to be patient. According to Grandma Silva, patience is a virtue, but I’m not virtuous, far from it. I have sinful thoughts. I’ve brought myself to orgasm night after night thinking of Malakai and his lips and tongue pressed against my wet heat. I’ve imagined him taking me, fucking me hard, fucking me slow. I’ve imagined how it would feel to suck his cock, to spread myself bare for him whilst he jacks off over my naked chest. I’ve imagined so many things. So many naughty, sinful, adult things.

I’m no longer the little girl he accused me of being. I’m so much more.

“Let’s see what you have to say,” I murmur, swiping my finger upwards across the screen of my phone, trepidation filling my heart.

Meet me at Grant’s boat shop in half an hour. Come alone. I’ll deal with Lola and Ma tomorrow.

That’s it. No apologies. No great declarations of love… Okay, that was never very likely, but still, a girl can dream. There’s nothing in his text to explain why he’s returned so suddenly after a whole year of being away. I’m not sure what I was expecting in his text, but it wasn’t that. It’s short, to the point,demanding, and void of any kind of possible emotion.

I should’ve known.

I rest my phone on the rock beside me and stare out to sea remembering the day he arrived on the island.

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