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Lee S. King
Lost
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He stared out at the waves, letting the sand sift through his fingers. The seagulls were crying over the sandbar, looking for tasty treats.
"You mind if I sit down?" asked a woman.
He didn’t look up. He shrugged.
"You seem sad. Wanna talk about it?"
He continued to stare. After a very long time, the woman asked, "You like the ocean?"
He shrugged again. He remembered blonde hair and a sexy bikini, sand and laughter, and salty kisses.
"She did."
"Who?"
"The woman I killed."
There was silence then in quiet amazement the woman asked, "You killed a woman?"
"As certainly as if I had pulled a trigger or stabbed her with a knife."
"How? Why?"
"I hurt her. And she ended up dead."
A pause then the woman asked, "You want to talk about it?"
He just stared.
"Do you live here, or are you visiting?"
"Live here."
"Don’t you work?"
"I write songs. I used to, anyway. I can’t write any more. Except about her…"
"Did you love her?"
He didn’t answer. He saw shining blue eyes staring at him, as he looked out at the sky over the water.
"I like the beach. I like the quiet," the woman said. "It’s peaceful. Is that why you come here?"
He sifted sand and stared.
"How long has she been dead?"
"Seven years."
"And you still just think about her?"
"She haunts me."
"What did you do to her?"
"I made her trust me. I made her love me when she had been so hurt she was afraid to try again. It took five years of friendship before she started to trust me as a man." He looked down at the sand. "I stole from her."
"You… stole from her?"
"Yeah. I wanted to put the money back – I did, some. But it was too late. She found out. I tried to tell her but she wouldn’t listen. I don’t blame her. She had no reason to trust what I said anymore."
"Did you need the money so much?"
He shrugged.
"I had some debts. But the more I took it seemed the debts grew instead of vanishing. It was like a vicious cycle. I thought I could keep the books looking good until I could pay the money back. She’d read the reports and they would look fine. She trusted me…"
"So what happened to her?"
"She got angry and left and…somehow lost control of her car. She went down an embankment and rolled several times. That fast, she was gone."
"So you didn’t have to worry about being caught?"
"Oh, she had already shown her lawyer the proof of what I was doing, but it didn’t matter. I pleaded guilty. I was convicted and served time. I got out not long ago."
"And moved here?"
He nodded.
"This is where we were happy. I messed it up. I killed her. I moved here so I could be reminded of that every single day."
"Why not move away? Get on with your life?"
He shook his head. It was quiet for a long time then finally he spoke.
"She had a lousy childhood. No father, a mother who drank and disappeared sometimes for months at a time. She had some very bad things happen to her as a young teen. Very bad… but she never stopped struggling for her dreams. Every man she loved treated her like dirt, except one and he died. When I met her and we decided to form a partnership, it was strictly business. Over time we became friends. We achieved some of our dreams together. Then I destroyed all of both our dreams."
"But you’ve paid for your mistakes."
He shook his head.
"No. I live seeing her face in my mind. The shock, anger, tears. She was beautiful but she didn’t think so. She never wanted me to tell her she was beautiful. I still remember her face. Her voice. Her accent. She was so beautiful but it went beyond that. She had a passion for life that made her beautiful from deep inside. I’ll never stop loving her. But now it’s too late."
"I think you need some counseling to help you get over this. It’s not healthy."
He snorted quietly, almost a laugh.
"I’m a thief and a murderer. Whatever I live with, I deserve."
"But don’t you think maybe she might look down on you now, and be able to forgive?"
He shook his head.
"Not after I hurt her the way I did. She could never forgive me. As I can never forgive me. She deserved life and happiness and I took any chance of that away from her."
"Don’t you think seven years is enough punishment?"
He scooped up sand and began silently letting it sift through his fingers again. He saw her face, looking up at his, eyes snapping delightedly, as they sat at the piano bickering happily about which chord to use in their new song. He saw her frightened, letting him hold her shaking hands for the first time, in mere friendship, as she faced a fear that had haunted her.
"Well," the woman said, after sitting quietly for awhile. "I’d feel sorry for you, but you’re already doing a great job of that." She got up. "Tide’s coming in. You’d better move, or you’re going to get your clothes wet."
No answer. He heard her walk away.
Across the dune, on the porch of a cottage, the blonde woman watched her friend talk with the man. She slowly got up, happy she was walking now without even her braces. She would never run again as she once did, but she had persevered and was walking when they said it would never happen. She leaned on the post and stared hard. It did look like him. But it surely couldn’t be; it had all been dead ends so far. Yet if it wasn’t, why was she talking with him for so long?
She carefully backed up and sat back down in the chair, hoping and not daring to hope. She knew he would not want her. She was older now. She couldn’t do the things they used to do together with her legs still not cooperating fully. Certainly not dance. They had loved to dance.
If it truly was him, could she ever get past the betrayal? Could she ever trust him? It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t want her. She slammed her fist on the table next to the chair. Why did she come here? Why did she keep trying to find him?
She put her head down on the table. She couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t let herself. Crying was weak. A hand on her head woke her up.
"It wasn’t him."
"Then why did you talk so long?"
"He was lonely and needed someone to talk to. I’m sorry if I got your hopes up. Why don’t we leave, honey?"
"Are you certain? I mean, it looks like him from here, and he’s using the same name – or alias…"
"How many Jackson’s are there, honey? It was a million to one shot. Let’s pack and leave before you get too depressed."
She shook her head.
"I like it here. We had good memories here."
"Okay. I’ll fix us something for supper."
She stared out at the water, a slight smile on her face, remembering being picked up and thrown into the water. She remembered racing along the sandbar and splashing through the shallow water, laughing when he yelled because a sand crab had bitten his toe. She remembered the salty kisses they had shared and she ached to feel his arms around her.
She looked over at the man, still sitting on the beach. She looked at the sand and wondered how she could manage to walk across it with her unwilling legs. She slowly stood, and determined she would do it.
It took time and she was exhausted. She fell several times and getting to her feet was difficult without support. But she managed it.
She finally got close, only a few steps away, and stood, staring at his back.
"Larry?"
He turned and looked up at her; blue eyes not brown ones, a face too lean. Her heart sank.
"I’m sorry," she murmured. "Forgive me, I thought you were someone else."
He stared at the water again as she slowly made her way back to her cottage porch.
© 2002 Lee S. King
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