Outside

by Michelle Mankin

  She looked at me with a wounded expression and gathered tears spilled from her pretty honey colored eyes. “You’re acting just like my father.” Her chin came up to a stubborn angle but I was too full of my own righteous indignation to back down much less admit that she was right.

  “And you’re acting just like your mother.” I lashed right back. “Running away back to what’s safe and familiar the moment there’s an opportunity to.” If she returned to OB I was afraid she would forget us and remember the things she had given up for me, things that I couldn’t offer her. A home. College. Her dream. How could I compete with that? All I had to offer her right now were nebulous hopes for an uncertain future.

  “You’re the one who shut me out,” she said bowing her head in defeat.

  “Maybe I did. Maybe I have. But maybe that was because I knew where you and I were headed all along.” Not true, but once the words were out I couldn’t take them back. Old habits of self-preservation had risen to the forefront because I knew she had the power to utterly destroy me. I knew if I let her walk out that door that she wasn’t coming back. Away from me she would come to her senses. She would realize what a poor choice I was.

  She froze as solid as the ice sculpture on the buffet table in the other room. She didn’t speak for several moments. I hated myself in those moments because I could see that I had hurt her, because I knew what was going to happen and because I was no hero after all, just a sorry bastard who couldn’t stop the inevitable conclusion to us.

  Fucking fake arrogance that was too ingrained to be exorcised.

  “The man who took a job at my dad’s restaurant just to look out for me. The man who sent his cousin in his place when he couldn’t be there. The man who sent me all those notes and pictures. The man who spent all that time on that set up on the boat. The man who pursued me with all of his passion and made love to me with all of his emotion like you have doesn’t believe that.” Her words sounded certain but she wasn’t I could tell. She was unsteady on her feet as she turned slowly away from me and put her hand on the door knob. “I’m going, but I’ll be back for that man. For that man I would do anything. For that man I’d risk it all.”

  My eyes filled just like they had back then all those years ago when I had walked back to the motel by myself, grabbed what little money I had left, my backpack and the camera Ash had given me and had taken the Coaster back to OB.

  Alone.

  Losing a little bit of myself with each mile that I had traveled because I had left it with him.

  I traced the last picture in the photo album that had started my journey back into the past. My mind wary of reliving any more. Even now after all this time the pain of that loss still threatened to consume me.

  Seeming to sense my distress my little Havanese padded into the room and jumped onto the bed beside me pressing his warm body against my leg. I petted him absently while staring at the picture of Linc. So handsome and so young flashing the skull ring I had given him along with his killer smile.

  The pages were empty of mementos after that much the way my heart had become. Without its anchor now just like back then my mind slid right back into the past and the events of that fateful day…

  “Hey you going in?”

  “Huh?” I blinked at the blonde with the heavy makeup. I had been stalled in front of the door to their hotel room too afraid to go in. I could hear the loud music and the laughter inside. Lots of feminine laughter. It sounded like the guys were having a party. It had been a little less than two weeks since I had left him. Two weeks since we had fought at Huntington Beach. Two weeks since he had spoken those harsh words. Two weeks of stress and doubt. It didn’t help that I was never able to get a hold of Linc when I called. I had been communicating with Ash instead and received only vague replies to the direct questions I asked about Linc.

  My heart thundered in my chest. The courage to come seemed to have abandoned me once I had deplaned in San Francisco.

  “The door’s open. They always leave it open.” The blonde gave me a funny look as she twisted the handle a six pack in her other hand. “As long as you have beer, and…well…you know.”

  Numbly I followed her flouncing form inside. Typical hotel suite. Definitely larger than the ones I had shared with them. The band had done well. Ash had been forthcoming about that at least, spouting club attendance, receipt tallies, and miles logged on the camper van but never any news about Lincoln. Seems he hadn’t needed me all that much after all.

  I glanced around the room. At least thirty or forty people were crammed inside. Mostly women. Beautiful women. Some dancing. More than a few not fully dressed. Some talking in groups. Some moving toward the back where I guessed the bedrooms were. Booming bass slammed my chest and I waved a hand in front of my face to dispel a dense cloud of smoke that made my eyes water and that definitely was not cigarettes.

  I didn’t see any of the guys. I felt out of place and my stomach was so knotted I wished I hadn’t eaten the doughnut at the airport. That had been a big mistake. Then the group of girls beside me moved away and I was confronted with an even bigger one. Lincoln sprawled out on the couch, his shorts down around his ankles, his eyes closed, his head thrown back, one girl between his legs working him with her hand while two other ones played with the rest of him.

  The blood drained from my face. My heart broke. My soul ripped into two separate parts.

  Apparently he had never been expecting me to return.

  My breath abandoned me. A last tiny flutter of hope extinguished inside my chest and then the partially digested doughnut resurfaced in the back of my throat to gag me.

  “Simone. Shit!”

  I heard Ash call me but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I spun, dodged more incoming girls and reached the railing outside their room just in time to hurl over the side, scalding hot tears blurring my view of the mess I made in the monkey grass down below.

  Familiar hands landed on my shoulders and my stomach lurched again. “Why, Ash? Why?” I rasped before heaving once more. When I was certain there was nothing left, I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and curled my fingers around the cold railing. Cold like my heart now, like my body, like my devastated soul.

  “I don’t know. Because he’s an asshole and an idiot I guess. I’m so sorry, Simone. You never said you were coming back whenever we spoke. I didn’t expect that you would. If I had known I would’ve warned you not to.” He gently turned me to face him, sympathy filling his eyes as he attempted to stem the flow of tears that were coming too fast. He smoothed my hair behind my ears. “He went nuts after you left and it got even worse after your mother told him that you had reenrolled at SDSU.”

  “What?” My pale face went paler and my knees went out from under me.

  “Is that not true?” Ash steadied me.

  I shook my head a deep sadness and body numbing regret robbing me of speech.

  “But when we spoke the first time you told me you were in the registrar’s office.”

  “I withdrew from the fall semester and was setting up an escrow account with them in case I ever got the chance to attend in the future.” My voice was a low rasp.

  I knew she probably thought she was protecting me but I couldn’t believe my mother had betrayed me with a half-truth.

  But then how much of it was really her fault? I should have stayed. And Lincoln should have trusted me to return.

  “Maybe you should talk to Linc,” Ash said softly.

  Too late. It was far too late for that. The inevitable end had come and it was far worse than I could ever have imagined.

  “No.” I lifted my hand and covered his mouth with my fingers. Something unidentifiable flared in his dark sapphire eyes. “Don’t say his name. Don’t talk about him.” My raw voice hitched. “Don’t. Just don’t.” I started to shake uncontrollably and felt weary to my bones as though I had aged a lifetime in a few moments. I dropped my pounding head to Ash’s chest.

  A roar suddenly sounded from within the hotel
that gave me a chill. My name immediately followed. Someone must have told Lincoln I had come and gone. I started to shake harder.

  “Get me out of here, Ash. Please. Please. Please get me out of here. I don’t want to see him.” My chest burned as if it had been set on fire.

  “Ok, Mona. Ok,” he soothed sweeping me up into his arms just before my wobbly legs went completely out from under me. I clung to him, not registering anything clearly. Him settling me into the van. Me crying even harder. A very short drive to another part of the hotel. Him carrying me across the pavement, producing a key to another room.

  “Is this your room?” My teeth started to chatter.

  “A friend’s.”

  “But…”

  He cut off my protest. “He’s a flight attendant. He’s gone until tomorrow. It’s the only place I could think of on such short notice. You can stay here tonight.” He set me down inside a cramped bathroom but I clung to his lavender polo shirt. “Don’t leave me alone, Ash.”

  “I wasn’t even thinking about it. Only Simone, I’m afraid you might be going into shock. You need to get out of those clothes and into a hot shower.”

  “Oh…kkk.” I lowered my chin my fingers trembling so bad I couldn’t undo the buttons.

  Firmly gripping my shoulders Ash peered down at me his sapphire eyes somber. “Will you allow me to help you get undressed? I’ll try,” he swallowed as if his throat had suddenly gone dry, “I’ll try not to look any more than I have to.”

  “It’s ok, Ash. I d.d…don’t care.” I covered his hands with my own. He was familiar, I told myself. He was safe. “I understand…”

  “I don’t think you do,” he interrupted. “But we’ll talk later when you feel better.”

  He turned on the water to get it warm and then he undressed me more gently than I would’ve thought a guy as big as Ash could. Not just the outer layers but my sexy see through bra and my matching panties, too. He avoided eye contact and I started crying again when he laid the expensive lingerie carefully on the vanity counter.

  “It’s ok, Simone. It’s ok.” It wasn’t and it would never be but his voice and his manner soothed me. In the end I was too shaken to take care of myself. He had to take off his clothes, too. He held me close to his strong body in the shower under the warm spray until my skin turned red and I stopped shivering.

  One muscular masculine arm around my shoulders, he leaned out, popped open the medicine cabinet and withdrew a new toothbrush and toothpaste. I took the brush and unwrapped it from the plastic while he uncapped the toothpaste squeezing a generous amount onto the bristles for me. Attending to me so tenderly.

  “Brush,” he ordered and I did. I was so grateful to remove the horrible taste from my mouth. I tipped my face up to the spray to rinse and spit into the drain below my feet. “Good girl.” He reached over my shoulder to lay the brush and tube on the counter beside my underwear.

  I noticed two things. My nipples puckering in response to the inadvertent glide of his forearm against them and the rock hard erection that was pressed against my rear. “Ash.” I turned around in his embrace, hand curling around his arm, fingers stroking the fine platinum hairs that covered his tan skin.

  “Simone I’m sorry. You’re a beautiful woman and I care for you deeply. I can’t help my body’s response. You’re safe. I would never take advantage of you.”

  “Even if I want you to?” I whispered loud enough to be heard over the running water while peering up at him through my lashes. I needed to be affirmed as a woman and I needed to forever purge the image of Lincoln and his betrayal from my brain.

  He squeezed his eyes tightly shut as if he had to close them to resist me. “You don’t know what you’re asking.” His voice was strained and when he reopened his eyes there was a depth of pain within them that didn’t make sense to me.

  I moved closer pressing my nipples to his chest and reaching up my hand to stroke his face. “It’s ok, Ash. I know what I’m doing. I want you. Do you not want me, too? Just a little?” I thought back to all the times he’d been around watching me and Lincoln. The longing looks I had intercepted but pretended not to see.

  “I do.” He groaned. “But you’re too vulnerable right now. And I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about what this is, either. I don’t want to hurt you anymore than you’ve already been hurt.” He took my hands from his face and gathered them to his chest. “I love you, Simone.” My breath caught. “I was jealous at first but then I think I fell for you right along with him. But you need to know that I love him more.” His eyes were deep sapphire pools that I had to focus on to maintain my bearings within a world that he’d just completely rearranged with those words.

  “You…you love Lincoln?” Saying his name made sharp pain slice through my heart. “Like you want to be with him…physically?”

  “Yes.” His answer was immediate and sincere.

  “But you’re his cousin.”

  “His mother and mine were adopted. We’re not really related but we’ve grown up together so I would never betray that trust or his friendship by crossing any line. I just told you because I want you to understand why we can’t be together. It just wouldn’t be right. Not when I can’t love you fully the way you deserve.”

  “Oh, Ash.” I framed his conflict ravaged face with both my hands finally understanding the sadness that always clung to him while the warm water continued to rain down on us hitting my back, cascading around my shoulders and sluicing down my legs. “I’m so sorry. I never knew.”

  “No one does. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “I won’t. I promise, but…” I was just about to tell him that I still wanted him to make love to me. That we could proceed as friends who understood each other’s pain and could give each other the mutual pleasure and comfort that I think we both needed, when there was a loud crash and the sound of splintering wood from the other room.

  “What the fuck?” Ash grabbed two towels from the rack throwing one back at me while moving protectively in front of me. He had barely gotten the towel around his waist when Lincoln appeared in the doorway. Hair standing up all over the place eyes wild as they moved back and forth between Ash and me.

  “You son of a bitch! I knew there was something going on between you two!” He slapped his hands against Ash’s chest shoving him hard. Ash rocked back on his heels but stood firm holding his ground.

  “Stop!” I protested hating that I felt guilty as I held the towel in a desperate grip in front of my body. “It’s not what you think.” I didn’t want Ash to get hurt on my account. Lincoln looked like he wanted to murder him. His dark wrathful gaze sliced to me.

  He made a hateful sound of disbelief in response to my clichéd excuse before he turned back to his cousin. “How could you do this to me?” The sting of betrayal brightened his eyes and fury mottled his face.

  “You did it to yourself. After witnessing that scene in your room, what did you expect? You should be glad it was me and not someone else,” Ash said harshly. “Now turn around and get out.”

  Lost within those memories from the past, in the present my heart raced and my stomach churned anew as I reprocessed the final events that had ruined everything for all three of us.

  I didn’t even register my cell ringing next to Chulo until the missed call lit up the display.

  Then my eyes glazed over one final time and I remembered the rest. How Ash had forced Lincoln into the other room and how their voices had risen in anger then fallen right before Ash had returned and pulled me into his arms.

  “He’s gone,” he had intoned the words like whatever had gone down in the other room had broken him. We were both broken by our love for Lincoln. I threaded my arms around his waist and we clung to each other. “He hates both of us now. But he’s gone.”

  My hands shook as I redialed the missed call. The emotions I had relived felt as raw and as incapacitating today as they had been all those years ago. Everything had ended that day. Not just for me and Lincoln but fo
r me and Ash.

  Ash and I still only spoke on the phone, brief conversations where we talked about things that didn’t really matter. I would often wonder if Lincoln was around listening. Ash invariably stumbled on his words, avoiding painful topics.

  “Hey,” I greeted when Karen answered rubbing Chulo’s soft pink belly as he rolled over in his sleep as limp as a puppet. I had to steer my way clear of the past if only so I could be functional for him. At least somebody needed me, though if he could talk I think Chulo would have insisted that I needed him more. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing much. I just got in.” Holy shit. It was late here. She was on the east coast. It was the wee hours of the morning there. “I thought I’d check up on you. We haven’t spoken for a week. How are things at the shop?”

  “They’re ok.” I hadn’t admitted yet how tight finances were. She had run the surf shop so much more efficiently than I did when she had owned it. “Any extra overstock from last year’s line you can send my way?” I inquired.

  When Karen left OB she had become a public relations rep for Roxy. She was a senior VP now, traveling all the time and was rarely home in her apartment in New York City anymore. I think she needed to stay that busy. Whereas she had run away from OB and her heartache, I’d run back toward it. But through the highs and lows in both our lives we had remained friends.

  “Yeah I’ve got some good stuff. Backpacks. Jackets. A couple of dresses I think will move well there.” She paused and it sounded like she was taking a sip of something. “What’s new with you?”

  “Lincoln’s back in town.” I dropped the news without any build up. She reacted much as I expected.

  “What?” she screeched. “Back in OB?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded my head even though she couldn’t see me. I was still off kilter and had been since he stepped out of the corner at the Tiki Bar and back into my life requesting the tune I’d been singing when we had met at the beach that first time. “He wants to record ‘Save Me’ for the next Donovan Blaine film. He’s going to produce it and split the royalties with me fifty-fifty.”