by Tim ORourke
Chapter Eight
I drank straight from the bottle of milk in the fridge. Wiping away the white moustache from my upper lip, I went back into the living room in search of my iPod. I'd decided to go for a walk along the beach. I found the whole exercise thing easier if I was listening to music. The scenery nearby was beautiful, but perhaps I didn't appreciate it as much as I should. I'd grown accustomed to it over the years. It was wasted on me, I guess, not like the visitors who came from the overcrowded cities in the summer months. They acted as if they'd never seen a freaking hill, the sea, or sand before. Perhaps they hadn't.
After searching beneath the pillows on the sofa and in the armchairs, I checked my bedroom but couldn't find my iPod anywhere. I'd have to go for a walk without it. The morning was moving closer to lunchtime, and I wanted to get some fresh air before I spent the afternoon curled up on the sofa reading the rest of my book called Blood, Bullets and Blue Stratos by Tom Graham, which I recently downloaded to my iPad Mini. I hoped that it would take my mind off recent events. I had frozen pizza in the freezer, which I could cook for my dinner. There was a couple of bottles of red wine, too, somewhere.
I put on a pair of jeans, a coat, and a pair of boots. I left my apartment and made the short walk down to the shore. The beach was empty, apart from a couple of dog-walkers way off in the distance. I turned my back on them and began walking in the opposite direction, towards the massive black cliffs which loomed in the distance like giant ogres. Waves crashed up the beach, then retreated again. The sea was a dark green and looked uninviting. Pieces of dirty wood wrapped in black seaweed floated in the foamy waves. The wind was cold and it made my lips taste salty. With my long, blond hair down, it blew about my face like a mask. I liked that, I wanted to be hidden. I wanted time to clear my head, just like my father had suggested. I didn't want to dwell on what had happened, I'd done enough of that in my nightmares, and part of me feared falling to sleep that night. Would my dreams be haunted by those dead people again? I guessed I had a few more nights of disturbed sleep before I'd truly come to terms with what I had done - before the accident.
Bent against the bitter wind, I headed along the shore, a set of footprints trailing away behind me. I'd been walking for about ten minutes or so, when I thought I heard someone calling my name. At first I wondered if it wasn't my imagination, or a trick being played by the howling wind. I looked back in the direction I had come, but all I could see was the tiny black outlines of those dog-walkers way off in the distance.
"Sydney!" the voice came again.
I looked to my left to see someone running down the grassy sand dunes towards me. It was Michael.
"Oh, Christ," I murmured under my breath as he ran towards me.
I turned around and set off at speed in the direction I had come from. I didn't want to see Michael - I had nothing to say to him.
"Hey, Sydney!" he called after me. "Wait up!"
Over the sound of the wind and the crashing waves, I could hear his heavy footfalls as he came running after me across the wet sand.
Burying my chin into my chest, I leaned forward and sped up almost to a slow trot. It wasn't long before Michael had caught up with me.
He gripped my arm and said, "Hey, what's the rush?"
"Leave me alone," I snapped, yanking my arm free and setting off up the beach again.
"I just want to talk to you, that's all," he said, walking beside me.
"About what?" I said, refusing to look at him.
"What happened yesterday, of course," he said.
"That was a mistake," I said coldly. "Nothing like that will ever happen between us again. "
"I wasn't talking about that," he said. "I was talking about the accident you had. You know, that family dying and all. "
I stopped mid-stride as if walking straight into an invisible wall. "I don't want to talk about it," I hissed, glancing sideways at him.
"It wasn't your fault," he said, his voice soft.
"Who said it was my fault?" I glared at him.
"No one said it was your fault," he said, looking startled by my overreaction. "It's just that I thought you might be feeling a bit guilty as you had been drinking whiskey with me. "
To hear him say that felt as if I'd been slapped in the face. Despite all the efforts my father had taken to provide a fake breath test and witnesses, here was someone who could testify I'd been drinking before the crash. He would know, as he was the person who had given it to me.
"That wasn't enough to make me drunk," I said dismissively, and turned away, wishing that he would just fuck off and leave me alone.
"I never said you were drunk," he called after me.
I could hear the sound of his footfalls in the sand behind me again.
"Look, Sydney, if it helps, I feel guilty about what happened, too," he said.
"What are you talking about?" I snapped, wheeling around to face him again.
"It was me who gave you that drink, after all," he said, looking at me. "I should have never done that. You were on duty. . . you're a cop and I put you in a compromising situation. "
Clawing a length of hair from out of my eyes, I stared at him and said, "Look, Michael, let's just forget about what happened between us. No one needs to know what happened. "
With his own curly hair blowing about the sides of his handsome face, he looked at me, and said, "I can't forget about it. "
"You're gonna have to!" I barked, feeling the urge to scream at him. Michael reappearing wasn't something I had planned for. What would my father say or do if he knew there was someone else who knew I'd been drinking prior to the accident yesterday? It could ruin everything - it could ruin my father's plans - and him - now that he had lied for me.
"Michael, just do us both a favour and forget about that accident, because that's all it was. The police are dealing with it now," I said and turned away, leaving him standing alone, waves crashing about his boots.
"It's not the accident I can't forget about," he called out. "It's you, Officer Sydney Hart, that I can't forget. "
"Oh, please," I said, looking back at him over my shoulder. "You don't even know me. "
"I'd like to get to know you," he said, staring straight back at me. "That's if you would like to get to know me better. "
Without saying anything, I faced front and started to walk away from him again. Half of me was screaming to keep on walking and not to look back - to forget all about Michael. He could complicate things. He knew I'd been drinking regardless, my mind started to reason.
No! Keep right on walking! the rational part of my brain screamed, as I pictured my father.
But the irrational side - the side that always got me into trouble - threw-up memories of what had happened between me and Michael and how good it had felt. I could feel his hands on me again - the warm sensation I had felt. . .
. . . promise me, no more screw-ups, I heard my father whisper in my ear.
Pushing the sound of his voice away, I glanced back one last time at Michael and said, "Do you like pizza?"
With a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, he said, "I can't get enough of it. "
Together we walked back along the shore towards my apartment.