Borne from the Sea (Blood Waters 1)

by Eve Hathaway

  She blinked, confused. "You're right," she said. "I don't understand."

  They were in the kitchen-all of these conversations took place in the kitchen, while her parents were doing their accounting for the day or having drinks with the guests-wiping down the counters, putting away the dried dishes, sweeping the floors. Mila could detect the faintest whiff of ozone over the artificial lemon scent of the cleaner. A storm was coming.

  "You have a lifetime of memories," he said. "I have only these..." he counted on his fingers, "seven weeks. If I never recover my memory, then who I am is-this." He waved around him, gesturing to the house, the roof, the courtyard.

  "Tomas, you are more than the work you do," Mila protested.

  Tomas shook his head. "You are very kind, Mila," he said. "But I know. I am just your-handyman, right? In English? You see more in me because you will be more someday. One day you will leave for the city and university, and you will find a boyfriend, return to the United States and get a good job and never come back. But I am not you. I cannot write, I can barely read. There is nothing for me out there. This is my life now. This is who I am."

  "That's not true," Mila said, though she couldn't find fault in his words. "I couldn't-like-"not love, Mila dearest, she thought, frantically, "-you so much if you were only the sum of your work."

  "So, we are friends?" Tomas asked, after a moment.

  Mila gave him a weary smile. "Why do you think I join you in the kitchen every night?" she asked playfully, tapping him on the arm with her fist.

  "Because it's mango season," he said, tossing her a mango he fished from a tray. She gasped in surprise, but managed to catch the perfectly ripe fruit before it splattered on the newly-cleaned floor.

  "I don't like them that much," she retorted, tossing it back to him.

  And just like that, the moment-the window where she could have told him how she truly felt about him, her opportunity to plant a kiss on his lips, her chance to take his hand and hold it-passed.

  Once again, they were two young people stuck together under one roof, making the best of things.

  Chapter Eight

  FOR THE MOST PART, Mila was grateful that these moments passed. As much as she liked joining him in the kitchen at the end of the day, a part of her still held on to the fantasy of getting on a plane and going back to Boston and just resuming her life there.

  Even after two years, she still wasn't over Boston, or Tre Davis, the guy whom she might have gone out-and fallen in love-with, had her parents not packed up and headed south. He was two years older than she was, and walked with just enough of a swagger to let other guys think that he was one insult away from jumping them and cutting their throats.

  But he also had a quote from Shakespeare to cover just about any occasion. The first time Mila saw him, she was waiting for friends by the rust-and-fiberglass bleachers of the dilapidated track, and he walked onto the crumbling surface, did two stretches, and lit out. She could still recall how her breath caught in her throat as she watched him fly over the track, the grace with which his long limbs floated over the ground, and the steely determination in his eye as he kept what seemed an impossible pace.

  Her friends had laughed at her when she asked them who he was.

  "Don't you know? That's Tre Davis! He's like, only the biggest track star Middlebrook has ever had."

  "I'm going to ask him out."

  Which she never did. Instead, she went to the track every day after school, and just watched him run for up to half an hour-that was all the time she had, because she needed to get to the pool to do her laps.

  Sometimes he said "Hi," and on those occasions, she'd wave shyly.

  "Why are you here?" he asked her, one cold November day.

  "I like to watch you run," she said.

  "No, I mean, why are you here?" he repeated, grinning.

  "I like to watch you run," she said, smiling back.

  "You think you can catch me?"

  "Haven't I already?" she retorted.

  And he blinked in surprise, and then he smiled. That was when she knew: she'd won him over.

  They never dated. Her parents spent December making plans to move to Mexico, and in January, they boarded the plane. There simply wasn't enough time to progress from slightly-awkward-friendship to possibly-in-love in a month, especially since he was two years ahead of her. They'd exchanged emails before she left, but they never wrote each other. At first, it had simply been a matter of there not being anything to say. And then, it was just too awkward to break the silence.

  As time went by, the silence began to serve a different purpose-it allowed her to imagine that it was still possible to climb on a plane, fly back to Boston, and pick up where they'd left off. For two years, Mila had clung to this dream; to save her sanity, to mitigate her loneliness, to remember that there was a world where things worked and the water was safe to drink and people lived in houses that didn't blow over in a hurricane.

  But tonight, for the first time, Mila began to seriously consider that maybe her life in Boston was over.

  She began to think about a life with Tomas. Factually, of course, her life in Boston had ended when she boarded the plane to Mexico. But before Tomas, there had always remained a bit of hope-maybe Tre wouldn't have a girlfriend, maybe she might be able to find a job that miraculously paid well enough for her to get an apartment and a car and eat. Accepting that that part of her life was over was a lot easier now that she had someone to start a new chapter with.

  Of course, this was based on the premise that Tomas liked her as well. She was fairly certain that he did. The confessions he'd made to her were not the sort of things Gloria would appreciate hearing, or George would understand.

  But she couldn't know for sure, because if Tomas trusted her enough to tell her the secret fears of his heart, then that implied that she should trust him with her great secret-her plan to get herself back to the US. And that was something she just couldn't do, because making him her confidant would require him to lie to her parents.

  It wasn't hard for her to justify stealing from her parents-a dollar here, five there, padding the exchange rates to cover a ten. To her mind, they'd brought this upon themselves, moving her into the middle of nowhere. At least in Mexico City or some of the larger cities, she could have gotten a job and made her own money. It didn't feel right, but it did feel justified, a distinction which explained why she could now buy herself a plane ticket back to Boston, if she ever had an excuse to go to Cancun.

  But Tomas-what would he think? He wasn't stupid. He'd know that she'd have taken the money from her parents. He would be honor-bound to report her, because even though she'd saved his life, her parents were the ones, after all, that permitted him to live with them.

  Mila glanced at the clock. It was two in the morning. The storm had come and gone during her musings, and now the night was quiet.

  Shit. Well, if she wasn't sleeping now, she wasn't going to sleep tonight.

  She got out of bed, silently glided out of the cool, air-conditioned cocoon of her room, through the courtyard, and out the door.

  The beach was empty; and in the sky, the moon was a graceful sliver of light. The sea seemed to glow faintly. In the distance, the lights of Cancun created a faint glow in the night sky.

  Being so isolated does have its upside, she grudgingly admitted to herself as she scraped out a little seat for herself in the sand. The stars were never this bright or numerous in Boston. She didn't know any of the constellations other than the Big Dipper, but that didn't mean she couldn't appreciate how beautiful they were.

  Chapter Nine

  "CAN I JOIN YOU?"

  She startled and nearly fell over backwards.

  It was Tomas.

  "Sheesh, you scared me!" she said, patting the sand next to her.

  Tomas sat down, folding his legs against his chest like she'd done.

  "I couldn't sleep," she said.

  "Me, neither," Tomas said. "I com
e out here a lot, actually. Sleep doesn't come easily to me. It feels like there's a memory hiding just beneath the surface; one I can only find if I am asleep. But the harder I try to sleep-"

  "-the harder it is to fall asleep, " Mila finished.

  "And so I come out here," he said. "To lose myself in the stars."

  "They are beautiful," Mila agreed. "You can't see them like this in Boston. Too much light."

  They sat in silence for a while, staring up at the sky. Mila found herself wishing she knew what Tomas thought of her, just as a meteor went streaking across the sky. She glanced at him, even as she reminded herself that she didn't believe in silly children's tales, and was surprised to find that he was watching her.

  "Some people say that when you see a falling star, you make a wish and it comes true," she said.

  "I have heard that somewhere."

  "Did you wish for anything?"

  "I wished for-"

  She waited, holding her breath. Could he possibly love- She didn't dare finish the thought.

  After a moment, though, it became apparent that he wasn't going to finish the sentence.

  "What did you wish for?" she prompted.

  "This," he said, reaching towards her in the dark. His cool fingers brushed her cheek. When she made no move to dislodge his hand, he moved closer, tilting his head for what could only be a kiss.

  Even now, she hesitated. The moment grew longer in her mind, as she mentally zipped through all of the scenarios with Tre that she'd made up in these last two years.

  Was she ready to give up with Tre? Was she really ready to start something new? To give up Boston?

  To hell with it, she thought, and leaned in to kiss Tomas.

  INSTINCT KEPT them from mentioning anything to Gloria or George.

  But the shift was palpable.

  When Mila stopped thinking about getting back to the US and started thinking about going to the US, the resentment she'd been harboring towards her parents evaporated, and instead became channeled into making plans for their future. Her parents didn't quite understand what brought this on, but they were nonetheless relieved that the fighting and arguing and tensions dropped.

  Mila and Tomas would meet on the beach after the manor house had darkened into sleep if the weather was good, or Mila would go to Tomas's room-it was farther from her parents' room. They would talk quietly; which is to say that Mila would talk quietly while Tomas listened, awed by her descriptions of Boston and New York. She had to describe snow to him-he didn't even know the word. It was both touching and a little frightening, how naive he could be.

  What Tomas lacked in worldliness, though, he made up for in his ability to read and understand people. He was the one who pointed out that Gloria wasn't actually a mean person, just stressed out and under an incredible amount of pressure to make sure everything went off well.

  "The next time she starts to get to you, ask her what she wants you to do," Tomas advised.

  Mila was skeptical, but she tried it, and he was right-it worked. Gloria told her to mop the floors, and the tension evaporated faster than the water did.

  "You're like a mind-reading genius," she said that night.

  "I don't read minds," he said. "I understand the heart."

  "So tell me about mine," she said.

  It was now a month after their kiss. They were in Tomas's room, lying side by side on his bed, his left arm intertwined with her right one, surrounded by the dark and his scent-clean. They had shared a few more kisses since then, but nothing more.

  It wasn't just the fear of what Gloria would do, though that contributed some. It was mostly that neither Mila nor Tomas felt the need to go further.

  They could wait. It wasn't like high school, where every other girl wanted every other boy and sealing the deal was the only way to guarantee (and sometimes, not even that would do it) a certain degree of monogamy.

  They had oceans of time-and an ocean they could sit next to; the infinite waters recalling the infinite nature of love.

  "Are you sure you want to know?" he asked.

  "Yes," she said, simply.

  He rolled off the bed and took her smooth hand in his calloused one. She could feel his fingertips tracing her palm, kissing her knuckles.

  "You want something more from this life," he said. "You want me to give it to you."

  "And will you?" she asked.

  "You want me to say, 'Yes'," he said. "But I don't know if I can."

  She sat up. "Well, that was romantic."

  He sighed. "You said you wanted to know."

  True, she thought unhappily. But then, what was the point of pursuing this relationship if Tomas didn't think he could make her happy?

  "You are more than I could ever hope to be," Tomas said, as she stood up. She shook her head, furious with herself for asking, furious with him for being so honest.

  What was so terrible about a white lie every now and then, she wondered. Why couldn't he be sweet, for once? It wasn't like she expected him to bring her flowers or anything.

  His grip on her hand tightened. "Please don't go," he said.

  "Give me a reason to stay," she retorted. "Give me that 'something more' that I'm supposed to be looking for then."

  Tomas dropped her hand and backed away from her, fading into the darkness. "No, Mila, not like this."

  It wasn't until she felt the pang of disappointment that she realized what he was saying. "That wasn't what I meant," she began, but even as the words faltered she understood that it was, indeed, what she meant, what she wanted. Blood rushed to her face, and even though it was dark she had the feeling that Tomas could see her blush.

  She left him without saying another word and slipped back into her bedroom, furious-at him, or at herself, she couldn't tell.

  But either way, she wasn't sleeping that night, and she wasn't going to the beach, either.

  Chapter Ten

  MILA WAS AWAKENED the next morning by her father. He knocked on her door and brought her a tray with sweet buns and a cup of coffee.

  "What's going on?" Mila asked, suspiciously. Her father didn't normally bring her breakfast.

  "It's your birthday," he said.

  "Shit, really?" She glanced at the calendar hanging above her desk. "It is. Holy crap. I can't believe I forgot," she said.

  "I thought maybe you might want to go with Tomas to Cancun today," he said, setting the tray down. He sat down at the foot of her bed, smiling at her as she dug into the food. "You know. Do a little shopping. Show Tomas what a city is."

  Mila understood the unspoken part of the suggestion: her father wanted her to run some additional errands as well. She wondered how to tell him that she didn't want to go anywhere with Tomas, not after last night. Refusing to go to Cancun altogether would make him worry.

  "I hadn't made any plans for the day," she said, stalling for time.

  "It's okay," George said. "We don't have any guests right now, so your mother-" he dropped his voice to a stage whisper, "-wants to throw you a surprise party."

  "Papa, you're not supposed to tell me that!" Mila said, laughing. "And anyway, since when does Mama throw me a surprise birthday party?"

  George shrugged. "Okay, well, it's not actually a birthday party. But we-and I mean the abuelos and Tomas and everybody-thought we'd celebrate finally getting this place into shape."

  "At the end of the tourist season," Mila said. It was a bit mean, but she couldn't help it. George, fortunately, didn't seem to mind.

  "Yes, it's the end of the tourist season, but we do have another set of guests coming in a week. University people. They're coming to look at the cenotes, or something."

  Was anybody planning on telling me these things, Mila wondered. Just when she was hoping not to have to share "her" bathroom any more, too.

  "Anyway," George said. "The Jeep is filled up and ready to go. Tomas is ready to leave whenever you are."

  Of course he would be, she thought harshly. She was surprised at how
bitter she was about last night, as if he'd insulted her. And now she was expected to go to Cancun with him?

  George stood up and left her to finish her breakfast-or, more accurately, to pick over the rest of the sticky buns and then toss them out the window.

  Still, she thought, as she returned the tray to the kitchen where Gloria was busy shaping the tortillas for the day. A trip to Cancun was a trip to Cancun. And there was one thing she could count on Tomas for, and that was being quiet.

  It would be awkward, but, well, she'd be able to enjoy herself, at least.

  Gloria nodded at a pile of pesos on the counter, and a note underneath it. "That's what we need you to get in Cancun," she said. "We've given you a little extra to buy yourself something nice."

  "Aw, Mom," Mila said.

  "Happy birthday," Gloria said. Her hands never stopped rolling out the balls of dough.

  This was probably as celebratory as it was going to get in the house, Mila realized. She picked up the keys to the Jeep, gathered the money and the list, and went to find Tomas.

  He was in his room, kneeling next to his bed.

  "Hey," she said. "Let's go."

  He didn't say he was sorry for last night, which was just as well, because it would have been a lie. But at least they would have been talking.

  As they walked to the Jeep in cold, stony silence, Mila couldn't help but think that maybe all relationships were built on lies.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Read the next book by Eve Hathaway:

  If you like this book, you will also like Tribute to the Sacred Waters...

  HE COMES FROM THE SEA, BUT IT ROBS HIM OF HIS MEMORY

  A YOUNG MAN WITHOUT A PAST, AND A YOUNG WOMAN WITH AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

  Mila's parents run a bed-and-breakfast in one of the most isolated stretches of beach in Mexico. Someone who has migrated from the States into that sleeping corner of the world, she is bored, and lonely, and feels like Cinderella, getting up early every morning for the thankless task of doing chores around the dilapidated house all day.

  Then, one day, she comes across a young man who's been washed up on the shore. He can't remember anything about who he was or even what his name is. Her parents take him in, and he begins to fill in what's been missing in her life.

  But just when she thinks he might actually like her, he turns away-what is he hiding?