The United States of Us

by Kate Sundara

  She tries to laugh but sounds nervous. Wil misinterprets her fear of water for fear of being naked in front of him. Though not on a par, she’s out her out of her depth on both accounts.

  And then Wil, unwittingly, ups the ante with, ‘This was all Ruth’s idea.’

  ‘Ruthie?’

  ‘Yeah! It’s your last night here. She thinks a lot of you, Mia.’

  In her discomfort, she acknowledges the strength it must have taken Ruth to do this, to set herself aside in arranging something this thoughtful for them both. If Ruth had overcome her three years of pining for Wil, then Mia could overcome her three year phobia in exchange. Mia imagines a private deal with Ruth. Since lately everyone around her is being called to let go of something, suddenly it seems there’s no better time…

  ‘You can swim, right?’ checks Wil.

  ‘Of course… But… actually, I’ve this fear of open water…’ Although hugely understating her predicament, Mia feels the tension pour out of her body in admitting it.

  ‘Well, it’s a good thing I’m right here with you then, and you know you’ll be safe with me.’

  Mia smiles apprehensively. She knows what he’s doing: neuro-linguistic programming – enabling her to re-frame this situation with the power of suggestion – the technique came up in one of their discussions weeks ago and the funny thing is it’s empowering. It seems to come so effortlessly from Wil he probably doesn’t even know he’s applying it. He smiles his soft, reassuring smile, and Mia finds in his face the security she’s always found in him, sees that he’s the best person she could do this with – she’s learning to see… I see the same thing.

  He lays out a blanket and lights the camp-fire by the water. She’s stood, grappling with overload: our conversation in the rain about letting go, how happy she feels with Wil, how she’d love to finally swim again, how still and calm the lake appears. But how her body might react in big water…? Little hot-springs are one thing; this is different. Mia remembers the other occasion she tried to immerse herself in the deep. Fight or flight they called it, ‘The body has a memory.’ She can’t freak out in front of Wil, can’t mess up their last night.

  He starts to undress, she turns around – they haven’t seen each other naked yet. Wil always went au naturel at the springs, but it was always dark. And they didn’t go all the way on the night of the storm; they both had reservations about it given that she’s leaving.

  Mia disrobes, self-consciously; Wil sinks into the thermal lake, up to his shoulders in steam and stars.

  ‘Will you look away, please,’ she tells him, stripping down to her underwear.

  ‘So shy.’

  ‘Can you stand up in it?’ She casts a glance back at him as he stands, obligingly, water rushing down to a level only just hiding his modesty. He flashes her a big sexy grin, she giggles in spite of herself, turns back around. How she wishes she could share more with him – how terrified she really is, how she’s never been that intimate with anyone. She’d bare all if they had more days ahead of them. She trusts him without the shadow of a doubt. But tonight’s a night for joy, not lament, and I’m glad that she refrains; having me in her life is intrusive enough, without making me the cloud cast over this shining opportunity.

  All the scary stuff they’ve been through recently – she sees his scars and feels her own scars inside herself; she’s been bashed and bruised and broken, chewed up and spat out, but here she is, stronger than ever. More healed and whole than the girl who came out here.

  Slinking down into the water, she makes a mantra in her mind:

  It’s fine, I can do this; there’s no salt, no waves, it’s warm.

  She could even touch the bottom if she wanted to, but she won’t, because it’s time to break on through. No big deal. I can do this; there’s no salt, no waves, it’s warm…

  She’s naked, defiant, passionate – full of love, lustre and life, and so determined now that neither mind nor body can fail her, she can do this… She’s breaking her barriers, sending silver ripples across the water, swimming in moonlight, turning, gazing up at the universe. She swims the entire length of the lake, concentrating on her breathing, on being at one with all things.

  Afterwards, she swims over to Wil, he’s blissed-out, all soft-eyed with pearly wet smiles.

  ‘You look so happy,’ he says, unaware of the profundity of her achievement. She feels stronger inside herself, my presence weakening, signalling the start of our severance.

  She wraps herself around him, water beading down his face like moon-tears. Resting her head on his shoulder, she curls into the nook of his neck, loving his pheromones. An orchestra of crickets, croaking frogs and night-birds serenade the orb. With fire and water, the scent of sweet wood, they’re in a garden of seduction, like a poem, a waking dream. She’s drunk on the wonderful beauty of it all, drunk on him.

  Mia found Wonderland after all. Curiouser and curiouser she becomes…

  ‘Not so shy now,’ teases Wil. She loves the shapes his mouth makes – his lips, his teeth, his aphrodisiac smile. She can’t stop kissing him. Pressing her wet mouth on his stirs their primal desires, she feels his arousal, the hard bulk beneath the water brushing against her navel; she wants to rub against it like an itch she needs to scratch, rub it inside her, she’s too empty without it. She swallows and it sounds loud, her mouth’s started to water. His damp face glows with the flicker from the fire.

  ‘I wonder if it will scar forever.’ She traces the marks the bear made on his forearm.

  ‘We’ll see,’ he says, looking into her, dove-eyed.

  ‘I won’t. I won’t be here,’ she tells him, watching patterns of light dance across the face so fair to her, his strong tanned shoulders dewy with vapour. She kisses them, kisses behind his ears, his neck… ‘I want it to stay forever,’ she confesses. ‘I want you to remember me.’

  He pulls her close, kisses her face, her neck, then down… She stretches her fingers through his messedup hair, cups his strong jaw. Pulse racing, she’s conquered one fear, but the next…

  The closest she ever got was with me in the tree-house, aged eighteen. Her heart’s pounding now just like it was that day when our hearts beat together, mine for the last time. Her mouth covers his, they breathe each other’s breath. His stiffness between her legs – that pent-up look he wore the other night, sawing logs, flaring anew. She wants to relieve him, wants to pull away, every impulse paradoxical. His hand moves gently up her thigh. She shuffles a little, can’t help it, she’s nervous. She gives in to his tingle-touch, stifling a gasp as his fingers feel between her legs and linger lightly. She’s burning there, wants him, needs him there, but she’s fearful, joyful, doubtful. Then there’s the guilt. Where do her intimacy issues stem from – me alone, or was she born with them? And why? Head back, taking in the stratosphere, she could wish upon a star that she were simple, not this vastness of complexities – every feeling contradicting the next, more and more appearing like constellations…

  They kiss.

  Liquid moonlight rushes from their bodies as he pulls her from the lake and they fall by the fire. With her back on the blanket, he kisses down her body – sucking, licking, biting – all the starlight shimmering brighter, asteroids and comets speeding by. The breeze rustling the trees echoes the roll of ocean, but she surpasses That Day, letting the wave of his body sweep her forward this time–

  Her first time.

  Her self-struggle subsides with the aching breaking surface of a new ocean. Loosening her grip on his skin, on leaf, earth and stone – all solid earthly matter that’s bound her to the world she knows, a swelling swirls her to the seabed, warm and sublime. Moving beneath his rhythm she succumbs to the delicious forces of nature; it’s like swimming, only better, she’s free-diving deep, instinct guiding her through the secret sacred places that have held her intrigue for a lifetime. Her body knows the way beneath the waves, way down where she’s no longer afraid, she knows this realm that blots out the world though she’s nev
er been here before. She pulls him down to kiss her, sharing oxygen; like only when they’re kissing can she breathe properly. In their connection she and I are disconnecting. I witness what divides us. I never had this.

  But now I can chose not to be here…

  Into the ether, I shoot through starlight and sapphire, out across the valley and into night. I see Rosa’s battered shoes walking a darkened pavement; I see the Dale crowd downing drinks at the bar; I see police-cars swoop in on Zak’s house, officers storming through flashing lights across his lawn; I see Ruth lain on her side gazing at the moon out her window, Corey watching her reflection in the glass; I see Zak staring into his unlit mirror, dull circles round his eyes, he looks down to the prescription meds in his palm. Yes, I’m free, I’ve broken bonds. I can go anywhere, it seems.

  Rosa stops walking as she looks to her son’s house; police kick down his front door and rush into the apartment below; a dancing girl whips off her stilettos and kisses Brent on the mouth; Zak swallows a couple of pills from the bottle Mia slipped back in his drawer. Corey catches a tear on Ruth’s cheek. ‘Ruth?’ he whispers, ‘What is it, are you okay?’

  Hovering above Mia, Wil’s mouth makes the same shapes. ‘Are you okay…?’

  Handcuffs catch moonlight as the town’s assailant is forced into the police car. As it pulls away, a thousand screeching bats break out into the night sky. The man in the back-seat, the man from Zak’s downstairs apartment, stares out of the car window through the piercing gold eyes of Coyote.

  ‘Mia?’ I hear Wil’s voice again but I’m cresting through the valley, gliding down mountains–

  On one massive wave, she rushes up towards the surface, colours dizzying and dazzling. Bursting through with a shudder, she’s born into the new.

  * * *

  Mia runs to the jetty in the first glow of daybreak, hoping to find me here. Awoken by the rain on the roof, she left Wil sleeping in the cabin and came to seek me by the water’s edge, remembering what Rosa told her: most magic happens at dawn.

  The rain relents when she reaches the jetty. She stands at the end of the wooden run, wearing only boots and blanket, looking out across the glassy calm, mountains mirrored on its surface. The sun stations in the sky, just like Rosa said it does for one short moment every morning, hovering like a hummingbird in flight. The sweet nectar of new light spreads itself across the water. We stand between the sun and moon. In this place. This immortal portal.

  Mia turns to where I am. This time she sees me. Her eyes widen to drink me in. Clear as day, we stand still as the sun. When yesterday we met in the deluge it was on the precipice. But now we’re tuned in with total clarity, everything hyper-real, right here. We’re so awake.

  She’s not afraid to see me. Why would she be when, to her, my image is indelible, when I’ve been by her side every day? She doesn’t take her eyes off me. She returns my smile. There are no tears now, no drenched ghost – the only water that by which we’re stood, the both of us composed.

  As I step towards her my movement feels different, and then I realise, as I take her in my arms, I can touch her, that my hands don’t just pass through. I feel fabric, heat, heartbeat – a phenomena, a miracle, my presence amplified. I stroke her hair, I feel her face, feel mine. Everything is palpable – she’s holding me, I’m holding her, I know that I can now because it’s not dangerous, we’ve detached.

  Hearts beating together in our chests, we breathe in, breathe out…

  I move a little, loosening our lock but still holding her as I draw back. We look into each other, then she follows my eyes towards the golden glory where the sun broke over the mountain, to the place to which I must go, as the universe opens up in the sky. The light there falters for a second then comes back brighter. She squints into the resplendence, her eyes flicker and retract. I look back at her; she smiles a smile of courage and acceptance, understanding what this is:

  Goodbye…

  Mia always rejected – resented – the concept of ‘closure’ whenever people advised her to get it. To her it sounded like a slammed door, like darkness, like death, like a failing. But now she sees in the space where once was closure, an opening; where a block, an unblocking; where limitation, limitlessness. The failing was only in the semantics. She sees now that suffering led her on this journey, to reach a place where her heart is not broken, it’s breaking open.

  Light pours from my own heart energy into hers with the greatest liberation either of us have known. Truly connected. At the same time, truly free.

  With bright eyes open wide, we fully take each other in, then, with a deep breath – we finally release…

  ‘Goodbye Mia.’

  ‘Goodbye Robin.’

  Wil pauses behind her at the foot of the jetty. ‘I got your note,’ he tells her.

  Back in the state where concepts like time and future have meaning – back to solar thinking as the sun resumes its rising – Mia’s dragged into the day she’s been dreading: her last day. Day ninety.

  ‘Who were you talking to?’ asks Wil.

  Mia takes a moment.

  ‘Myself,’ she answers. ‘Only myself.’

  Wil approaches her with caution. ‘Want to get dressed and I’ll run you to the airport? We’ll call in at Ruth’s. You can collect your things…’

  She needs to collect her thoughts first…

  ‘I’ve got to call in at Rosa’s too…’

  Wil comes a little closer, but still maintains some distance, as if in self-protection. ‘To say your goodbyes.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’ve the strength for all these goodbyes,’ she admits.

  ‘So don’t say goodbye.’

  ‘I have to!’ She turns, walks slowly along the jetty.

  ‘Stop,’ says Wil.

  Mia stops, body language turning formal, despite wearing nothing more than boots and blanket.

  ‘I hung your towel on the rack in the mezzanine. Don’t forget it.’

  ‘Mia.’

  ‘And I’ll leave my scarf, the one Georgia likes. If you could pass that onto her. She’d like that.’

  ‘Wait up.’

  ‘Nothing lasts forever. Don’t make it harder. If you could just do that.’

  ‘Do it yourself,’ says Wil. He stands firm on his feet, eyes steady.

  ‘Pardon?’ His remark strikes her as uncharacteristically impolite…

  ‘Last minute admin? Is this what it all comes down to?’

  ‘I’m just trying to tie things up, that’s all…’

  His eyes glaze with malaise.

  ‘What it all comes down to… It comes down to…’ She pauses. ‘Look at you, Wil! Just look at you. Even now. Here you are… the last man standing. You said you had my back, then you went and proved it by shielding me from that bear. You’re amazing! Why did I leave it so long? Why did I waste so much time? I’ve been learning to see, but it took me so long to see you…’

  What she sees now is that the fairytale was never in the promise of a prince on a white horse, but in a loyal friend with the sun in his outstretched hand, driving an old white Chevy. A real human, a real hero, a man who brings out her better nature. She used to think that loving someone made her weak, but now she knows that, if it’s the right kind, it could make her stronger than ever.

  Strong enough to walk away?

  She’s the lone wolf, it’s in her nature…

  She watches him, just as the wolf watched her on the path that night she found her totem.

  Panicked by the passing of time, she paces the jetty, their remaining moments together being eaten up quick as paper set alight, swift as sand sifting through fingers… she reaches up, runs her fingers through his sandy hair.

  ‘When I said do it yourself… I meant – I mean – you could do it all yourself. You could stay.’

  The gentle lapping of the lake against the jetty. She breathes a laugh.

  ‘Stay.’

  ‘Here? With you?’

  Wil nods.

  ‘But… al
l our conversations about you needing time to figure out where to go after graduation…’

  ‘I know, I know, but things change…’

  ‘So you always say. But ninety days, Wil… You know I’ve maxed my stay!’

  ‘Anything’s possible.’

  ‘How is this possible? And what about work, family, visas, money – it’s hardly straightforward!’

  ‘Where there’s a Wil there’s a way…’

  Mia silences then lets out a small burst of laughter.

  ‘Where’s there’s a Wil?’

  ‘Hey, I never claimed to have a way with words!’ He grins fleetingly.

  They’re stood apart again. Mia steps toward him, takes his hand. ‘That’s true: it’s always actions over words with you. That’s what I love. And you would find a way, wouldn’t you…’

  ‘But… ?’ Wil retracts; he won’t touch her. I watch him do exactly as I’ve done – detach. He takes a breath, braces himself.

  ‘Ninety days in America, Wil. I knew anything could happen, but I never imagined any of this.’

  He knows he’s losing her…

  ‘I’ll make it over to Europe, someday. We’ll pick up where we left off.’

  She feels him slipping away from her too… ‘We’re clutching at straws, Wil, we both know it.’

  A world of reflection. A small forever. A crease of consternation between her eyebrows.

  ‘What are you thinking, Mia?’

  ‘About a hundred things at once…’ She pauses. ‘Like all the pieces of a puzzle. Like this is the last piece, like now you’re the biggest part and…’ She shakes her head.

  ‘What?’

  ‘And it doesn’t fit. Saying goodbye to you… it doesn’t sit right, doesn’t feel right…’

  When he takes her in his arms she understands why they never embraced before, because his bear-hugs are near impossible to get out of, and their bodies fit perfectly together. She has to twist herself out of it at an angle, her head filled with puzzle pieces, with the dissatisfaction of them being finished yet unfinished – everything laid out in front of her, but at the same time already behind. The puzzle about to be broken apart, packed away and forgotten about. What was the point in completing any of it? She and Wil are more than that, more lasting. They have to be…