Luz, Rebound

by Jeania Kimbrough

  “I think I’m going to get up,” I announced for their benefit.

  “It hasn’t been twenty minutes yet,” Nic said. “You said the trick was lying on each side for twenty minutes at a time.”

  “The only thing is it can get boring looking at the ground. I’m restless.” I turned on my side to them first, consciously restricting my gut reaction to seek him out. I swear I could feel his eyes. I wanted to believe he was thinking of me, even though they were here together. I swung my hair over my shoulders, imagining him noticing me.

  “Hi.” Kelli waved at someone I couldn’t see. “Nice shorts. I hope you brought something good.” Nic raised her hand to the side of her mouth, and I knew she was talking to him.

  “Maybe he didn’t hear you,” Kelli said.

  “He was looking right at us,” Nic replied under her breath. “She just didn’t want him to start a conversation over here.” Nic glanced at me, but I lifted the string at my hip, pretending to examine the color contrast of the tan line beneath it.

  The music started. The intro reminded me of something tropical. The lyrics were about a man waiting for a woman in a place for a man they both know. I recognized the voice of the singer. Dreamy, like “Avalon.” It had become popular while I was away.

  “Your tan really rocks, Kara,” Kelli was saying. “You must have laid out a ton in Australia.”

  “I really didn’t. There is a hole in the atmosphere there, which makes the sun stronger.” I readied myself to sit. “Slave to Love.” The song’s chorus and name were the same.

  I caught his eyes for one split second when I sat up and repositioned myself. Christie was halfway turned around saying something to Deana. I got a quick look at his shorts without her noticing. “Slave to Love.” The song and shorts said everything. I scooted back into my lounge chair with Nic and Kelli at my side. “I like this song.”

  “Harrumph. Like he’s her slave to love,” Nic said.

  I didn’t reply. I waited until it finished and stood up, giving him a full view of me, and slightly straightened my shoulders. “I’m going to the toilet.” I walked across the pool deck, toward the deep end where the restrooms, and Christie and Ryan, were located. I walked slowly, catlike—or at least, that’s how I felt.

  ***

  There was a sealed envelope with my name on it when we got back to our room. Nic noticed it first and both she and Kelli watched expectantly for me to open it.

  Meet me tonight at 10:00 p.m. near the hibiscus bush by the pool area. I need to see you.

  “Who’s it from?” Kelli asked finally when I didn’t offer. I hesitated.

  “It looked like Ryan’s writing,” Nic prompted.

  “I’m going to meet him later.” I tore the note in half and threw it in the trash.

  “What’s going on?”

  “He says he wants to talk. I dunno.” I acted as if this were the first time we communicated.

  “But why? Christie’s going to freak!” Nic said.

  “She’s not going to know, right?” I turned to them both now. I needed them to keep my secret.

  Kelli looked uncomfortable.

  “I’m just meeting him to talk. It’s none of her business. She doesn’t own him, and he’s not her slave.” That song was still in my head.

  “You know it’s wrong. You know he wouldn’t send you that unless he wanted something more.” Nic crossed her arms in front of her.

  “I don’t know that.” I did, though. “C’mon, guys. I need your backup now.” I used all the repressed emotion I’d been holding in to plead my case. “We three are friends. And Ryan and I were friends long before Christie was ever part of the picture. I’m sure he’s just realizing that we’re graduating soon or something, and if he doesn’t speak to me now, he never may have the chance again. Not talking to me after all these years is dumb. I know him. He knows me. I can say there are not many people, present company excepted, who really do.”

  I guess my statement appealed to the nostalgia and sense of finality that seems to hit all seniors, because after that they didn’t say much more that night about me meeting Ryan.

  Chapter 17

  Unrestrained

  At a quarter to nine I broke away from Kelli and Nic. We were at a disco two doors down from the hotel. Some of our group was there, but not Ryan and Christie. I hadn’t seen them since the pool.

  Downstairs at the hibiscus plant I lingered for a few minutes before a bellhop addressed me.

  “Perdóneme, miss, ¿usted está buscando a alguien? You are looking for someone?”

  I shrugged my shoulders, shaking my head. I didn’t want to start a conversation on this topic. What if someone I knew came by?

  “You wait for a tall señor—dark hair—from your groupo? Are you…Kara?”

  I inhaled and blinked at him, giving him a quick nod.

  “He give me this for you.” He pulled a piece of paper from his breast pocket. My name was on top with the same writing.

  Kara, about 30 yards in front of the side entrance of the hibiscus is a pathway to the beach. Go left when you hit the sand. I’ll wait in the dunes.

  I studied the note. Walking alone at night on a Mexican beach didn’t sound particularly safe, but I wanted to see Ryan. I folded the piece of paper and stuck it in my pocket. “Gracias,” I said.

  The moon was out, and the sound of gentle waves lapping against the sand started to overshadow other background noise as I walked toward the beach. When I reached the sand I looked around. There was a bonfire in the distance, closer to the ocean. I took off my flip-flops and turned left. Grassy dunes made a border between pavement and sand, sloping down toward the beach flat. I didn’t want to get too close to either without knowing exactly where Ryan was. I knew I could meet anyone from our group on the boardwalk.

  The breeze picked up. I had a sweater wrapped around my waist, which I pulled over my T-shirt.

  I walked a few more minutes, scanning shadows and listening intently to the wind and waves, trying to detect any human-made sound around me. “Kara, I’m here,” a voice said softly. A dim figure stood in the darkness. From my perspective below he looked larger than life against a low horizon line. He made his way down to me. “Thanks for coming.” His voice was low and deep, like he hadn’t spoken in a while.

  “I wanted to.”

  “I’m sorry I had to enlist Miguel, but I was afraid Christie will be watching out for me. I told her I’m sick. Doug’s covering for me. We’re rooming together here.”

  “Sick?”

  “After I ate tonight, I went to the restroom and told her I was vomiting. Doug told her I was sick all over the room and it stunk.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “I know. I hate lying.”

  “I meant the image of you sick all over the room.”

  “Yeah, well, it was gross enough to work. Let’s walk.”

  We walked toward a large cliff at the far end of the beach. Fine grains of sand pushed between our toes, and the sound of the waves receding and advancing enveloped us.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Well, I scouted out this side of the beach earlier today. I’ve only been almost as far as that rock over there, but Miguel told me beyond the rock there is a cove.”

  The cliff grew in size in front of us as we walked without speaking. He seemed comfortable being quiet, too. It was as if our private thoughts were propelling us forward, keeping us engaged, and the rolling surf tantalizing the sand with its momentariness communicated for us.

  Behind us I sensed the lights of the resort and neighboring town drawing down. Only the lapping waves and our steps forward remained constant.

  I thought of Ryan coming up with an elaborate excuse to not see Christie this evening. “What would she do if she knew we met each oth
er?”

  “I’m not sure. She’s grown more jealous. She caught me looking at you today. We had an argument.”

  We walked further without elaboration. Instead I tossed this information over in my head, conjuring up mental scenes to go with it.

  “Nic and Kelli know I’m meeting you. They don’t like it.”

  “Why?”

  “They say you want something more. I guess they don’t think of you and me as we once were anymore.”

  “They should mind their own business.”

  “Everybody minds each other’s business in our school. But you’re right. It’s been one of the things that bothered me about Trinity in the past. Lots of people will feel the same way.”

  Ryan took a big breath of ocean air without disagreement and kept walking. “Do you think they’ll say something to her?”

  “No, not them. Not yet, anyway.”

  We marched on. The side of my right shin started to pull. Walking through all the sand was causing me to use different muscles in my feet and legs.

  “You took off your shorts.” He had changed to jeans he had rolled up at the bottoms since I saw him earlier.

  “They’re pretty conspicuous. But I like them, thank you.”

  I smiled in the dark.

  The cliff now sloped down into a rocky area in front of us, and tiny tributaries of water were cutting through the sand at our feet. Mine were getting wet and cold as we crossed them.

  “Do you think the cove fills up with water at night?”

  “Miguel said it was safe.”

  There was only about a foot of space to maneuver around the edge of the rocks that met the water. I followed Ryan, brushing their cool, gritty surfaces underneath my fingertips, stepping carefully after his path. On the other side the beach broke into a rounded little lagoon. It looked calm and dreamlike. No one was around.

  Ryan had been carrying a backpack, and he pulled out a couple of towels to sit on.

  “You thought of everything,” I said, flopping down on one of them. He sat down too.

  In silence we watched the moonlight on the water for a moment, savoring the arrival at our intended destination. I stretched my legs out in front of me and leaned back onto the palms of my hands.

  Ryan clasped his arms around his own legs and put his chin on his knees.

  “I’m still in love with you,” he said.

  ***

  It had been what I’d wanted to hear all along, but when Ryan said those words I became unsettled, like maybe I’d done something I shouldn’t have. Instead of talking about it, I rolled up on to my knees to face him, bringing my lips close to his.

  “Kiss me.”

  He did, long and soulfully, with tears slipping down his cheeks. I cried too, because I had broken through and he was mine again. And because life was wonderful to gift me someone, right in front of me, who said he’d always love me and never stopped.

  He pulled me down on top of him and my hair fell in a curtain around our faces, the air between us becoming warm and scented with kisses and salt. “Kara.” His voice rolled out my name like a spirit beckoning me from the past. We were sharing a sensation I desired so much. The hurt and mistrust between us was leaving us with those tears, replacing itself with the heat of passion. His fingers inched up my thigh, under my skirt, toward my panties, making me gasp. A fleeting thought of not being able to remember the old Ryan ever being so forward passed by me in a fog.

  I opened my legs a little wider, tugging at his belt, and then under his hoodie to find the buttons on his shirt.

  Soon all but our underwear was off as we lie facing each other in the moonlight. His olive skin was captivating. In the shadows, muscles I’d never noticed before cut into his skin like an Adonis. Unlike the past few months before, I was able to look deeply into his eyes and monitor every single flutter of a lash, every single neuron firing off behind the iris. His were sucking in every detail of me, too.

  “You look amazing; more beautiful than I ever imagined,” he said, moving his hand down my collarbone, over my arm, onto my hip and thigh. Short, shallow breaths had long ago replaced our tears, and our kisses grew more intense. My skin was on fire every place it rubbed his. He was just a boy when I left him more than a year ago. And I was just a girl. The way we touched each other now was less innocent and self-conscious.

  “Can we?” He breathed heavily, his hand at the middle of my back, his fingers at the hook of my bra.

  “I…never thought it would happen like this between us.” I began to protest for no exact reason. “So fast. You’re dating another girl.”

  His hand grew still at my words, and yet I could hear the silent screams of frustration coming from both our heads. What I’d just said didn’t matter to me. It was full of pretense.

  “But I need you. And you need me.” There. That was as real as it could be.

  As we made love for the first time under twinkling stars and a moon peeking through passing clouds, I felt like part of the natural world that comes alive at night: like fireflies that glow to find their soul mates, owls that hunt and question, and sea urchins that move to the reef to feed. I liked being naked with him in the open like that, and told him so.

  “Maybe you’re an exhibitionist,” he teased me.

  “And what would that make you?” I grinned and kicked a little sand up as I stood, daring him chase me across the beach. He did until we fell down breathless and maneuvered our way back to the towels, making love again.

  “What does it make me, to want you every time I see you, though I thought I had so much going with someone else?” he asked, tracing patterns on my stomach afterward, leaning over me on one elbow. His voice was low and self-reflective.

  I looked at him. I wasn’t the only exhibitionist among us, I had been thinking. What about that public circus that had been him and Christie this past semester? We’d walked at least a mile to the most private part of this beach to be alone together, yet they had to hold on to each other all the time in front of people. That was exhibitionism too, and maybe a different kind than my own. One or both of them needed validation in some way to behave like that. But I didn’t want to confront him with my thoughts. He’d probably take them wrong if I did. “Will you regret what happened between us tonight?” I asked.

  “No.”

  His short answer was quick, but not exactly comforting. “We should go back,” I said.

  “Do you still love me, Kara?” he asked, hugging me to him after we dressed and readied ourselves to leave the cove.

  “I do,” I said, and felt his arms close tighter around me, his face in my hair. I even said, “I love you, Ryan,” but it didn’t roll of my tongue as easily as I expected.

  We made our way past the cliff, on to the main beach, and back to the hotel, moving inches further apart when we approached the distant building. There was much less ambient noise than before. We passed through the empty lobby to a bank of elevators, and I thought I saw someone from reception smirk to himself. The clock in the foyer said 3:30 a.m.

  When the elevator doors closed, Ryan took my hand. “If I can’t talk in person, I’ll send you a note tomorrow through Miguel,” he said, kissing me before he stepped out. The guys were staying on a floor below us.

  ***

  I didn’t realize how unhappy I had been before I reconnected to Ryan until I woke up the next morning and felt the difference. I could still feel him, beside me, inside me from the night before, and it was as if I had overcome a handicap, removed a muzzle from my emotional self. We had been together again, and in a new sense we had never experienced. Did he feel like this too, I wondered? I smiled at the memories that flooded my head. I ran my hand from my face to my stomach, remembering his loving but urgent touch. I pictured the light reflecting off his thigh, chest and cheekbone as he chased me in the mo
onlight. His trembling lips and the smoky shadows of his eyes and brows when he kissed me and told me he loved me stirred something deep within me, and I savored those images. I was sure he loved me; there was truth in our experience that showed me that.

  I rolled over in bed and looked at the clock. Twelve-thirty. I wouldn’t even make it down to lunch. When would I see him again? It wasn’t if, but when. That reality made me happy, too.

  Nic and Kelli weren’t around when I descended from our room, and the pool area was vacant of my classmates. I was hungry and ordered a taco plate and Coke at the poolside bar. Sitting on a stool gave me a better view out into the expanse of beach that fronted the hotel. I scrutinized the distant shapes for anyone I might know and thought I saw a few people from our group playing around in the surf.

  “You like Puerto Vallarta?” the waiter asked me when he brought me the drink part of my order.

  “Sí” I spoke in Spanish even though he had addressed me in English.

  “The life is good.”

  “Sí, perfecto.” I unwrapped my straw and popped the Coke can, looking past him at the beach again. The moonlit togetherness I had shared with Ryan the evening before contrasted sharply with the early afternoon’s vacant sunlight. My stomach growled and I took a sip of the sweet, burning liquid. My relationship with Ryan had changed forever last night—we’d become lovers. I could feel myself blush while thinking about the way our bodies united, the way his dark, huge pupils locked with mine. Christie wouldn’t be able to hold on to him anymore. That I knew. I’d seen compulsion in his eyes. We couldn’t help ourselves. And Ben? Would he still have a hold on me now?

  The smell of lunch coming toward me distracted my train of thought, and for a few minutes I concentrated on nothing else but scarfing down the two tacos on my plate, even though they were soft shell and not what I was anticipating. The chili wasn’t as hot here as we had in New Mexico either, but I liked the sprinkle of white cheese on top of my frijoles. Beans and rice were always the parts I left on my plate at home. I raked my fork through a few small bites and wondered if Ryan had eaten anything yet today. Since he had told Christie he was sick with a stomach flu last night, he’d have to be careful and act the part today. If he was still acting, that is. I pushed my plate away from me and took another sip of Coke, looking back on the beach. I started when I recognized two figures walking toward the hotel in the distance.