It hangs between us, heavy and weighted, like a hook.
I don’t know what to do, how to handle it, absorb it.
I only know how to deflect.
I grab him and kiss him hard. Before he has a chance to react, I’m pulling his shirt over his head and tumbling into the soft sand with him. My shirt is nearly ripped off, the skirt I wore for the occasion is yanked down along with my underwear.
We’re both naked in no time and I’m under him and he’s in me and all I can think about is that this is what it’s like to be devoured. To be consumed. To be loved. It all feels like the same thing.
There could be nothing left of me when he’s through.
When we’ve both come, sated and breathing hard, we lie on the silky sand and watch the blackened waves roll in, their crests lit by moonlight.
It’s a lonely sight, all that black on the horizon, all that nothing.
He loves me.
He loves me.
How?
“How can you love me?” I’m surprised that’s what comes out of my mouth but it’s the truth and it’s out there, floating in the dark.
He’s surprised, too. He balks at the question, his head jerking back.
After a long moment, the silence filled by the lapping water on the shore, he asks, “Do you want the truth?” Of course I want the truth. Of course I need to hear it. But I steel myself against it all the same. “It’s not easy to love you, Gemma,” he says, his fingers sliding up through my hair, gently, affectionately, in contrast to his words. “You are not an easy person to love because you don’t seem to have any use for it. You don’t want it. But the more you push, the more I pull. I fell in love with you because it was like staring at the frozen sea. I only saw the surface but I knew there was more underneath, miles of depth that no one has had a chance to discover.”
“I thought it was because I’m a good lay,” I say, attempting to make a joke.
His eyes harden. “It’s a lot more than that. I fell in love with you because you made me crazy, and you were like this unattainable world that I’d never be able to get my hands on. And then I did get my hands on you. And you got your hands on me. And I saw into your depths and found what I was looking for.”
“What?”
“You,” he says, pushing the hair back from my face. “A funny, sweet, vulnerable little girl who hides from the world under a big sheet of ice. That’s who I found. That’s who I want. That’s who I have. The artist, the poet, the dreamer, the risk-taker. The lover.”
I feel like my lungs are being deprived of oxygen and my heart has too much blood to pump. I’m gaining and losing. I’m torn. I’m loved.
He plants a soft kiss on my forehead. “I know everything I’ve just said is scary. In fact, I think I’ve freaked myself out a bit. But it’s true. And you don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to say anything. Just let me love you. That’s all.”
That’s all, he says. But that’s everything. How is it that being loved is even scarier than being in love?
I swallow hard and close my eyes as he wraps his arms around me. He’s so good to me, too good to me. I don’t belong with this man, not me with my heart of ice and he with his soul of fire.
The breeze off the bay is coming in colder now and I’m suddenly aware that we’re both naked in the sand and not too far away from the house. I’d hate for Uncle Robbie to make a discovery with his flashlight.
“We should go,” I tell Josh as I pull away.
He can’t hide the disappointment in his voice. “All right.”
Even though it’s for the best, my heart sinks a bit and I feel bad that I can’t say anything that he wants to hear. I lean over, grab his face and kiss him.
“Happy New Year,” I whisper to him.
“Happy New Year,” he whispers back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
JOSH
I have the mother of all hangovers. It’s the kind that keeps you stuck to your bed, to the beach, to the grass, to whatever place you happen to wake up in, and you can’t move because you know if you do, all the painful parts that make up your brain will become dislodged, bouncing around like razor-blade pinballs, and you’ll soon wish for a swift and painless death.
I blink, staring at the ceiling. Gemma and I are in the small guest room at Pops Henare’s house. She’s squeezed in between me and the wall, sleeping soundly. I hate her for it. I know now that I’m up, I won’t be able to fall back asleep, and I’ll have to suffer.
My phone rings, the sound like bullets exploding in my head. Who is calling me? Why did I drink all that champagne and smoke all that weed?
Why did I tell Gemma I was in love with her?
She moans beside me, pulling the pillow over her face. I reach into my pockets because of course I’m still wearing my clothes from last night, all covered in sand, and pull out my phone.
It’s Vera. And holy shit, it’s already one in the afternoon.
“Hello?” I answer and try to get out of bed, lifting Gemma’s leg off of mine.
“Josh?” she asks. “Happy New Year!”
I mumble something into the phone and then shuffle my way down the hall and out the back door. I can hear people in the kitchen and someone, probably Pops, watching TV, but I can’t even begin to socialize. I walk outside into hot, blinding sunshine. It’s like knives to my brain.
“Josh, are you okay?” she asks. “Don’t ruin my buzz.”