Divine (44 page)

He looked different
this time, with his black hat on and a tight black shirt that matched
his cargo shorts. It wasn't his style of clothing that was different,
but I could sense something inside of him was. He was standing with
his arms crossed in the shallow waves, the water reaching high enough
to soak into the fibers on the bottoms of his shorts. He was gazing
out in deep thought at the horizon beyond the sea, taking in the
paint brush strokes of orange and pink that were made by the lowering
sun, looking stunning himself against the glow that it emitted onto
his tanned skin. There was no time in his life when he
didn't
look
absolutely stunning.

I hopped down onto the
sand below and walked up to the edge of the water. “Hi,”
I quietly called out to him.

He kept his arms
crossed in front of him and slightly twisted his body to see me.
“Hey, Summer.” His eyes were void of emotion as he turned
back and once again faced the sunset.

“
Calling me
Summer on an early evening as beautiful as this can only mean two
things: that you're either deeply happy with me or deeply upset at
me. I'm guessing it's not the first one.”

His body was unmoving
in the shallow water as he kept quiet, choosing not to reply.

“
Will you talk to
me?” I urged him gently.

“
What do you want
to talk about?”

“
You know what I
want to talk about, Jonah.”

“
Well, then
talk.”

With misty eyes I
crossed my arms and looked down at a tiny sea shell that was buried
halfway in the wet sand next to my shoe. The gentle waves washed over
its smooth surface, moving even more grains of earth across its
perfect design, slowly covering up its beauty from the sight of the
world. A single tear rolled away from my cheek and collided with the
salty water as my sadness overtook me.

“
Please don't
cry; I don't like seeing you sad.”

I looked up at him,
expecting to see his face, but his solid back was still turned away
from me. “How do you know I'm crying?”

“
Because your
tear hit the water.”

Of course . . . a
part of me is in the water with you.

“
Well, I can't
help it. I feel like you're so mad at me.”

“
Yeah, I was.”

“
You aren't
anymore?”

“
No, I still am.”

I pulled my head back
with a frustrated sigh. “Jonah, can't you at least give me the
respect of facing me while we're having this discussion?”

He looked down at the
water and turned around, keeping his arms crossed and his eyes
covered by the bill of his hat.

“
You're still not
looking at me.”

He brought his head up
and cocked it to one side, displaying a slight look of irritation on
his strikingly handsome face.

“
Thank you,”
I spat out, equally annoyed with his behavior.

“
You said you
wanted to talk, so talk.”

“
I
don't know what to say. But obviously
you
have
something to say.”

“
Oh yeah? How do
you know that?” Oh, what an attitude he had.

“
Because,”
I huffed, “you're not saying anything at all, and that's not
like you. So, go ahead and say what's on your mind.”

“
Jesus Summer,”
he shot back in an instant, dropping his hands to his sides. “Why
in the hell didn't you just listen to me and your parents when that
crap with Fox happened the first time? Then you would've already had
a restraining order against that lunatic and he would be in jail
right now for what he did to you last night.”

I stayed silent for a
moment, stunned by his words but at the same time upset with myself
for not listening to him the first time he had asked me to. “I'm,
I'm so sorry . . .”

He raised his hand up
and pointed at me with a serious finger. “Not as sorry as you
would've been if he would have done something to you in that
bathroom.”

I swallowed hard and
released more of my tears, shaken by what he was suggesting. “No,”
I shook my head, “nothing would have happened.”

“
Dammit Summer,”
he yelled, his arms puffing up with anger at his sides. “Why
don't you listen to yourself?”

“
Listen to
myself?” I choked out. “What do you mean?”

It wasn't hard to see
that the crystal blue of his eyes were changing into a fiery red.
“You think nothing will happen to you, like you're invincible
or something. I warned you about him, your parents warned you. But
you don't listen.” His eyes grew more red with each passing
second, and the water around him matched his intensity. “He's
dangerous. Dangerous people do bad things to others every day. What
if he raped you? What if he tried to kill you?”

By this time the cove
was solid red and starting to boil with the heat from his veins.
Moments later, countless bodies of dead fish floated up to the
ocean's angry surface.

My eyes darted around
him, searching the water, taken aback by the troubling sight in front
of me. “Jonah stop it!” I screamed.

He went on, continuing
his furious point, “I told you I was always going to protect
you. How am I supposed to do that if you keep putting yourself in
situations where you could get hurt?”

More dead fish floated
to the boiling surface and I screamed again, “Jonah stop!
You're killing the fish!”

The rage in his face
left with my frantic words and he quickly turned around to see them
floating on top of the waters surface. “No!” he gasped,
bringing his hand against his mouth with the horrible realization of
what he had done.

“
Jonah, you need
to control yourself; look what you did!”

He lowered his face
into the palms of his hands and let out a loud cry. “I'm so
sorry, I didn't mean it!”

The image of my tiny
little fish flashed into my mind. “Oh my god,” I
panicked, “where's Fred?”

Jonah's head shot up
and he moved around in the water of dead fish, frantically trying to
find her. “I, I don't know. I can't feel her.”

“
What do you mean
you can't feel her?”

“
I'm too upset, I
can't feel her right now.”

Trying desperately to
find her I took a step into the red waves, but the scorching water
burned harshly at my skin. “It's still too hot,” I
screeched, jerking my foot away in agony. “Jonah, you have to
find her!”

“
I can't.”
His eyes began to fade away from red and turn to a sad sparkly blue,
slowly changing the color of the water along with it.

“
Fred,” I
screamed out at the water, “come here Fred!” I looked
over at Jonah standing sorrowfully with slumped shoulders in the
shallow waves. “Jonah,” I panted, pointing a finger at
him like he had done to me just minutes before, “you better not
have killed her or I swear . . .”

He
looked up at me with a pang of sorrow and turned around to face the
cove of dead fish. The sound of his husky voice growling with anger
echoed around us as he
pushed
his hands through the air in front of him, moving all of the water
away in one giant swoop, making the bodies of the fish disappear to
another part of the ocean.

“
Jonah, no,
please,” I cried out, “don't move the water away. I
haven't found Fred!”

“
She's not in
there, Summer,” he called back to me over his shoulder, his
voice filled with regret. Moments later he dropped his hands back to
his sides and a giant wave of blue water came crashing back in,
filling the cove and covering over the wet sandy areas where it had
been before. “I'm so sorry,” he sobbed as he turned
around and pulled himself out of the sea. “I didn't mean to
kill them.”

I grabbed his slumping
body up into a tight hug as he broke down in front of me, his head
landing softly on my shoulder as he let his sadness pour out of him.
Knowing that he needed my help, I swallowed away my anger about Fred
and focused on supporting the love of my life.

“
Jonah it's
okay,” I shushed him gently. “I know you didn't mean to
do it.”

“
But all my fish
are dead, and Fred is probably dead, too. I hate myself.”

I nudged him away from
my shoulder and wrapped his face in the softness of my hands. “Look
at me. You cannot beat yourself up over this, okay? You made a
mistake, just like I did.”

His eyes sparkled with
blue and bled the same color of salty tears down his face. “I'm
so sorry.”

“
It's
okay.” I pulled him back into me and rubbed his back to calm
him. “I don't want you to say that you hate yourself. Would you
want to hear me say that I hate
my
self?”

“
No.”

“
Then we're in
agreement then?”

He lifted his head up
and wiped his tears away on his black sleeve. “We always are.”

“
Good.”

We slowly let go of
each other, both exhausted from the situation. He bent over and
picked up his socks from the sand, choosing not to wear them and
sliding his wet sandy feet into his clean tennis shoes.

“
I'm sorry fish,”
he sighed toward the blue ocean. “And I'm sorry Fred.”

I looked down at my
black waitressing shoe, the skin beneath it aching from being
submersed in the boiling water. “You want to go back to your
place so we can talk some more?”

“
Yeah,” he
nodded, his eyes following mine toward the ground. “Awe Ashy,
I'm so sorry. How's your foot?”

“
It's fine, it
just needs some ice.”

He shook his head and
gave me a sorrowful look, the whites of his eyes tinged with a light
red brought on from his outpouring of tears. “I guess I didn't
do a very good job of protecting anyone today.”

I shook my head,
disagreeing with his comment. “Hey, no more of that kind of
talk okay? Now, let's go back to your house.”

He agreed with a gentle
nod and took my hand in his, squeezing it with gratitude as we walked
in silence back to our cars.

* * *

When we got to his
house I sat down on his couch and pulled off my shoe to see the
damage that had been done to my foot. The skin was red and swollen
and was pretty tender to the touch, but it wasn't bad enough to
warrant a trip to the hospital.

Jonah grabbed a bag of
frozen peas from his freezer and wrapped it in a wet paper towel.
“I'm sorry Ash, I hope this helps it.” He came to my side
and crouched down next to me, lifting my foot onto his coffee table
and resting the cold compress onto the blazing area on my skin.

I winced at the sharp
iciness and gave him a mild smile. “Thank you, that feels much
better.”

“
Well, it
shouldn't have happened in the first place. I'm pretty upset at
myself.”

“
I know, but
don't beat yourself up over it anymore, okay? It's over now.”

He nodded with a
down-turned smile and stood up next to me. “I'm gonna get in
the shower.”

“
Okay, take your
time.”

He bent down and gave
me a warm kiss, lingering on my lips for a moment before standing
back up and heading to the bathroom.

The bag of peas stung
at my swollen skin while I moved it around my inflamed foot. After
about ten minutes the whole area went completely numb and I felt
relief from the burning ache. I decided to give it a rest and check
on Jonah in the shower, since I could still hear that the water was
running. After all, I was really worried about him and how he was
acting, being so hard on himself and everything. But, I understood
why he was so upset: he had such a good heart and it killed him to
know what he did to all of the defenseless fish in his cove.

I shuffled over to the
door of the small bathroom and gently pushed it open, releasing a
thick cloud of steam that collided with my face and left a dampness
on my skin.

“
Jonah?”

“
Yeah?”

Leaving the door open
so the mist could escape, I grabbed the edge of the white fabric
shower curtain and pulled it back with a swift tug.