The Same Deep Water (9 page)

“Nothing. I’m taking time out. Living fast, dying young.”

In her drunken state, Jen misses the sarcasm. “Nice if you can afford to.”

Guy shuffles forward. “Spin the bottle?”

“Oh! Yeah! Game!”

Nicely fielded, Guy.

Fortunately, the bottle stops at Jen, which I swear is what she wanted. “Truth!” She looks to Cam. “You ask!”

Cam smiles slyly at Jen and leans so his face is near hers. “Have you ever kissed a girl?”

“Of course! Hasn’t everybody?” She places a quick kiss on his lips then throws her hands up. “That wasn’t very interesting.”

The bottle spins again and points at me. “My turn!” calls Jen.

I cringe. I hope this isn’t going where I think. Dare could mean kissing her. “Truth.”

“What’s one thing nobody in this room knows about you?” she asks.

The obvious springs to mind, the accident, the deaths. The night with Guy on the rocks at least doesn’t factor in because he knows. I can’t give a voice to the memories of my family and choose a safer option. “I grew up living with my grandparents.”

“Really? I wondered why you never spoke about your parents. Is the story bad about them? What happened? Did they die?” slurs Jen.

Cam puts his hand over her mouth. “She’s a heartless drunk. Jen, be quiet.”

“Phe mentioned them!”

“They’re dead, yes,” I say and push the bottle which stops, pointing at me again.

“Hey! No fair! Two goes! Or are you gonna ask yourself a question?” replies Jen.

Cam looks at me in embarrassed shock at his girlfriend’s dismissive behaviour; and to my surprise, Guy curls his hand around mine.

“Did you hear what she said?” Guy asks Jen.

“When?”

Cam takes the glass from her hands. “Memory blanks are supposed to come later not within minutes!”

“Oh. Right. I’m sorry about your parents.”

“It’s fine.” I rub my face. “Why am I doing this?”

“Was that your question?”

“Yeah.”

Jen continues her obliviousness to the growing atmosphere in the room. “I’ll go again.” The vodka bottle whirls into a blur on the shaggy teal rug, and rests somewhere between Guy and Cam. “Closer to Guy!”

Guy’s silence in the last few minutes worries me, tension rolling from him. From my position, I can’t see his expression and wish I could. “Dare,” he says in a low voice.

A slow smile crosses Jen’s face. “I was hoping you’d say that. Kiss Phe.”

“Truth,” he throws back.

Heat crosses my face, at the embarrassment from Jen’s words and his refusal. This is bad. Really bad. And becoming worse by the minute.

“Hmm. Let me think,” she says.

Cam leans over and whispers in Jen’s ear. Her expression of concentration switches to eagerness. “Tell me, mysterious Guy, what’s the worst thing you’ve done in your life?”

My heart thumps with every second he doesn’t reply, Jen poking the wasps nest of the secrets he keeps.

“There’s quite a choice,” he replies. “How bad?”

“How bad? Ohmigod. Have you killed somebody?” She collapses in another fit of giggles, her white blonde hair falling across her face.

I swallow and stand. “I don’t think this game is working, Jen. I should go to bed.”

Guy looks up at me from the floor, eyes glittering. “She asked. I’ll tell her.”

“I don’t want to know,” I whisper.

I glare at Jen who’s now sitting forward, elbows on her knees and hands beneath her chin, expectantly.

Guy stands and looks straight at Jen. “I killed my mother.”

Guy’s words echo inside my drunk brain and I shake my head in case I misheard. Guy shoves his hands in his jeans pockets and continues to regard Jen. Her giggling stops and she straightens. “What?”

“He’s taking the piss,” remarks Cam. “You’re pushing people into doing and saying things they don’t want.”

Guy did say the words. The world lurches. No, Cam’s right, he’s lying to shut Jen up.

“We’re playing truth or dare!” mutters Jen. “That’s the whole point of the game!”

Is he? Did he? “Guy?”

“It’s true,” he says, not looking at me.

“Sure it is! That’s why you’re walking the streets and not locked up!” says Jen sarcastically.

“You only wanted an answer, not an explanation. And I’m not playing your stupid, fucking game anymore!” Guy grabs his half-empty beer from the table and storms barefoot out of the house, the front door slamming behind him.

We stare after him, and nobody speaks for a while.

“Whoa. Reckon he did?” Jen rests her head on the sofa. “Psycho.”

I hesitate, looking in the direction of the door. Do I follow him? As I step towards the front door, Cam sits up. “You’re not going after him are you?”

“Yes.”

“What? He told us he killed somebody and you’re going to follow him into the dark?”

“I’m not scared of him and I don’t believe him.”

“Ohmigod! What if now he’s told us, Guy’s gonna kill us too!” shrieks Jen.

“Jen, you’re wasted. Don’t be fucking stupid,” Cam says, and then looks to me. “Are you sure? Normal people don’t say shit like that.”

“Guy’s not normal people and neither am I.” I slip my feet into my strappy sandals and walk into the night.

Chapter Twelve

A streetlight a few hundred metres away doesn’t offer much illumination, but the large moon picks out a figure striding through the scrub toward the beach. I hurry across the empty road to catch up.

“Guy!” He either doesn’t hear or ignores me. I blink as I step from the lit road to the beach, adjusting my eyes until I see his figure again. “Guy!”

The sand fills my sandals and slows me down as I jog closer to him. I call his name once more, louder and he halts. He can’t pretend he doesn’t hear me in the silence of the early hours.

Guy turns, the moonlight picking out his drawn features. “Why have you followed me?”

“Because I’m worried about you.”

“Huh.”

The gap between us is small, but feels like a chasm I’m unsure I can cross. Why did he say what he did? This man in the moonlit shadows isn’t the Guy I know. He swears under his breath and sits.

When Guy doesn’t speak, I join him on the sand; and for a few moments, we stare at the ocean.

“I should’ve taken the dare and kissed you,” he says, “But she pissed me off.”

“You certainly shut her up.”

Guy digs his fingers into the sand next to him. “It was the truth,” he says. “I did kill my mother.”

I control the gasp of breath threatening to escape. “Then why aren’t you...”

“In prison? She died a long time ago. I was a kid.”

The waves lap the shore, the darkened water close to my feet and I wriggle back, not wanting water to touch me. Guy spoke about this tonight for a reason, he didn’t need to; he had a choice. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“She died giving birth to me. I killed her,” he says, voice void of emotion.

“Guy...” I place a hand on his arm. “No, you didn’t. That’s tragic but you can’t think like that.” He doesn’t move or respond. “I’m sure you’ve been told this a thousand times.”

Guy takes my hand and pushes it away. “I hurt people, Phe. I kill people. I came into this world by taking a life. All my life, people I become close to suffer. I’m a curse. I deserve to die.”

The evening breeze lifts the hairs on the back of my neck. Guy won’t look at me and his words are slurred around the edges; dredged from his depths I had no idea about.

“Don’t say things like that! I don’t believe you’re a bad person.”

“You don’t know me, Phe.”

“Because you hide yourself.”

“I guess I’m not hidden anymore then, am I?”

I take his hand again. “I want to know what kind of man you are beneath the surface, because I think he’s a good man.”

“Things are complicated.” He curls his cool fingers around mine, and squeezes. “I feel cursed.”

Guy shifts closer, our legs touching. Would a normal person shy away from him? At this moment, I want his closeness more than ever, to show him I don’t agree. That I care. The dark water nearby quietly laps the shore, hardly audible beneath Guy’s stressed breathing

“Since you know something about me, can I ask you something?” he asks.

“What?”

“You said your parents were dead. What happened?”

An exchange of secrets, slipping through a crack in the barrier between the part of Guy that recognises part of Phe, and wants to take hold. I take my hand away and wrap my arms around my knees.  

“Remember I told you their death was an accident? It wasn’t.”

“Oh.”

I heave a breath. “I got out.”

“Out of where?”

“I can’t talk about this, Guy, the nightmares will start again.”

“I understand all about nightmares.”

“I understand about feeling cursed,” I whisper back.

Guy touches my cheek and I tremble, against the cool breeze on the beach, the fear dug up, and the need for Guy to take hold of me. Guy looks the same as at the cafe last Monday – tired and defeated – and my heart hurts for him. “I want to explain so much, but I can’t. I don’t know how to.”

“You don’t need to until you’re ready.”

Guy wraps an arm around my shoulders and I rest my head against his hard chest. “Why do you trust me?” he asks.

“Shouldn’t I trust you?”

“I just told you I hurt everybody who’s close to me.”

“How can you say that after what you did for me?”

His lack of response worries me and I move to look at him. Guy takes my hand and traces the lines on my palm. “When I saw you in the dark, I had to fight against running over and dragging you away from the edge. I wanted to hold you, to absorb your suffering. I’m sick of hurting people. I thought taking away your pain might absolve me somehow.”

“I don’t believe you hurt people, Guy.”

“I don’t hurt people deliberately. It just happens.” He takes a deep breath and looks at me. “Since the moment I saw you on the edge, I’ve wanted us, but I’m scared. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

I touch his face. “You’ve already helped me so much. That first night and in the days after.”

Guy looks at my hands. “I messaged you every evening so that every night when you closed your eyes to sleep you would know somebody out there cared.”

Guy’s words choke me; the carefully hidden man revealing the fractured edges of his soul and the depth of his heart. “Being with you is transforming my world, and I don’t think the list is the only reason, is it?”

“What if I do hurt you?”

“Then I’ll cope.”

“Will you?”

I understand his need to pull me from the edge. I share the hatred that another person could hurt in the same way. All this time and I failed to notice, too busy struggling against the dark tide threatening to pull me under. Guy is swimming the same deep water as me.

“Yes. I can’t hide from the world and deny the good for fear of the bad. You live in the moment and I should too,” I tell him.

Guy laughs softly and touches my cheek. “Living dangerously, Phe. You’ll be jumping out of planes next.”

“Maybe I’ll pass on living in that particular moment.”

“So what happens?”

“I don’t want to wait until it rains.” I shift closer to him, willing him to embrace me.

“You’re crazy.”

“We already know that.”

Exhaling, Guy curls his hand into my hair, and then rests his forehead against mine, warm breath heating my face. “This pulls us into something different. I’m not sure.”

“Kiss me, even if only once.” I move my head so our lips touch, the buzz of connection immediate.

“If I kiss you it will be more than once.”

“Good.” I turn my face and meet his mouth curling a hand around his neck to pull him closer. Guy places one hand in the sand, circles his other arm around my waist, and he kisses me. The warm pressure of his mouth moves from tentative to firmer as I push my lips against his, eagerly responding and pressing myself into him. Mouth harder against mine, Guy parts my lips, exploring as I push my tongue against his.

We kiss for what feels like forever, a single moment frozen in time, not moving or closing the rest of the space between us. I crave Guy’s hands on my skin, to slide my hands against his too, but this should stay as a kiss.

Guy pulls away slowly, as if he doesn’t want to take his lips from mine, and releases my waist. We could kiss again, our lips close enough that they still feel connected, and I’m tempted. I move my head back; but in the dim, I can barely make out Guy’s expression.

“There’s something strange about us,” he says.

I laugh. “You reckon?”

“No, about us. Together. Do you think we cancel each other out?”

“What do you mean?”

“Life and death.”

“Don’t talk about death when I just kissed you, Guy. That was to distract you.”

“Not because you wanted to kiss me?”

“That too.”

Guy holds my face with both hands and kisses me softly again. “Being with you changed my world, Phe. I’m not sure I can ever go back to my old one.”

“The world’s a brighter place with you in, that’s for sure.” I take his hand and squeeze. “I don’t want to talk about the bad or the past.”

Guy tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I don’t want to stay here. Let’s go back to the house and hope your stupid friend has passed out drunk.”

I walk with Guy back to the house, a line crossed. We could be any couple giving in to our attraction, taking a tentative step in the direction we both want to go. But we’re not.

Light from the half-open front door shines onto the pathway and we step inside to an empty lounge room. Empty bottles and glasses remain strewn around the room, but Jen and Cam are gone. A subdued Guy sits on the sofa and rubs sand from his feet.

I look up as I hear a noise from the kitchen. Cam hesitates in the doorway with two large glasses of water, and a rueful smile.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I reply.

Guy says nothing.

I’m relieved when Cam ends the conversation at an exchanged greeting and heads to the back of the house with his drinks. Guy watches, and back in the light I can see more clearly how drunk he is. The fresh air didn’t do much for my sobriety either, nor does the light-headed feeling from Guy’s kiss.

His mouth curves into a smile and he flops against the back of the sofa. “Do you think they believed me, about my mother?”

I sit next to him. “Probably not.”

“She’s a bit obnoxious, your mate.” He drags a hand down his face. “Sorry, she’s your friend, but she’s rude.”

“Jen’s always like that when she’s drunk.”

He smooths hair from my face and cups my cheek. “Like I said, should’ve just kissed you if I knew you were going to anyway.”

Before I can respond, Guy’s lips find mine again and he draws me back from the craziness of the evening into the calm of his embrace. His kiss is slow, holding my head instead of moving to touch my skin. Pausing, he buries his face in my neck, exhales heavily, and squeezes me.

I stroke his hair. “Are you alright?”

“Drunk. Wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.”

I hold him and fight the arousal triggered by his kiss. Guy’s rough cheek scrapes against my skin as he places his lips on my collarbone. We remain in silence and the drunken warmth of our embrace coupled with Guy’s rhythmic breathing conspires against me. I begin to nod off as Guy’s body becomes heavier against mine.

“I can’t fall asleep here,” I murmur.

Stretching and shaking his head to wake himself, Guy studies me as we reach the moment things could shift further. “You going to bed?”

“I was going to go, yes. Will you be okay?”

“Me? Yeah.” He places his lips on my forehead. “I’d like to join you, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

My breath catches, the alcohol-numbed morals suggesting I could ask him to. “Right.”

Guy stands and tugs me to my feet. “If you weren’t as drunk as me, I’d be suggesting all kinds of things to you.”

“So when we’re sober, what then?”

“Then, I will have lots of suggestions,” he says in a low voice.

When we part, I lie in bed and mull the last few hours over in my head. Fate is a strange creature, drawing together lost souls then stepping back to watch what happens. What worries me is how kissing Guy felt right and how natural being in his company feels. How can this end well?