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Jake
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I stood up, water sluicing down my chest. Damn, it felt good to be in the water. It felt so freeing. There was something about being weightless. I ran my hands over my face before pushing the water from my hair. The fire on the beach was dying and needed some attention. I had only meant to take a quick dip, but once I got in the water, I couldn’t bring myself to get out.
I walked through the water with my toes digging into the sandy bottom. My underwear clung to my skin. I didn’t hesitate to strip out of them and walk in the nude the rest of the way. The last thing I needed was to chafe. Besides, my backpack had a change of clothes. After putting a log on the fire, I stood in front of it to dry off.
I understood why she’d been naked on the beach. There was something about being in the flesh under what was now a half-moon in the sky that was very freeing. It made a guy feel alive. It was the most alive I had felt in a good ten years. If I was being honest with myself, which was something I had been doing a lot of lately, I hadn’t been happy in my marriage for a long time. We were two very different people. There was no overlap in our interests, and neither of us seemed to care enough about the other to try and find common ground.
I reached into my bag and pulled out a clean pair of boxer briefs. I wasn’t going to bother getting dressed up for a night alone on the beach. I sat down on the sleeping bag and pulled out the can of tuna. I had hoped to be dining on fish tonight, but no use crying over spilled milk. I had argued my case and lost. Tomorrow, I was going home. When I got home, I was going to call the owner of this little island and give them a piece of my mind.
As angry as I was, I wanted to come back. This was a piece of paradise I wasn’t willing to give up. I didn’t care if they gave me a break on the cost for the next month. I wanted to be here. I stared out at the water with the moonlight reflecting on the calm surface. I wanted to say I could live like this, but that probably wasn’t true. It was nice right now, but I imagined it would get very old after a few months. There was something to be said for technology and convenience. I loved a good hamburger and the occasional trip to the theater.
I took a bite of my dinner and had to smile. This had been a staple back in the day. When I was a teenager, I would pack a backpack, hop in my truck, and drive up to the mountains for an overnight retreat. My parents were used to me disappearing. As long as I trained hard and didn’t get into trouble, they pretty much let me do what I wanted.
I smiled at the memory of one of my nights in the woods. I had been sitting in front of a fire just like this, munching on my tuna and crackers when I saw a bear. The damn thing hadn’t been too far away. It watched me watch it. It was the tuna. In my young, teenage mind, I never considered the idea I wasn’t the only one in the woods dining on fish.
That memory drifted right into a memory of Amanda. I hated that she still haunted my thoughts. It pissed me off that she still took up so much damn real estate in my head. I knew it was going to take a while to completely exorcise her from my brain. I’d been with her nearly half my life. That wasn’t something that just went away after signing my name on divorce papers.
I didn’t miss her. I knew I didn’t love her. It was an absence. At one of my meetings with my attorney, he recommended I seek grief counseling. I thought the man had lost his damn mind. He said he referred all his clients because it helped with the divorce process. It cooled the anger that was generally a result of the pain of a divorce. I didn’t go to a therapist, but I did do a little reading and I discovered I was grieving. I grieved the loss of a dream. I grieved the loss of the life I thought I had. For me, the death of our marriage had been dragging on for years. I was too much of a sucker to walk out on her. I kept thinking I could fix what was broken between us.
And then there was the tuna and crackers. I stared at the sleeve of crackers in my hand and actually laughed. After a whole hell of a lot of cajoling and downright begging, I had convinced her to take a trip with me. We’d gone to a very romantic cabin in the woods. We were sitting around the firepit – propane, not actual fire – and I had busted out my favorite campfire snack.
The woman actually gagged and cringed at the idea of dipping a Saltine into a can of cold tuna. Amanda had been raised very differently than I. She didn’t appreciate some of the most basic pleasures in life, like tuna fish. She didn’t mind grilled tuna steaks, but heaving forbid anything that came from a can. It wasn’t until we’d been married a couple of years that I actually got to go to her family home.
Amanda was a fraud. She’d grown up in a trailer park. Her parents were in and out of jail. She traded on her looks, and had become very skilled at spotting the men with money. Vulnerable men, as far as I was concerned. Somehow, the woman saw something in me. She hooked her wagon to me, and I was stupid enough to believe she did it because she loved me. Looking back, I realized she’d been managing me. We met because she was my financial advisor. She advised me right into making a fortune and reaped the benefits. I supposed that’s why I didn’t hate the idea of giving her half of everything. My success had been the result of her pushing. She knew who to schmooze to get the investment capital. She’d smiled and flirted with the people that helped my business get off the ground.
I reached for the backpack and pulled out the scotch. I held it in my hands and stared at the label in the firelight before looking up at the millions of stars overhead. “Goodbye, Amanda.”
I wanted the scotch, but this didn’t feel quite right. There was an angry woman not too far away. The scotch was supposed to be a celebration of my freedom. I didn’t feel entirely free just yet. I couldn’t completely relax. I was still an intruder. Amanda had made me feel like the intruder in my own house for a long time. The weight of our broken marriage had been hanging on me for years. Tonight was supposed to the first night I was free.
I wasn’t free. I couldn’t howl at the moon after I had a few. That would only serve to bring my roommate running and screaming at me to keep it down. Although, if we were being fair, she wasn’t exactly being quiet up there in the cottage. When I came out of the water, I heard the unmistakable sound of Elvis. I couldn’t say that would have been my first choice in music, but as long as she was enjoying herself, so be it.
Tonight wasn’t the night. I slid the bottle back into the backpack and reached for one of the bottles of water I had carried down with me. I turned to look up at the cottage. There was a soft glow coming from one of the windows. I wondered what she was doing up there all alone.
I smiled at the memory of her naked on the beach. The look on her face had been priceless. It was too bad she hated me on sight. I kind of liked her. There was something different about her. I could honestly say I knew no woman who would be willing to come out here and stay all by herself. I worked with athletic women who did downhill skiing for fun. Women who loved white water rafting and climbing sheer rock cliffs. None of those women would be brave enough to come out here and stay by themselves for a month.
That alone made me want to get to know her. We clearly had at least one similar interest. It was just too bad she was so stubborn. Too bad she thought I was a pain in her ass, crashing her party. If she’d be just a little more open-minded, we might actually get along. We did seem to have a little in common. Maybe I would catch some fish in the morning and share with her.
That would be a real test. If I gifted Amanda some fresh, pan-fried fish, she would probably vomit. She liked fish, but not if she knew where it came from. If my lovely little Gabby ate the fish, she would forever hold a place in my heart. Not my actual heart, but she would be added to the very short list of women I respected and admired.
And then I would never see her again. I blew out a breath and shook my head. I was on a woman diet. I didn’t trust my own judgement. The celibacy had helped me clear my head, and I did feel like I was in a better place, but I was still not ready to spar with a woman. It was going to be a while before I felt like I could get back into that game. I was much older, far more jaded, and just a little cynical.
I got to my feet and shook off the dark thoughts. I was out here to get Amanda out of my system. What happened, happened. It was time to start moving forward. “Shake it off,” I muttered.
I was on a beautiful island for one night. I was not going to waste it by thinking about my ex-wife and lamenting the life I didn’t get to have. I was going to focus on the life I did have and the life I planned on having. After walking off the negative that threatened to cast a pall over my one and only night, I climbed into my sleeping bag.
I stared up at the stars and quickly identified the Big Dipper. The stars were incredibly bright. The crickets were chirping all around me. The crackling of the fire mingled with the soft, gentle sounds of the water lapping against the shore. Even with the faint sound of Elvis in the background, the night was beautiful. It soothed me into a state of peacefulness I had not felt in a long time. Probably fifteen years. My soul had been craving this. I could practically feel my heart and soul knitting back together after being shattered. I was mending. I was healing. All it took was a night out under the stars. I was a little irritated with myself for not doing it earlier.
I closed my eyes and imagined a new world. I couldn’t quite imagine my future yet because it was all a blank slate. I had money and didn’t technically have to work. I could go anywhere and do anything. I just wasn’t sure what it was I wanted to do. Would I ever really know?
