I Need You. Jane Lark

a dozen steps behind her, my fingers now in my front pockets.

      Maybe this had been a stupid idea…

      I held back a bit more, to give her some space, and let her go on ahead alone and storm her anger out. She’d calm down soon.

      When I sauntered onto the beach a while after I’d seen her walk down there, I spotted her about two hundred yards on. She’d taken her shoes off and held them in her hand, and she was heading toward the ocean.

      The sand worked its way into my sneakers. I stopped and toed them off, then carried on, holding them in my hand. My feet sank in the warm sand. The air was way cooler than the sand. But the sun’s heat seeped into the ground while the breeze from the cold ocean stopped the air feeling so warm.

      Lindy was a silhouette in the distance, outlined by the waves rolling in.

      I hit the compact, flat, wet sand. It oozed under my feet. The tide was out, so I was still a long way off where she stood.

      When I caught her up, she was looking at the last ripples of the waves wash over her bare feet.

      She stepped back a couple of paces with a little run, dodging a higher one as I got near her.

      “Hey.”

      She walked into the ripples of a different low wave, ignoring me.

      She didn’t look angry anymore, just thoughtful, like not only had she walked away, but her mind had left me behind.

      That was my problem. She was on my mind constantly and I think I was hardly ever on hers. “Lind?”

      She glanced at me, her eyes really blue out here where the sky and ocean reflected in them.

      I gripped her arm gently, so she couldn’t run away from this again. “I’m sorry, but that’s it now. He’s never gonna come back to you. He’s got a new life. You’ve got to move on too.” I was glad she didn’t try to pull loose or look away. “I’ve got you away from there. You’ve got two weeks. But in these two weeks, Lind, you’ve got to let him go. For your sake, not his, or anyone else’s. Because you need to start your life over without Jason.”

      She didn’t answer.

      Shit. A wave rolled in, a lot bigger than the last. It washed right at us, sweeping up and swilling about our legs, over our jeans, coming over my knees and even higher. The water was freezing, like bathing in firckin’ ice.

      Lindy screamed, trying to rush backwards, but stumbling, just as I felt the ocean dragging the sand out from beneath my feet, sucking it away as the wave headed back out.

      With my shoes gripped in one hand, I only had the other to save her. I caught her arm but she’d lost balance. She went down, tumbling into the water as it pulled away, dragging the wet sand from all around her, pulling it down the beach and out toward the ocean.

      She laughed and grabbed my arm, then pulled on me to get up. But I was off-balance too, as the sand got dragged out from under my feet…

      “Shit.”

      I landed on my hip, on the far side of her, my legs all tangled up with hers as the water swilled away, leaving us there like a couple of fish flapping on the sand.

      She still laughed, her head on the ground, her hair in the sand. It was a laugh-or-cry moment for her. I was glad she’d chosen laughter. I hadn’t heard her laugh for months.

      As much as we’d used to shout at each other in college we’d used to laugh a lot too. We always used to piss Jason off when we’d be arguing one minute and then laughing the next. This was us. This was how we were.

      The girl was meant for me.

      Why the fuck had she never been able to see it?

      She needed my fire, like I needed hers.

      She looked at me, her head turning as she stopped laughing.

      I smiled when her blue eyes looked right into me and my fingers stroked her sticky, salty, damp hair from her forehead. “Two weeks, Lind. Promise me? Two weeks to mourn him, then let him go, and go back and make a life for yourself without him.” I didn’t expect her to pick me instead. We’d travelled that road and it hadn’t worked out…

      If she was ever gonna be into me, she’d have known it by now. But I was into her and I couldn’t bear to see her hurting. It had to end, and if I could do nothing else for her, then I’d get her over it and help her start again.

      But fuck, it was going to hurt me once she’d pulled herself together and moved on to someone else.

      I sat up. “Damned sneaker waves!”

      “If that was a sneaker it was a wimp…” She laughed as she sat up too.

      “I’m not on about that one…” There was another one coming in, a huge one.

      “Ahh,” she screamed, but she laughed as she struggled to get up.

      It rolled in at a fast pace, foaming and frothing, we were on our feet, but it crashed into us, coming up to my waist.

      I caught her up off her feet, gripping her in one arm, and stepping off the shifting sand as it tried to drag us with it, while holding my sneakers up above the water.

      When the wave swept back out, I got us away from the water and set her on her feet.

      “Oh my God.” Her laughter turned to horror as she caught her breath, looking at me, her shoes lifting to point at me. “You look a mess––”

      “So do you.” I lifted one brow at her.

      “Oh my God, my hair…” Her hand touched it. “We better go back.”

      Our jeans clung like a second skin and the white sleeveless tee Lindy had on beneath her open sweater had me swallowing. Every contour of her stomach and chest was visible through the translucent cotton, as well as the pale-pink lacy bra her nipples showed through. She’d be freezing when the shock wore off.

      Shit. I looked up, then laughed. Her hair was matted with salt and sand, and stuck to her head in rats’ tails.

      Her shoes hit my shoulder. “Don’t laugh at me!”

      I still laughed. “Come on. You need a shower. You’re all sandy.”

      “You douche,” she said as she turned away.

       Lindy

       “Two weeks to mourn him, then let him go, and go back and make a life for yourself.”

      I sighed, Billy was right. I knew that.

      I let the water run over my head as I rinsed my hair under the shower.

      Forget him.

      I wish I could.

      I wish my heart wasn’t empty. I wish my soul didn’t feel like I was dead and in Hell. I longed to let Jason go, because then maybe I could feel like a whole person again, not like someone with an arm cut off. Not like discarded trash.

      But forgetting Jason was hard when I hurt so much and I’d needed someone. He was meant to be here. To help me.

      My tears mingled with the water from the shower. I’d cried every day for months. I wanted to stop crying. But how could I get over him? How could I work out what to do without him?

      We lived in a small town. I walked past his shop all the time and saw the girl he’d dumped me for with him, standing where I used to. A constant reminder that I wasn’t good enough.

      Leaning back against the tiles, I let the tears come and the water wash them away. Then I slid down to the floor, sitting with my knees bent, my hands gripping in my hair, as hurt roared through me.

      Why was life so unfair? Why did all this have to happen to us? Why had Jason let me down when I’d needed him?

      I needed