I Need You. Jane Lark

in a place where there’s no seaweed and fish.”

      “Wimp,” he said, as I slipped my sandals on. “Swimming in the ocean is exhilarating… You could swim in a pool back home.” There was a breathless sound of excitement in his voice. Billy was all about energy rushes, exercising, discovering, danger––full-on intensity no matter what he did. When we were at college just watching him wore me out.

      “You okay?”

      I smiled. “Yeah.”

      “Come on, then.”

       Billy

      My chest was hollow. There was no fucking air in the room. Lindy had on a little denim mini skirt that was frayed at the hem, and the flowery camisole thing she wore with it had tiny little straps that could be slipped off her shoulders so easily, and it hung loose over her breasts, just begging me to do that.

      She’d called me a douche on the beach; I was a douche. I was so sickeningly hungry for a girl I couldn’t have.

      It looked like she was wearing a pale-peach bikini top underneath the camisole, and I imagined my hand slipping inside that to cup her soft breast.

      You are sick, Billy.

      She picked up a sweater with a zipper and turned to go ahead of me out of the room. My gaze dropped to her legs. She had good legs. She was short but perfectly proportioned, like a little blonde Barbie doll.

      Hunger gripped hard in my gut.

      Great. It was going to be a long painful, pitiful two weeks.

      Her fingers shook as she unlocked the catch on the door. That had my lust subsiding and love and friendship taking over. I just wanted to protect her… and that included from me.

      I got the door and held it open as she walked out. Then, like before, I walked along beside her, with my hands in my pockets to keep them off of her. But this time we did talk.

      She asked me about work, about my clients, and then asked me who I kept in contact with from college, that led to us reminiscing as we walked along the shore, while the ocean waves rolled up, rippling over our bare feet, as we carried our shoes.

      It was nice… But it felt false, because the guilt inside me kept burning. Lindy looked vulnerable and heartbroken, walking next to me, swilling her feet in the frothing water, and brushing her toes through the shifting sand, her head down and her voice quiet.

      She was sad. But at least now she was trying not to be trapped in it.

      We’d walked the whole length of the beach when I looked at my watch and saw it was gone six. I suggested we walked back up to the town and looked for somewhere to eat. She looked at me for the first time in hours and nodded.

      We found a seafood restaurant and sat inside out of the breeze to eat.

      The conversation lapsed into silence a couple of times, but it was an easier silence.

      My guilt kept poking me, though, like someone jabbing a finger.

      When we’d finished eating, I said, “Shall we order another drink and go and sit outside? Then we can watch the sunset.”

      She nodded at me. Her eyes looked a little glassy from the drink. She’d had two large glasses of wine, and now she’d moved on to a cocktail.

      “Come on, then.” We got a table right at the edge of the terrace. No one was sitting around us, as the ocean breeze was cold.

      She pulled her sweater around her a bit more. “I know what you thought this afternoon.”

      I looked at her, my grip tightening on the beer bottle. We’d been avoiding serious subjects, dancing around them, but I was taking my lead from her. If she wanted to talk serious things that was okay. I lifted an eyebrow at her.

      “You thought I’d taken an overdose again or done something else when I was in the shower.”

      I let go of my beer, reached over and embraced her small hand, that lay on the table.

      Her blue eyes looked into mine.

      “I’m not going to do it again, Billy. It was a mistake. A moment of weakness. I hurt people. I am not going to hurt them again. You don’t need to worry. I’m just sorry you got mixed up in it. Sorry I scared you.”

      “You already said sorry…” My fingers squeezed hers as my guilt punched at me rather than poked. It was me who needed to apologize. “Lind…” This was touching an untouchable subject, but I couldn’t spend two weeks with her and not say it. “I…” God I needed to get a pair of balls. “What happened in the fall––”

      Her hand pulled free from mine and she leaned back in her chair, taking her drink with her, her big eyes staring at me.

      I took a breath. “It’s me who owes you an apology. I know you didn’t want it to happen.” Her forehead screwed up. She didn’t want to talk about it, but we had to. “All you wanted was someone to hold you and I took it too far.”

      Dual tears rolled down her cheeks and she sipped her drink, her gaze dropping to the table. She shut her eyes, like she could just make me disappear and not listen.

      But I carried on. I had to say this. I needed to get it out. “I’m sorry. I feel like… I forced you into it.”

      Her eyes opened and she leaned forward, setting her drink down. “Do we have to talk about this?” She still wasn’t looking at me.

      “Yeah. I’m living with it and I can’t stand it. I want to put things straight. I’m sorry. Now I’ve thought about it, I feel like I raped you.”

      She glanced up at me, pain in her eyes. Now I couldn’t look at her. My head dropped and I sipped my beer, shame slashing a knife at my chest.

      I’d had a drink that night, we both had. Jason had gone to New York a couple of months before. She’d gone out with me, to talk, and we’d been talking but I drove her out to the lake and parked up, to keep talking before I took her home. She’d got upset and turned to hug me, her arms hanging around my neck.

      She’d wanted comfort, that’s all, but I’d had a drink and I’d read it wrong, and my form of comfort had been to kiss her.

      She’d answered it, she’d been in a mess over Jason, she’d been hurting, she’d needed someone, and she’d accepted me.

      She’d had on a short loose skirt and my hand had roamed where it shouldn’t have gone, sliding up her thigh, then I’d I gripped her shoulders and tipped her backwards so we were both lying down… I’d taken it way too far. She hadn’t stopped me. I wish she had stopped me. She just hadn’t said anything, and let me do it.

      With my beer-fogged head, I’d carried on…

      The look in her eyes had haunted me for all the months we hadn’t been talking. She’d stared at me, just lying there, waiting for me to finish.

      I’d been an ass. She hadn’t said no, but she hadn’t said yes either.

      When we’d finished, or when I had finished––she hadn’t taken any part in it. She’d sat up, with tears running down her cheeks. When I drove her home, she’d cried all the way back into town. Then she’d jumped out the SUV as fast as she could, and run into her house.

      When I’d seen her the next time, neither of us had acknowledged what happened. We had never spoken about it. Not that night and not since. We’d just carried on pretending it hadn’t happened.

      But it had happened.

      The only time it had been mentioned was when Jason threw it at her that he knew. Apparently she’d talked to his cousin about it, and his cousin had told Rachel. Ever since then I’d been wondering what she’d told his cousin. The more I’d thought about that night, since then, the guiltier I’d got. Why hadn’t she said no? She hadn’t enjoyed it; she hadn’t wanted to do