Vital Sign Read online

  The burden of my private lamenting is just…stifling. I can’t breathe. I can’t even think about anything beyond Jake and the simple times that seemed to vanish overnight.

  The distant sound of the water coaxes me from any napping that I’d been planning on and the dangerous train of thought that could only leave me dropping anxiety meds on my tongue and hiding beneath the covers.

  Dawn said the water was just “that way” when she pointed across the street to a worn path that I assume leads to the ocean.

  I look from the bed to the door then back to the bed. “It isn’t going anywhere, Sade,” I say to myself, knowing that I can nap after I check out the water and if I still feel like torturing myself with more reminiscing, I could do that on the spot.

  I’d become good at punishing myself. I’d become skilled at allowing myself to disappear into memories that were sure to leave me curled up into a ball in the shower, crying until my eyes burned and my head ached.

  Looking to my purse, I decide to skip on the anxiety medication too. I don’t need it. Not right now that is. Maybe when I get back. In the morning, before I meet Alexander McBride, I more than likely will. I had barely survived my meeting with Terry and Ellen and that was with the medication streaming through my system. I cringe, imagining what I would’ve felt like without it.

  It’s late April and it’s warm here in Georgia, but I’m sure the water hasn’t gotten up to comfortable swimming temperatures. Either way, it would be nice to just go see it, to walk on the sand and try hard to remember a time in my life when I was carefree and unaware of the devastation that adulthood would bring.

  I step outside to just beyond the awning that covers the sidewalk in front of the motel room doors and look up at the sky. I close my eyes and listen to the chirping birds. The scent of Dawn’s flowers scattered about the property inundate my nose with their soft floral essence and I can’t even breathe. Everything around me is a testament to life and how it goes on in spite of my loss and I hate it. A dismal feeling washes over me and I feel nothing but hatred for the blue sky above me, the flowers growing, the green grass, and the oblivious little birds singing from their perches in the trees. I can’t imagine living the rest of my life feeling like this, but at this point I can’t honestly say what would be worse—living like this, or moving on.

  The sea air beckons me forward and I shove aside my misery for the time being. I hurry across the street, holding on to the hem of my white sundress as I go. The sea breeze caresses my exposed legs the nearer I get to the water. I make my way past a few buildings until the pavement has been replaced by the sand.

  Twenty, maybe thirty yards ahead of me is a wooden planked walkway jutting straight out towards the beach. It’s heavily flanked by brush, other indigenous trees, and bushes. Brown stalks that look similar to bamboo reach skyward, five, six, seven feet tall. I can’t see the water yet for the greenery and the high mound of sand blocking it, but I can hear it. My pace increases and I make my way up the small incline of the wooden boardwalk.

  There it is.

  I close my eyes and inhale deeply. My hair is lifted from my shoulders and stays back courtesy of the steady ocean breeze. It’s not like regular wind. I know that sounds dumb, but it’s true. The wind coming off the water is strong and steady. It doesn’t gust then die down. It prevails from the east and northeast, leading the trees and brush around me in a lilting sort of organic noise. It’s a gentle shushing, a chaste order from Mother Nature, telling me to listen. The sound of the wind passing through the trees and brush doesn’t fight for attention with the sound of the ocean crashing. Instead, they seem to blend together flawlessly.

  The water roars as waves crest and topple, racing toward the shore, eager to meet the dry sand waiting there. It’s a marriage of dry and wet, ocean and land, salt and sand. One cannot exist without the other and sometimes I feel the same way about my life. I’m so damn tangled in loss that it seems neither one can survive without the other. My sullen life wouldn’t subsist without me. That goes without saying. Just the same, without my melancholy existence, I’d be lost. I’m so accustomed to my unwelcome reality that I’ve lost sight of what life is without it.

  More waves crest and crash, lulling me into a daze. I open my eyes and watch the foam of the whitecaps sloshing on the surface. The sudsy-looking masses of foam ride the waves ashore to be deposited along the line separating wet sand from dry sand.

  I’m sure the water’s cold, but it looks so enticing. There’s something about allowing my body to intermingle with something that seems so relatable. The water, wind, and shore are all interweaved into this constant dance. They battle against each other, but they don’t. They work together, one existing because of the other or for the other. It’s all subjective, I suppose.

  I’m certain of one thing standing here in this place. The trio right in front of me is symbolic of the dance that I’m stuck in. The dance of death, life, and me feels like an eternal, somber melody playing on an endless loop.

  I have the desire, the need, to slip into the water and join my dance with the one in front of me. Wind, water, land, life, death, and me. Six elements jumbled together, me being the weakest of the bunch. Maybe I won’t feel so isolated in this water. Maybe it’s the prospect of weightlessness that has me wiggling my toes, contemplating dipping them into the sea.

  Something in me is tired, like my mother said. It’s tired and broken and ready to give up. I’m just so tired and when I say that, I don’t just mean physically. Sure, the lack of sleep takes a toll but that’s not what I mean.

  When I say that I’m tired, I’m talking about my mind, and my heart. I feel so heavy. Even just walking around, I feel like there’s this force pushing down, cinched tight to my back. I can’t see that force. I can’t touch that heavy weight and I can’t put the weight down, but it’s there even when I sleep. It’s always there. I carry it day in and day out, feeling closer to the ground and more alone with every step I take.

  The idea that maybe getting in that water could ease the constant weight pressing down on me, or that the water could somehow wash away the state that I’m in, or that it could be my silent companion is more than enough incentive.

  I glance back at the various buildings behind me. If someone sees me out here, they’re going to think I’m nuts and I just may be, but my white dress means I require some privacy before I dare to slip into the freezing water.

  I walk to the end of the boardwalk and step off into the plush sand. I look to my left, then to my right, trying to figure out the best direction to walk in hopes of a sparsely populated area, perfect for wading in frigid water in a white sundress. I’m insane. It’s official.

  I decide to make my way north up the beach. It appears more residential than where I began. I can see a few massive beach houses in the distance. I slip off my sandals and walk towards them at a comfortable pace, careful not to step on any sharp-edged seashells that littler the sand.

  I follow along the beach, tracing the line in the sand with my eyes, watching where the waves have rolled to a stop then retreated, wet sand and the occasional cloudy dollop of sea foam the only proof that it had been there.

  I focus on one wave as it comes crashing down. It races forward, slowing the closer it gets to its destination, then deposits the foam and retreats back into the ocean from which it came, no better or worse for the journey it had just made.

  The boundary between wet and dry sand runs like an uncoiled ribbon along the beach, reaching higher inshore in some parts and further back in others. With no rhyme or reason, waves roll in just where they happen to fall.

  The sand is warm under my feet. The afternoon sun shining down heats the top of my head, but it feels nice. I remember my mom insisting that I wear a floppy beach hat when we were here on vacation so many years ago. It was mid-summer and the heat was far more intense. She warned me and Jenna about sunburned scalps and how they were no fun. We wore our straw hats, mirroring mom’s own oversized hat, loving
every minute of it. Thinking about Mom, and our conversation in her car yesterday, reminds me that I have to find a way work my way through my grief. I have to try. I have to hang on. At the very least, I need to work harder at controlling my urges to lash out.

  The buildings become fewer and fewer. I can’t see anyone around, which isn’t surprising, I guess, given that it’s the off season. I doubt any tourists are racing for the beaches quite yet. Give it a few more weeks and I bet these beaches will be covered. Schools let out next month and the beach-bumming days of summer will be upon us.

  I like it like this though. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. It’s private. I’m even more invisible here than I am at home in Atlanta. And the water is so welcome. It occurs to me that the water is the first thing I’ve seen that seems to be bigger than the grief overwhelming every aspect of my life. The water is so powerful and it’s just so expansive—it must be bigger than the weight of my loss, that weight that’s been cinched tight to my back for two years. I hope it is.

  I’m not sure how far I’ve walked down the beach, but it must be quite a way. I can’t see the boardwalk I came from anymore. I look around me and see no one. There is a big white beach house about a hundred yards away, but it’s likely someone’s summer place or a rental. It’s doubtful that anyone is there. It’s surrounded by palm trees and brown brush. There’s what looks like a wraparound balcony, but I don’t see any movement or lights from where I stand, so this spot seems ideal. I drop my flip flops on the sand and fish the surfboard keychain from the teeny pocket on the front of my dress and toss it on the sand beside my flip flops.

  The fist slow wave that washes over my feet confirms that I was right—the water is cold. Very cold. My shoulders tense a little but the small wave retreats and my toes sink down into the sodden sand beneath my feet. It’s the same squishy feeling that I loved as a kid. What is it about sand squishing beneath your toes that’s so fascinating? I wiggle a little, allowing my feet to sink a bit deeper. It feels good. I want more of this.

  I take one heavy step into the water, about ankle deep, just as another wave comes rolling in and crashes against my shins, sending water splashing around me. Sea foam zips past me as the wave continues toward the shore, seemingly unaware of my presence. I gasp a little. It’s still cold. Very fucking cold. But I like it.

  One more step. One more wave crashing.

  Somehow, I’ve managed to drag myself chest deep into the water. My teeth are chattering now and half of my long brown hair is wet, but I finally feel a little weightless. Even though it’s only physical weightlessness, it’s still a good feeling. Maybe it’s a combination of the freezing water and the feeling of it around my body that’s a distraction from my sorrow. Swells roll past me, each one carrying me up with it like a floating pelican and then returning me to where I was as it continues its solo trip to the shore.

  I can feel water sloshing all around me as I bend at the waist, lifting my feet from the sandy sea floor and pulling my knees into my chest. I’m like a navigational buoy, bobbing in the water and tilting from side to side with the current, or, in my case, the waves. The water is up to my chin now and I can’t feel my fingers or toes. Saltwater is on my lips and in my nose, but I remain here, letting the cold water wash over me in hopes that I can hold on to this weightlessness when I step back onto the shore.

  I release my knees, letting my legs stretch out until I’m flat on my back, floating and staring up at the sky. It’s blue and clear without a cloud in sight. With my ears just barely submerged, I hear the muffled clicking and ticking and swishing of the ocean. It makes me wonder what the hell makes all that noise.

  I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and allow my lithe form to slip beneath the surface. The cold water envelopes all of me just as another wave rolls by. I sink down, relaxing my arms and legs as I go. This is what I wanted. This is what I came into the water to get. This is complete weightlessness. I crack my eyes open. The water is a dark blue. My hair is floating all around me like a billowing, ominous rain cloud. I look upward toward the sky. The sun shines clearly on the surface and seems to dance as the movement of the water reflects its light in all directions.

  My mind is occupied with nothing but the sensations of the water. I’m consumed with the feel, the taste, and the sound of the ocean instead of the all consuming grief that never gives me a moment of rest.

  Just as my breath is about to run out, something wraps around my arms, sending fear racing through me. I’m not sure what the hell it is, but I thrash and flail in the water, fighting hard to free my arms. The last of my air goes flying from my mouth and nose in huge bubbles that rise to the surface, leaving me to drown. The grip it has on me tightens and I’m lifted from the water only to come face to face with the culprit.

  A man.

  Well, we aren’t exactly face to face. It’s more like face to ass. I gasp, drawing in air like it’s a luxury I wasn’t privy to.

  Goodbye, weightlessness. Hello, embarrassment.

  He’s hauled me up over his shoulder so all I can see is his ass, and while it’s a nice ass, it’s still an ass. A stranger’s ass.

  Chapter Five

  Silent Mantra

  “Put me down! Now!” I snarl, trying to catch my breath and sputtering saltwater.

  “What the hell are you doing, lady? Trying to get yourself killed?” The would-be lifeguard goes on tromping out of the water, toting me on his shoulder.

  “W-what?” I stammer through the seawater dripping from my hair and onto my face.

  “This water is cold enough to cause hypothermia. Not to mention the undertow in this area. You have no business here. This is a private beach, anyway,” he nags on and on while dragging me from the water, my legs dangling and my hair stuck to my face and neck.

  The nag sets me to my feet on the sand and I teeter as my blood pressure tries to adjust to the upright position and the heaviness that I had already forgotten during my brief reprieve in the water.

  Forgotten.

  “Easy,” he says, reaching out to hold me by my shoulders.

  My vision goes blurry for a moment, but it quickly clears. I wish it would go hazy again. Mr. Would-be Lifeguard is gorgeous. My already ragged breathing becomes nonexistent as I take the sight of him in. I feel guilty almost instantly, but there’s no denying that this man is beautiful. Even though Jake is gone, I still feel very much taken, so admiring the man in front of me feels wrong and dirty and it makes me dislike him for even being attractive.

  Tall. Sculpted. Impossibly handsome. Perfection.

  “Let go. I’m fine,” I snap, suddenly completely aware of the nearly transparent sundress sticking to my wet skin. “Oh, God,” I mumble, peeling it away from my skin. I look up, feeling so embarrassed.

  He’s watching me, but not my body. He’s looking at me, at my face. “What were you doing out there? Are you insane?” He props a big hand low on his hip and I ogle like the dumbass that I am. His shirt is clinging to him like my sundress is clinging to me. I can see right through the fabric and his hand draws my attention to the muscles hidden beneath the soaked cotton. A divine, narrow, sinewy waistline complete with those lovely little, or shall I say bulging, oblique muscles that seem to point directly to what’s concealed in his pants.

  Kill me now.

  “Ah, swimming, well, floating, or sinking…actually…I guess.” I shrug, feeling a tad lightheaded, though the reason for my faintness is unclear. Cold water, holding my breath for a little too long, embarrassment unmatched, or the exquisite man in front of me. Maybe it’s a dodgy blend of all of the above. Whatever it is, it has me feeling like a colossal idiot. I’m sure I look like a colossal idiot too.

  Mr. Lifeguard seems unimpressed with my answer. His face is vacant and expressionless despite the body language that quite clearly spells out irritation.

  “Okay, then, um, see ya.” I turn away with full intentions to walk slowly back to my things, then walk even slower back to the Beachcomber in hopes that my
dress will have dried a little by the time anyone else sees me.

  I grab my hair in my hands and wring out the excess saltwater, then toss the tangled mass over my shoulder so that it hangs down my back.

  “Wait a second,” the man says.

  I stop in my tracks, only a few feet from him, and turn around. His face is curious and still insanely…flawless. Even with that tiny scar on his cheek. He’s flawless.

  “What’s your name?” he asks in a way that comes out more of a demand than a request.

  My insides tremble with delight and the self-abhorrence that it spawns doesn’t go unnoticed. “Um, Sadie. Yours?”

  “Zander.” He extends his hand to me and we shake. His eyes freely skate down my left side and seem to come to a stop at the wedding ring on my hand. Something flickers there in his sapphire eyes for a moment, but whatever it is, it’s gone after only a few seconds.

  We shake politely and I allow it. It’s a lot nicer than ignoring him and walking off like I had considered. Truthfully, at the moment, I don’t think I can walk off from this enigma of a man even if I wanted to. Embarrassment unmatched be damned. I’m glued in place, cemented before him in dripping clothes that do nothing to shield my secret places from his gaze. Anyone else would have the common sense to retreat. Yet here I am. I’m a living breathing contradiction. I’m a willing captive, open to his scrutiny, held only by the bonds that those deep blue eyes seem to wrap me up in. They’re invisible to the naked eye but they feel ironclad, tangling around every cell of my body and mind. In spite of myself, there’s something about him that makes me want to be in his presence. His appearance is likely to thank for that. Male perfection. I hate myself for even noticing it. I hate me even more for wanting some part of that perfection. The sensation deep within my stomach is so long forgotten that it nearly feels like the first time I’ve ever experienced butterflies in the presence of a man. Scary. Foreign. Disarming. Deliciously addictive.