My mind wars with itself.Turn around and go back! No, just walk further down the beach in the opposite direction. Now’s your chance to say something. Your chance to make it right. I know that if I don’t do this now, I may never do it. And when am I ever going to be trapped in my ex-boyfriend’s house with him again?
I take another deep breath of ocean air for strength, and slowly begin to walk along the beach toward him, keeping to the shallow water. This way I’ll enter his sight line sooner. I don’t want to come up from behind him on the sand and have a repeat performance of what happened in the kitchen with me as the perpetrator this time.
I try to remain casual in my stride, taking my time. But it’s still too soon when he catches sight of me, just a few feet from where he’s standing.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he growls, and yanks his hand from his pocket to clench his hair. “Not a minute’s peace around here!”
He turns his back on me, and stalks away. I can take this as a sign that my chance at meaningful communication with Damon has failed, and I walk back to the house in defeat. But something wells up inside me. It’s the same feeling I’d get whenever we argued all those years ago. We didn’t do it often, but on the rare occasion that one of his cantankerous moods was the cause, I stood up for myself. And I’m going to stand up for myself again right now, damnit.
“It’s not my fault, you know,” I call after him.
He stops short and takes a long moment of what I’m guessing is silent rage before spinning around to face me.
“What did you say?”
“Being here, living in your house, walking on this beach—it’s not my fault. It’s not Margot’s or Stirling’s fault either. Sheer bad luck, if that’s how you want to look at it. So, I can’t and won’t apologize for something I had no control over,” I say. “And it’s a private beach, but you only own so much of it. As a temporary resident, an invited guest of the renters, I am within my rights to walk here, whether you like it or not. So, no, I’m not sorry for my presence in your house or on this beach…but I am sorry for what I did to you, how I left you. I just wanted to say that.”
“Oh really? Well, not nearly sorry enough!” Damon had started coming toward me near the end of my little speech, and stepped so close to my face when he spoke that I fell when I backed away from him. “Is that why you came looking for me - to ‘apologize?’”
He yanks me up from the sand by my arm.
“Ow, Damon, you’re hurting me!”
“I’mhurtingyou? Well what would you have me do, Amanda? What exactly is it you want from me? Absolution?”
He’s practically spitting his words in my face again through gritted teeth, and he still has a vise grip on my upper arm.
“No, Damon, I—I just wanted to talk to you.” I’m shaking now, with both hurt and rage. I wonder to myself just who the hell he thinks he is. The answer slams into me in the next instant—he’s a man who was destroyed inside when I left him because he’s not good enough for my father. And by default, he could only conclude that I didn’t think he was ultimately good enough for me either.
“You’ve made your pathetic apology, Amanda. I hope you feel better. How you’ll still sleep at night is a mystery, though.”
“I-Is that all?”
Damon just stares incredulously at me, at the nerve I have to push him further into his rage.
“No, Amanda, as a matter of fact, it’snot.”
Before I can take another breath, he pulls me hard against him and crushes my mouth with his. A sob catches at the back of my throat when I feel his teeth on my lower lip. The man actually bites me, and I can’t say it’s less than I deserve. It isn’t entirely effective, though. As hurt as I am by Damon’s anger right now, in every sense of the word, it’s a side of him that I’ve never seen. I want to bite him back. I want to tear his clothes off and make love in the sand. And I want to cry, because I actually thought one apology would mend his broken heart.
Damon ends the kiss almost as quickly as he started it. When it’s over, he flings my arm away from him in release.
“You’re right, Amanda. You being here is no one’s fault. But I will never forgive you for the way you hurt me. And this is my house, so I don’t have to leave. If it bothers you to be around an angry man whose heart you destroyed, then I suggest you go back to Los Angeles.”
He steps around me and heads toward the steps leading up to the house, leaving me stunned and speechless. I couldn’t follow him right now even if I wanted to. Instead I take several steps back into the water and drop to my knees. When the next cold wave comes, I let it rush into my chest. It can’t hurt me any more than Damon just did.
10
Amanda
The sun is warm now,but I’m shivering. There’s no hanging on to paradise now, not after that episode. Instead of bright and dazzling, the sun’s play on the water seems like a thousand accusations at the sins for which I’ll never be forgiven—not by Damon, anyway.
I’m already wet up to my chest, so I pull my hair out of its tie, and dunk myself all the way under for a brief, chilly instant. That way, I’ll look intentionally disheveled and cold, as if I took a bracing, carefree romp in the waves.
I don’t know what made me think that this situation could be salvaged, I scold myself as I stand on wobbly legs. I’m not sure exactly how much time has passed, but I’m guessing Damon made it back to the house and into his studio in record time. There’s no way to know if anyone saw him, but if they did, I hope he didn’t show anything on his face that will indicate we saw each other.
Of course, everyone is out back when I step into the lower garden. Cammie is already swimming, Sylvia is lying on a cabana chair with her earphones on probably talking to her boyfriend, and Margot and Stirling are enjoying breakfast on the patio. If ever I needed what I learned from eighth-grade theater, it’s now. I don’t smile, that would be too fake. I just make an intentional beeline for the outdoor sink. If I don’t say anything, maybe I can get over there and clean up my lip before anyone gets a close look.
“Hi Aunt Amanda!” calls Cammie from the pool as I walk by.
