Anxiously, she shakes her head.
Something in her expression compels me to ask further. "Why not?"
Her lower lip disappears into her mouth, and her fingers fidget nervously. She takes a deep breath and looks out at thesea, as if seeking the answer. "I never learned properly," she finally says.
"Are there no lakes in Austria? Or swimming pools?" I signal her to walk a few steps along the beach with me.
Hesitantly, she takes off her shoes and joins me at the water's edge, where the sand is moistened by the gently rolling waves. "Of course, we have them."
"But Austrians only learn to ski as children, right?" I inquire, kicking my flip-flops aside so the sand doesn't rub between my skin and the fabric.
Silently, she shakes her head.
It's none of my business. And I don't want to know either. "You're afraid. Afraid of so many things," I say anyway. "Tell me why."
Her gaze flickers to me as if she's trying to assess if she can trust me. On an impulse, I nod. It takes what feels like an eternity before she opens her mouth.
"When I was six, I nearly drowned." She looks at me apologetically, and suddenly, nothing remains of the controlled businesswoman she showed me so often in the past few days. The subtly accusing expression has vanished into thin air as well.
"That must have been terrifying." No wonder she's so afraid. Now I feel bad for not taking her panic seriously earlier.
"I had just learned to swim, and I thought I was good. In the public pool, I could swim several laps without any problem." She tucks her hair behind her ear and gazes into the distance. "I was confident that I was ready to try it in the lake." Her voice falters.
I can barely contain the urge to wrap my arm protectively around her delicate body. Instead, I clear my throat loudly to dispel this inappropriate thought. "What happened?"
She shrugs. "I swam out. And the next thing I remember is lying on the shore, coming back to my senses. With the taste of lake water in my mouth."
Now it's my turn to say something. But I have no idea what could comfort her. "I'm sorry for pushing you earlier," I mumble, feeling like a complete idiot.
"You couldn't have known," she replies with a smile.
"Tell me more about yourself," I find myself saying. "Why are you afraid of motorcycles?"
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize it was a mistake. The less I know about her, the better. That way, we won't get too close, and that's all that matters. She evokes a feeling in me that I already experienced during our first encounter. A warm glow that I must not pay attention to if I don't want to end up like my father someday.
Chewing on her lower lip, she crosses her arms over her chest. "Because I get hurt with everything, even if it's not as dangerous as riding a motorcycle. The incident in the lake wasn't the only one that terrified my parents."
In my thoughts, the scar I noticed under her chin during our first meeting resurfaces. Who knows where else she may have suffered injuries. Can someone really be so clumsy?
"So you've started taking good care of yourself," I continue her earlier words. "Maybe a bit too much?"
She shakes her head with effort. "My life is fine. I lack nothing. I am healthy, and no one needs to worry about me," she reassures.
Fineis not enough. "But if you never allow yourself to do something outside of your comfort zone, you risk missing out on so much," I counter. Although I now understand better why she behaves this way, it's still hard for me to see how much she locks herself away.
"Each of us can only live one life," she turns her head to look at me. "We choose one path and will never know what the other might have brought us."
Maybe that's true. "But how do you know if you've chosen right?" I inquire.
The corners of her mouth lift, and her expression takes on that dangerously dreamy charm. "Perhaps with the heart," she says so softly that my knees suddenly feel weak.
