“Prop your board against the wall,” he said.
I carefully leaned my board against the wall and walked back to the car. He wiped his hands on a rag and sighed.
“People are like animals, Luke,” he said. “Naturally, all animals fit somewhere, and they fit well.”
So far, what he said made had perfect sense, so I nodded my head.
“But when we try to make them fit in a place where they don’t naturally belong, sooner or later, they’ll resist. It isn’t always at first, but eventually they will. Dogs will try and dig their way out of the yard, cats will sneak out of the house and hunt birds, and those snakes and lizards you and your brother catch? They always seem to get out of the aquarium. It’s because we’ve got them in a place where they don’t naturally belong.”
“Like the big Lion at the zoo that’s always asleep,” I said. “You can tell he’s pissed about being in there.”
He nodded. “Just like the lion at the zoo.”
“So, where we naturally belong.” He placed his hand on my shoulder. “You like to surf. You’re drawn to the water. Your brother likes to ride his bike, he’s drawn to the land. You’ll never convince him to be a surfer, and he’ll never convert you into a cyclist. Because it’s not where you naturally belong.”
“But surfing is fun. And it’s relaxing,” I explained.
“As far as you’re concerned,” he said. “Listen, Luke. Never try to force a rattlesnake to climb a tree. It’ll only piss off the rattlesnake and eventually get you bit. Don’t forget that.”
And I never forgot.
Apparently, from a sexual standpoint, Liv didn’t belong with me. For me to try and force her to accept my desires as being her own was no different than trying to force a rattlesnake to climb a tree.
I stood, brushed the sand from my legs, and stretched. I didn’t need to try and convince Liv to be with me. I needed to accept that in time she would naturally end up where she belonged. All I could do was pray that with whoever or wherever she settled pleased her.
Because seeing her cry created a pain within me that I was afraid time may never heal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
LIV
In 48 hours I had experienced every feeling imaginable. Currently, I was in a state of depression. Now with nine consecutive days that I wasn’t expected to be at work, I had my doubts that I would be able to get through it without having to admit myself into the hospital for mental reasons.
Realizing I had to let Luke go to save our friendship and accepting that we would never be in a relationship were two totally different things. I had no doubt what I had chosen to do was the right thing, and I fully realized doing so would potentially save our friendship. Accepting that we would never again be romantically involved, however, seemed to be impossible.
I had been in bed since 7:00 on the previous night, and it now was past noon – but I could find no way to get up.
My heart hurt.
With Luke, I felt like I could be myself, which was something I never felt with another man. He accepted me for who I was, and in doing so, he made me feel that it was okay to simply be me.
When Luke walked into the room, I felt energized, which always seemed to immediately be followed by feelings of exhaustion. In his presence, my mind sped along at ten times the pace of normal, thinking of what we might do together before he left. Often, I would find myself anticipating the next time he would touch me, only to later see that an hour had passed without me doing so much as moving from my place on the couch.
When he did touch me it was magical. Tracing his fingertip along the edge of my jaw would send me into a frenzy, but I never shared with him the effect his touch had on me. For him to realize how powerful a simple touch of his hand could be might have caused him to do so more frequently – and in turn change the intensity I felt when he did.
A risk I wasn’t willing to take.
And now, accepting that I would never receive his affectionate touch again caused excruciating pain in my heart. The less I accepted it, the more pain I felt. The closer I came to accepting it, the more my heart felt as if it were being ripped from my chest.
Luke was the perfect friend, the perfect man, the perfect gentleman, and the perfect lover.
I stared at the ceiling, incapable of doing much more, wishing I could simply scoop out the part of my brain that took exception to him being molested by his mother. My inability to accept it as being something out of his control caused me to feel shallow and malevolent.
I rolled over, buried my head in the pillow, and allowed my mind to drift to thoughts of moving to St. Louis. The thought of abandoning the ocean, which once seemed incomprehensible, now appeared to be the only answer to my problem.
A few minutes later, the thought of leaving Luke seemed realistic.
My stomach convulsed. I coughed.
I ran to the bathroom.
And I vomited.
Attempting to accept leaving Luke had actually made me ill.
But the thought of living in his presence – and without his love – was slowly crushing me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LUKE
I raised my clenched fist, hesitated, and sighed heavily. It wasn’t a forced sigh seeking attention or to make a point, it naturally escaped my lungs as an expression of relief. There was always something comforting about going home.
It seemed strange knocking, but I had no alternative. I tapped my knuckles against the door three times and waited.
The garage door was up, and the Volkswagen was sitting in the garage beside his Chevy Truck. As I stood in wait, I craned my neck at the sight and grinned. It seemed no different than when I was a kid. The vehicles and the garage were spotless. As far as my father was concerned there was a place for everything and everything was to be in its place.
I turned toward the house as I heard the bolt slide to unlock the door.
Dressed in faded blue shorts, and an even more faded surf tank, he looked the same as he always did. He pulled the door open and stood to the side. “I always figured there’d be a formal announcement – or something on the news at least. I can’t believe it happened without someone saying something.”
I stepped inside the house. “About what?”
“Hell freezing over,” he said, turning to walk into the house. “Apparently it’s happened, but I didn’t get the memo.”
“I’ve been busy.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “For seven years?”
I followed him into the house and didn’t bother responding. He wasn’t angry, and I knew it. He had his own way of dealing with his feelings, and joking about what bothered him was his manner of letting me know he was disappointed with me for my infrequent visits. It wasn’t that I never paid him a visit, but each time I did was on a holiday – something he perceived as a requirement, not a choice.
“So who died?” he asked as he sat down in his chair.
“No one. Well, not really,” I said.
“Is someone half-dead? Is it someone I know?”
I sat down across from him and struggled with what I wanted to say. As I situated myself on the couch and tried to get mentally comfortable, he reclined in his seat and tossed his hands into the air.
“Where’s your sidekick?”
“Liv? She’s at home.”
“Not working today? She didn’t lose her job, did she?”
I shook my head. “No, she’s on vacation.”
My father looked like he could have been my twin, if it was twenty years prior. As a kid, I always referred to him as a hippie, but as an adult, I didn’t necessarily look at the hippie description as accurate. He had hair about as long as mine, and wore a beard more often than he didn’t. Both of his ears were pierced, and he never took his earrings out – at least that I could remember. Tattoos covered both arms, and although he didn’t surf very frequently when I was young, he had been doing it more often since Matt graduated high school.
“Should
have brought her,” he said. “She’s more entertaining than you, and a damned sight easier on the eyes.”
“That’s why I’m here,” I said.
“Liv?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“She okay?”
“Just give me a minute. I’ll try and explain everything, but I don’t want to argue about this. And I don’t really want to turn it into a joke, either. I’d like to have a serious talk.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
I rested my forearms on my thighs and clasped my hands together. “About three months ago, Liv and I started seeing each other. You know, sexually. Boyfriend-girlfriend. Whatever you want to call it.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“Well, everything went great until the end of last week.”
He lowered his head, raked his fingers through his hair, and lifted his gaze to meet mine. “What happened?”
“Well, that’s the deal. I don’t know. But let me tell you some other shit I do know, and then we can talk. Some of it’s about your ex-wife, just so you’re aware.”
He lowered his chin slightly and kept his eyes locked on mine. One of the things I always admired about my father was that he always maintained eye contact when he spoke.
I stood, walked to the glass door that opened out onto the deck, and gazed through the glass. “So, with Valerie – and with Liv – the sex wasn’t normal. I’ve always been a little weird about sex. Kinky or whatever. I think I knew all along what it was that caused it, but I never really admitted it. Not to myself or to anyone else. Well, now I can’t help but see that I’m the way I am because of what happened.”
I glanced in his direction for a moment, eventually turning toward the door again. “So, it ended up Liv was just like me as far as her sexual tastes went. Hell, we were both wondering what took us so long to get together. Then after Matt was in the hospital, things went to shit.”
“Did she ever know? Liv?” he asked.
Still gazing through the glass, I shook my head. “Not until the other day. After the little outburst in the hospital, I had to tell her. And it was after that when things went to hell.”
“So, you’re wondering if that had something to do with it? Her finding out?”
I walked back to the couch and sat down. “No, I know it has something to do with it. I’ve had too much time to think about it. I just don’t know how to fix it.”
“Might not be able to fix it.” He shook his head and stood. “Something to drink?”
“Water?”
“Got plenty of that. Anything else?”
“Unless you’ve got Liv in there, no.”
“Can’t help you there, Son.”
A few minutes later, he returned with two bottles of water, tossing one into my lap without warning. I caught it inches before it landed in my crotch.
“Still have good reflexes,” he said. “You still study?”
“Every winter. I don’t surf as much in the winter, so I go from November to March.”
He lowered himself into his chair. “Good for keeping your head screwed on straight.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem to be helping much,” I said.
“So, back to what you were asking,” he said. “Lemme think.”
I opened my water and took a few sips, waiting for his words of wisdom. After adjusting himself in his chair and drinking half of his bottle of water, he met my gaze.
“Well, if you two were compatible before the run-in with your mother, and she broke it off with you after, there’s no arguing that her finding out had something to do with it. My guess is either she was abused and it triggered something, or she just can’t process what happened to you as something she can accept.”
“I don’t think she was abused.” I said.
He cocked an eyebrow and waved the neck of his water bottle in my direction. “I doubt she thought you were, either.”
“Good point.”
“As far as the other thing goes? Hell, it’s anyone’s guess,” he said.
“I agree.”
He cocked his head to the side slightly and furrowed his brow. “So why exactly are you here, Son?”
“I want her back. I can’t even force myself to think about trying to live without her.”
“She isn’t talking to you?”
“She is, but I mean I want her back as my girlfriend, my lover, whatever you want to call it.”
“I see,” he said.
He unscrewed the lid from the bottle of water, lifted it halfway to his mouth, and hesitated. “Well, here’s my advice.”
I leaned forward and fixed my eyes on his. He nonchalantly drank the remaining water, screwed the lid back on the bottle, and tossed it at me.
“Go talk to her,” he said.
I stood up and tossed my hands in the air. “That’s your advice?”
“What’d you expect? A pick up line?”
“I expected something.”
“Well,” he said as he fought to climb out of the reclined chair. “You got damned good advice and a $1.00 bottle of water. You taste that hint of lime?”
I lifted the bottle, looked at the label, and shook my head. “No.”
“Me neither,” he said. “But I pay extra for it. That’s kind of what I’m saying. Sometimes you miss things in life because there’s no contrast. I bet if I told you that water had a lime in it before you drank it you’d have tasted it.”
“I don’t get it.”
“She’s a woman, Son. They talk in circles and think they’ve explained themselves. If you don’t understand why she’s left you, you need to ask her, not me. And ask until you find out what it is you’re after. You’re not seeing what it is because it’s faint. But I can damn sure guarantee you she’s hinted at it. Just like that lime.”
“You said there’s no contrast. What did you mean?” I asked.
“Between you,” he said. “You two are too much alike. There’s no contrast. If she was different than you, whatever it was would stand out like a cock on a cake. But she’s the same, so there’s no contrast.”
I grinned and nodded my head. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“Your brother’s getting screws in his legs. Should be out in a week.”
“I’ll get up there and see him,” I said.
“No you won’t, but it’s nice to hear you say it,” he said.
He opened his arms. “Give your old man a hug.”
I gave him a short hug, feeling the entire time that the talk did me some good. I realized I often thought about what my father said long after we stopped talking. I wasn’t sure if it was that his advice was so well thought out, or if I simply admired him enough to give him far more credit than he was due. I raised the water bottle as I turned away. A hint of lime. I chuckled and turned toward the door.
I finished the bottle of lime water as I sauntered toward the door. It tasted like plain old water. As I reached for the door handle I said my parting remarks. “I’ll let you know how things work out.”
“See you Christmas,” he responded.
The sad thing was that I knew he was right.
CHAPTER THIRTY
LIV
“I need you to promise me you won’t say anything about what I’m going to tell you, ever,” I said.
Chloe shook her head as she inhaled a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what you need. You need to start trusting people. Whatever you and I talk about is between us, always. You make me feel like we’re sixteen. And who in the fuck dressed you this morning? You look like shit.”
Her hair was dirty blonde with pink highlights. Dressed in jean shorts, Chuck’s, and a vintage Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars tee shirt, she looked cute. I, on the other hand, looked like I had just escaped a mental ward.
Wearing jeans, old combat boots from high school, and a light jacket over a tee shirt I had worn for the last four days, I could have passed for a homeless girl.
“I feel like shit, too,” I said. “And I’m so
rry. I do trust you.”
“Then act like it.”
“Okay.”
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket and fixed my eyes on the far corner of the table. After what seemed like an eternity of silence, I found the nerve to speak. “You said when we first met and talked about stuff that most people who are like we are just end up this way. You said there’s not anything that makes us like this. That we weren’t abused. You said we’re normal. You said that.”
She raised her hand between us. “Hold up. You’re doing what you always done. You’re twisting shit around, Liv. What I said was that nothing had to happen to make someone have the desires or characteristics of a submissive.”
She cleared her throat and continued. “Statistically speaking, there’s ‘X’ amount of people in this world who were mistreated as kids. So, statistically speaking, there’s ‘Y’ amount of people who are submissive and have been mistreated as kids. I don’t know what ‘X’ and “Y’ are, but I know they’re significant.”
I glared at her. “How’d you know I was talking about being abused as kids?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she snapped back. “You mentioned it, that’s how.”
I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms and tried to collect my thoughts. “I’m sorry, I haven’t slept for a week.”
She leaned against the edge of the table, narrowed her eyes, and stared. “You said this was an emergency. What the fuck is going on?”
After a few seconds of preparing my perfect response, my bottom lip began to quiver. “Luke and I broke up,” I sobbed.
“Oh shit. I’m sorry. What happened?”
In response, I cried uncontrollably for some time – partially due to exhaustion, but more as a result of being completely heartbroken. After exhausting myself of tears, I took a choppy shallow breath and wiped my eyes on the arms of my jacket.
“I uhhm. I…”
“I found out.”
“He was cheating?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
“When he was a kid. His uhhm. His mother abused him.”
Keeping my response brief made saying it much easier than I expected. The abuse, as far as I was concerned, was ten times easier to accept than being without Luke. Speaking about it seemed to hold the same values.