Page 75 of All That We Are Together
62
Leah
Axel said nothing more, just nodded slowly and pensively before putting the truck in drive.
We left the city behind and pulled onto a highway flanked by a tropical forest. I smiled to see him looking over at me when the road straightened. That calmed me.
I was exhausted after a day of frayed nerves and that unresolved conversation that seemed to be floating between us in the air. I thought I might sleep a while, but that possibility vanished when we turned right onto a narrow unpaved road.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Thought you were in the mood for an adventure.”
His sly expression reminded me of the old Axel, the one I wanted him to be, and a familiar sensation warmed me up inside.
He parked in front of a deserted beach.
“What are we doing here?”
He didn’t answer. He hopped out of his pickup, unzipped the plastic bed cover, and started pulling out the surfboards.
“I hope you’re kidding,” I said between clenched teeth.
“Aren’t you in the mood? Come on, get out.”
“That’s not what I mean. I don’t even have a bikini with me.”
“Don’t you have underwear on?” The idiot grinned when he saw me blush. I pursed my lips. “It’s not like I’m going to see anything I haven’t seen before, babe,” he said.
I rolled my eyes, and he walked off toward the beach. I stayed there a minute watching him under the afternoon sun and asking myself if I wouldn’t rather be with the new, unknown Axel instead of the one who always threw me against the ropes, as if he wanted to coax out my most impulsive side, the side I tried to control.
I insulted him a few times in my mind before letting desire and the envy I felt seeing him in the water push me forward. I pulled my dress over my head and gave thanks that I had on dark underwear. I grabbed one of the two remaining surfboards and walked down to the beach, observing the orange sun.
“Took you a while,” he reproached me when I reached him.
“Sorry, I was just counting up all the dumb reasons I play along with you.”
“I love it when you get mad.”
He took off into the water, and I followed him.
I couldn’t catch the first three decent waves, but on the fourth, I managed to stay standing on the board, body bent forward and flexing, gliding softly while the sea and its aroma enveloped me, and everything was perfect. Perfect. Those moments of plenitude that occur when you least expect and that shake you, reminding you that they do exist, they’re possible, and they fill you with energy.
When all my slips and falls started to make me achy, we gotout and sat on the damp shore to dry off. The sun was almost gone. Red and orange rays were splayed across the sky, which was darkening, and the birds that crisscrossed it were like little shadows over the murmur of the waves.
“How would you paint this?” I asked without thinking.
“The sky?” he said. “I don’t know.”
“Something must come into your head.”
He exhaled and relaxed his shoulders.
“With my hands…”
“What?” I laughed.
“Exactly. With my hands. I’d daub my fingers with paint, and I’d move them upward,” he said, squeezing his hands into claws.