Chapter 322: Chapter 324: You Snored
Just the water and the sky and the sand warm under her and Damien sitting beside her with his elbows on his knees looking at the horizon.
"I used to think about what this would feel like," she said.
"What."
"Having nothing to worry about." She looked at the water. "When things were bad. When mum was sick and I was running out of options. I used to think....what would it feel like to just sit somewhere and not be afraid of anything."
He was quiet.
"What does it feel like," he said.
She thought about it honestly.
"Like this," she said. "Exactly like this."
He reached over and took her hand.
Didn’t say anything.
Didn’t need to.
They sat on the sandbank in the middle of the Indian Ocean and let the afternoon do what it did and she thought about nothing and it was the best thing she’d felt in a long time.
"Can I ask you something," she said.
"Yes."
"The water thing." She looked at him sideways. "How long."
He looked at the horizon.
"Since I was nine," he said.
"What happened when you were nine."
A pause. "Fell off a boat. My father’s boat. We were somewhere off the coast of Maine and I went over the side." He said it simply. No drama in it. "I was in the water for eleven minutes before they pulled me out."
She looked at his profile.
"Eleven minutes is a long time," she said.
"Yes," he said. "It is."
"And you booked an overwater villa."
"For you," he said. He looked at her. "You’d love it. I knew you’d love it." He looked back at the horizon. "So."
She looked at him.
This man.
She thought about standing on a jetty step working up to something that frightened him because she would love it. She thought about a nine year old in the water off the coast of Maine for eleven minutes. She thought about all the things she didn’t know about him yet and the specific joy of knowing there were still things to learn.
"Thank you," she said.
"For what."
"For getting in anyway."
He looked at her.
"You were going to laugh at me either way," he said.
"I was not laughing."
"You were absolutely laughing."
"I was....." She stopped. "Okay I was a little bit laughing."
"I know."
"You got in anyway."
"Yes," he said. "I did."
She leaned her head on his shoulder.
He put his arm around her.
The sandbank held them both and the water went in every direction and the afternoon was completely perfect.
****
DAMIEN’S POV
They came back sun-tired and salt-dried and happy in the specific uncomplicated way of people who had spent a day entirely outside their normal lives.
She fell asleep in the boat on the way back.
Just....went. Her head against his shoulder, her hand in his, out completely within four minutes of leaving the sandbank. He sat still the whole ride back so she wouldn’t wake up. The boat driver pretended not to notice.
He looked at her sleeping face.
Thought about the sandbank. What does it feel like. Like this. Exactly like this.
He thought about the eleven minutes in the water off Maine when he was nine years old and the specific terror of it that had never fully left him and the fact that he’d gotten into the Indian Ocean today because she wanted to see the reef and that had been sufficient reason.
More than sufficient.
He looked at her hand in his.
The ring catching the afternoon light.
He thought about Saturday morning and the garden and the bench and her saying yes before he finished asking.
He thought about forever.
It didn’t frighten him.
That was still the thing that surprised him most.
She woke up when the boat docked.
Lifted her head. Looked around. Looked at him.
"I fell asleep," she said.
"Yes."
"On the boat."
"Yes."
"How long."
"The whole way back."
She processed this. "You sat still the whole way."
"Yes."
She looked at him for a moment.
Then she stood up and stepped off the boat onto the jetty and held out her hand.
He took it.
They walked back to the villa.
****
ARIA’S POV
She knew she needed the shower first.
Salt and sun and two hours on a sandbank.....she needed to wash everything off her body.
She said so and he followed her in without being asked which was fine. More than fine.
The shower became something else.
It usually did.
Afterwards she stood on the deck in his shirt....her shirt now, she’d decided, she was keeping all of them....and looked at the evening ocean and felt the specific pleasant tiredness of a body that had been used properly all day.
He came to stand behind her.
His hands on her waist.
His lips to her shoulder.
She leaned back into him.
"I want to do it again tomorrow," she said.
"The reef."
"The reef. The sandbank. All of it."
"We have five more days," he said.
"Good." She looked at the water. "We’re doing all of it."
"All of it," he agreed.
She turned around.
Looked at his face in the evening light. The tiredness in it that matched hers. The particular ease of him that only existed here, away from everything, just this.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi." His hands on her waist. "You fell asleep on my shoulder for forty minutes."
"I know."
"You snore."
"I do not snore."
"You make a sound."
"That is not snoring."
"It’s adjacent to snoring."
She looked at him.
He looked back.
She kissed him.
He kissed her back and his hands pulled her closer and she went and the evening did what evenings did in the Maldives...turned gold and then pink and then the stars again, all of them, burning with the light of things older than either of them could understand.
Inside the villa.
Just them.
Just this.
The reef could wait until tomorrow.
