Sacrifice - Chapter Three

Regan's POV: 3

I tried to push it back, the hot knot that was growing in my throat. I was sitting down on the floor still from the spot where I had put the dishes away. My face was pressed against the cool tiled wall and I was trying, really I was. But Asher had a way of sneaking little attacks onto me sometimes and those were the tough ones. I sluggishly clomped up the stairs with loud, echoing footsteps that were usually quiet and quick. I didn’t care. I needed to get away from the depressing empty kitchen.

My clothes from that morning were still scattered on the floor just in front of my bed. I stepped over them, and went to pick up my bulletin board that had tipped over, which had caused all my pictures clustered on it to scatter all around. I stacked them into a messy pile and put them aside; I would put them back later. The pictures were a reminder to me why I loved my life on the beach so much. But there was always the occasional picture that I would stumble upon that would send me into a black hole like so many other things still did.

I was still trying though, okay? I was getting better.

The beach noises drifted through my open window, letting me know that everybody was enjoying their first day of summer just like you'd expect them too. Why I wasn’t down there with them? My empty house brought no comfort or enjoyment. I crawled onto my bed and looked out the window as the warm sun beat down on my face. Down the big hill right behind my house was the opening to the beach. I could see perfectly from my window everything that was going on.

My eyes soaked up all of the chaos. J.J and his friends were hogging the ocean and trying to get up on the waves rolling in and to show off old and new moves from last year. There were people falling and rolling in the sand from games of beach volleyball. I saw kids huddled around the snack shack in the shade while little kids built sand castles, and then clapped their hands as the incoming waves washed them away. My eyes glanced over all that, looking for one and only thing. No, one and only person. And when I didn't see him, my heart gave the harsh expected jerk I was waiting for, and I turned away from the window quickly.

No, I tried telling myself, it was a great thing Asher wasn’t here. I didn’t want him to come back. I was doing so much better without him.

Lies.

I folded up into a ball on my bed and stared blankly at my wall with crumbling paint. At first I tried to slow my breathing down and put my mind on anything else at all. It didn’t work. I saw him - his dark haunted eyes and watched his tongue run over his pink lips while he controlled me. And then I cried. Not because I missed those damn pink lips but because the feelings I felt was pure pain. A reminder to not forget him. How did he do it? Why? I hated that boy. I hated him so much for making me feel so terrible when I had been doing so good lately.

If I sulked for too long, J.J would come for me and I truly hated for him to do that. It was bad really…who I was now and how much he tried to change me. I couldn’t though. The new me was acceptable for change.

I wished though. God I wished.

Though it was rare, I did somehow find the energy to pull out of that episode. Thinking of J.J and knowing that I ruined his first day of full summer was just enough…barely. I numbly put my hair in a ponytail and left for the beach where Asher had always forbade me to go. I smirked even though I felt sick. He could make me feel like nothing, but I could go to the beach if I wanted. My therapy.

Aqua Island was just an old nickname given to where I lived based on the fact that it was surrounded completely by water. Really though it was an island located near the Caribbean, just further southeast of Florida. Living by the Virgin Islands, which was a huge tourists island, didn’t stop people from flocking to Aqua Island either. There was a small school and a few neighborhoods for the families that did live here, but other than that it was tourist city year around. The more popular it grew, the more families left. It’s all I knew though, living in the chaos of thousands of new people and dealing with all the activities going on. It would be hard to move away from the water and the craziness of it.

During the summer was by far the busiest. There were the basic tourist attractions: skiing, boating, scuba diving, tours, beach activity groups, surfing lessons and competitions. All that didn’t include the downtown restaurants and gift shops. A show was always being put on by the hour on the streets with dancers or bands. It was crazy really and would be overwhelming to somebody just moving here. But I knew everything and everywhere like the back of my hand.

By the time I finally made it to the crowded beach, sweat was starting to collect on my forehead. I stripped off my clothes and shoved them into my bag while I continued on to the spot where my friends from school gathered every year.  

The cold waves splashed feverishly at my feet while my toes dug into the soft muddy sand. J.J called out for me from the water just as an enormous wave snuck up behind him and crushed him under the water. I swam out to him when he resurfaced without any hesitation against the cold. It felt good. Calmed me down a little bit from my dark thoughts.

"Nice day to start the summer," he said with a wide grin as he pulled me up onto his board. I sat across from him, straddling the board while the waves pushed us closer to shore.

"It's a great day for everything."

"How are things?”

I stared at him and he read the hurt in my eyes. "Want to hang out tonight?" I asked, avoiding the question. There was no need to say anything. One time J.J told me I had different pain expressions. He knew when I was upset about Asher. He knew when I needed away from the house. He could read me just like that and I loved him for it.

“I was planning on it anyways.” When the waves had pushed us back in, J.J picked up the board and put it under his arm. "I'm hungry," he announced. "Let’s get something to eat."

Even though I was a little hungry too, I shook my head. "I think I am going to find that picture."

"That picture is long gone, Regan."

I glared at him. "But maybe not."

He looked towards the cliff with an unsure expression and shuffled his feet nervously under the hot sand. "Last time you barely even made it up."

"I had plenty of breath," I lied to him easily. It used to be really hard to lie to him since he knew me so well. But then I turned into somebody else and he was still learning about the new person inside of me.

"It's not a good idea," he said with the same unsure voice, still shaking his head. "That picture...well, I'll get another one soon." I gave him one of my looks, and he blew out a big breath of defeat. "Do you want me to come with you?"

I shrugged. "Go get us something to eat. I’ll meet you up there."

He turned and dragged his board in the sand all the way up the shack. I ran along the shore in the soft, wet sand down a ways to the cliff we had been at earlier. It was apart from the island and nobody was over here. It was dangerous and the waves were higher this far down, too.

Yesterday J.J had found me sitting out there after school had just gotten out for the summer. He showed me a new picture of his brother who was fighting in Iraq. It was of his brother and some other soldiers holding up the American Flag. J.J was so proud while he held it out for me to take and admire with him. But it had been a terrible day and I didn’t even remember how I got to the cliff in the first place. I wasn’t me at all, just a numb version of myself and unable to pull out of it. When J.J handed me the frame, I dropped it and it sunk deep into the water. If anything was clear about yesterday, it was J.J’s expression. I had to get it back.

Sucking in a deep breath, I dove deep into the water, swimming urgently to the tunnel where the waves would have swept the frame. Light streaks shone through little holes that were built in on the tunnel walls so I had shades of light to guide me. Even though I knew what I was searching for, other things caught my attention. Colorful reefs and schools of fish surrounded me. The salt stung my eyes but it was a good, familiar burn. I swam down to the floor of the tunnel and scooped up a handful of soft sand, then watched as it fell through the cracks of my fingers.

With many trips up for breath, I dove again and again looking for the silver frame growing frantic each time I couldn’t see it. Although my lungs were screaming for air again, I looked a little harder one last time. Now that all hopes for the picture were lost, I began to notice the tunnel in a little more detail. The walls had cracks running all down them and dark corners with the shadows of seaweed dancing around. Odd plants reached for my ankles and little crabs scattered in the sand. The girl disappearing two years ago...

A tiny piece of seaweed was wrapped around my ankle and despite my wild kicking it wouldn’t tear free. By now my lungs were about to shatter. Was I going too drowned over this small annoying plant? If I hadn't resisted breath for so long, it would have been easy to reach down and undo it. But all my oxygen was gone and the salt really burned my eyes now. I felt numb, just like I did when I would sink off into a depression episode. I did try to loosen the seaweed with my fingers, but I failed. I closed my eyes and accepted that I was going to die now. See, that was what I meant. The new me was weak. But something besides the seaweed grabbed ahold of me then and I was soon staring up at a blue clear sky with a glaring sun staring back at me.

At first I was too exhausted to even try and cough up all the water sloshing around in my lungs and stomach. Cold lips pressed down on mine and the water ejected itself out into the air and then splashed back onto my cheeks. I couldn’t fight the coughing after that. I finally opened my eyes to see who had saved me. There was nobody there.

"Are you alright?" A voice gasped like they had just drowned too. I quickly sat up, too fast though, and colors whirled together. When I focused I saw there was a boy staring at me standing at a distance away.

"Yes…” but I couldn’t finish and my words trailed.

He had the most unique hair I had ever seen. It was bleach blonde and stood straight up on his head in perfect stylish spikes. I made the connection to a hair gel magazine model. Then he was studying me. I felt unconscious about my sloppy, wet hair tangled on top of my head. I was sure my face was all blotchy and red, makeup smeared down my cheeks and eyes bloodshot. But when we finally met eye contact, I stopped worrying. I stopped breathing. I felt numb again. Numb like when I was drowning. Numb like when I thought of Asher.

They were the brightest blue I had ever seen. Ice blue. The color of the ocean, blue. Long, dark eyelashes curved over them, emphasizing the color even more. I was stunned so much that it felt like somebody had just punched me in the gut. I was breathless. How were eyes that blue?

"Who are you?" His voice was shaky and nervous which struck me as odd. I swear the blue in his eyes changed, as did his overall expression. He offered a hand down and when I took it, he flinched.

I only went up to a little past his shoulders and as I stepped back a couple times to give us space, I realized his eyes weren’t the only thing beautiful about him. The boy had golden skin that indicated he was under the sun for hours and hours working somewhere that required hard work and muscle. His body wasn’t the type you got in the weight room but from doing labor work. It was natural. I fell in love with it even though that sounded stupid.

"Thanks for saving me.”

"No problem." He answered back in a low, accented voice. It wasn’t an accent I recognized.

My eyes trailed up along his jawline that was drawn tight over his narrow chin and past his nose that flared up at the bottom. His lips were full and pink and they were twisted into a weird concentrated line. The space between his eyes was a little too close and his eyebrows set low over his eyes. God, I thought while I tried to calm my racing heart down, that face structure…why...how? It wasn't the kind of face you saw in all the boys that lived on the island, or even in any of the tourist. Something about his face was just different. And too familiar.

Oh. I closed my eyes and turned my head, staggering back from the blows that he couldn't see were being bashed into me. Here it came. The painful breaths that I couldn’t push out. The blacking out which my vision was about to endure. I did know that face structure because I had stared at it every day last summer. That was Asher just with different details and colors.

He was Asher. That boy in front of me.

"Why were you down there?"

My eyes flew open, responding to his voice.

"Don't you know kids have drowned down there before?"

"She disappeared," I corrected quickly. "If it is so dangerous, why were you down there?"

He rolled those icy blue eyes. "I have the right to be down there."

"What? You think I don't?"

"I know how to swim."

Irritation bit at my lips and I badly wanted to blow up at him - beautiful or not. But it hurt too bad. I wanted to sink down into a ball and go away to my numb state and not wake up until tomorrow when it was all gone. Asher was with me right now. What – warning me? Warning me about this boy who looked just like him?

"I can swim.”

"Obviously," he said in a mocking tone, the corners of his lips twitching. I knew he wanted to laugh. God his blue eyes were really going crazy. It was like they were literally swirling with different shades of blue.

I turned my fists into balls so I could stay on my feet and demand to know who this boy even was. I counted to ten in my head even though the pain stayed strong. His face, I was soaking it up like a drug. So close to Asher and so much better than my hazy dreams. But when I didn’t say anything he started to walk away from me not towards the beach, but just along the cliff where he would find nothing but the washed up part of the island.

The pain…it was going away. Replacing it was a million butterflies and they carried fear on their wings because my heart really did lurch when I saw him walking away. I was addicted already to those features, to seeing the boy that kept the old me in his back pocket. For the first time in forever I felt a small sense of realease.

"Wait!” My voice lost and trembling sounded so desperate I probably really scared him. “A-are you a tourist or what?”

He slowed down some but didn’t stop. "Perhaps.”

"You either are, or you aren't." Even though I was begging for his words, I was also irritated immediately.

"Yeah, sure. I'm a tourist. Probably won’t see you around though, I heard it gets busy."

Oh God, what if I did see him? There was no way I could handle having to look at that face every day while waiting for the real one to come back to me. "Probably not. And your name?"

"And your name?"

I smiled instantly, not like I controlled it. It just showed up on my face. When Asher had been around, smiles like that didn’t happen. "Regan."

He returned my smile surprisingly and a confused look fogged up his endless swirling eyes as he did so. "Brody."

Hesitating for a second, Brody tightened his lips again, as if holding back words that he wanted to say, and then turned, continuing his walk in the direction of nowhere. I stood frozen until his spiky hair was out of my view. I bit my lip with all sorts of anxiety racing through my blood.

J.J came to a running stop beside me with a tray full of food a few minutes later. The biggest smile was dancing on his cute face and his brown eyes sparkled as he reached down for something beside me.

"You found my picture? I can't believe it!"

I stared at him in confusion. What was he talking about? Much to my surprise, J.J waved the unharmed frame in my face. The drops of water raced down the glass but he wiped them off easily and then it was his brother and his army brothers staring back at us.