He’s wearing a Ralph Lauren polo with wide stripes and khaki shorts. It’s odd to stand here and look at him and know exactly what his body looks like under those clothes, and to know that he knows exactly what my body looks like under my clothes.
“Let me take you out to dinner.” He smiles, and the smile lines around his mouth are deeper than I remember.
“I can’t, Sean. I’m heading back soon. I can’t be out too late. I appreciate you stopping by, though, and the flower, of course.”
“I know orchids are your favorite.”
Actually, they’re not, but I don’t saying anything.
“It’s more than nice to see you. Come on, let me take you out. It’s your birthday. It’s still early. There’s plenty of time.”
“Sean, I appreciate the offer, I really do. But I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m not at the point in my life right now where I want to be involved with anyone.”
“Jill,” he says. “I have thought about you every day since we’ve been apart.”
“We’ve been broken up almost a year. There is no way I believe you’ve thought about me every day for almost a year.”
“Well, I have. I don’t see why you wouldn’t believe something like that. I’ve missed you. And I know you’ve missed me, too.” He brushes my hair back from my face. He leans closer. “I want you, Jill. I want us to get back together. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. I understand why you thought you needed to break up with me; you’ve been through a lot. It’s been a hard year for you. But us not being together has only shown me that we are supposed to be together.” His mouth is right there next to my ear. His fingertips trace the curve of my jawbone.
“You are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.” He kisses my throat, and his hand moves down the other side of my neck, over my collarbone, under my shirt, onto my breast. I pull back.
“Sean—stop.”
“Jill.” He exhales roughly and pulls me back to him. “It’s your birthday. Let me make you feel good on your birthday.”
“This is not why I agreed to come talk to you in my bedroom. I thought you had something important you wanted to tell me.”
“I do. My body has an important message to communicate with yours. No words required, though.”
“Jesus Christ, Sean, stop. I have to get back to the ranch. I’ve had a long day.”
“I know, I can tell. I can always tell when you’re stressed out. So just think how good you’ll feel if you let me—”
“For Christ’s sake, Sean, no. Get off of me.”
I push him off and start to stand, but he yanks on my arm.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I stare at him. “Excuse me?”
“I want you, Jill. You. Do you know I could walk out there and have literally any girl of my choosing? But I want you.”
I jerk my arm from his grasp. “The only reason you want me is because I broke up with you, and you can’t stand not being in absolute control of everything all the time. And if you’re so certain you can go have whichever girl you want—go! Go out there and do that. Just leave me alone.”
A grin spreads across his face. “God, do you know how sexy you are when you get heated?” He grabs my arm again and tries to pull me onto his lap.
“Let go!”
It happens so fast I’m not exactly sure what’s going on, except suddenly I’m on the bed and he is on top of me, clawing at my shirt.
“Don’t tell me you don’t want this.” His voice is a growl in my ear, his weight crushing, pressing me down into the mattress.
I stop struggling. So this is how I’m going to spend the first birthday without Dad. This is how it’s going to go down. Sean’s hands roam the length of my body and he kisses my forehead, bites my earlobe, starts to give me a hickey on my neck. He shifts to one side, moving off of my right leg. I judge the distance and try to position myself accordingly, then I jerk my leg up, my knee smashing into his balls. He screams, maybe it’s fuck or cunt, I can’t really tell, and I push him off. I stand for a moment and watch him writhing on the floor.
“Thank you, Sean,” I say, straightening my shirt. “Getting to knee you in the balls was actually the best birthday present I could have asked for. I’m going downstairs. You have two minutes to get the fuck out of this house—and don’t even think of going in there and talking to my mom—before I call the cops and have them throw your ass in jail. Thank you for making this birthday all the more memorable.”
I speed down the 1, and consider, briefly, how easy it would be just to yank the wheel to the right and go sailing off the cliff, into oblivion. Not that I would ever do that, but it’s astonishing how easy it would be. And I also realize how easy it would be to make it look like an accident even if it wasn’t.
It’s still light out when I get back to the ranch, and I can’t bear the thought of going in and being in my tiny little cabin. It’s movie night, so the campers are all in the main lodge, so I take my shoes off and walk down to the beach, sit in the sand, and start to cry.
Sometimes it really does feel good to cry, especially when you’re alone and the sound of the waves crashing pretty much drowns out any other sound. I lift my head up from my knees and that’s when I see through blurred vision that I am not, in fact, the only person on the beach.
I stand and turn away, but it’s too late, he’s walking toward me, hurrying toward me, in fact, so quickly that I can’t even wipe the tears and snot from my face before he’s there.
“Jesus,” he says. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Except I’m not, because I can’t stop crying and my voice is shaky and my breath catches in my throat and I feel like I’m about to hyperventilate. And I’m so mortified that Griffin is here witnessing this that when he puts his arms around me and pulls me into him, I don’t resist. No, I just stand there and sob and I feel one of his hands go to the back of my head and he strokes my hair and says, Shhh in my ear, which sounds just like the ocean. I don’t know how long we stand like that, but it’s long enough for my tears to have totally soaked the front of his shirt. Finally, I can draw in a raggedy breath.
“I’m sorry,” I say, lifting my head. I twist away and he lets go.
“Turning twenty-three really isn’t all that bad,” he says.
I smile, despite myself. My hair is sticking to my face and I brush it back, trying not to envision how grotesque I probably look. “That’s not what I’m upset about.”
“I know it’s not. But still, you’re not supposed to be sad on your birthday. Come on; let’s take a little walk.”
He holds his hand out and gives me a half smile. It would be easy enough to just turn away, to say I was tired or wanted to be alone, but I reach out and take his hand and let him lead me down toward the beach.
We walk a little ways without saying anything. His fingers are intertwined in mine and he moves his thumb in a circular motion over my wrist bone. He’s humming a song, something that sounds familiar but I can’t quite place. I tilt my head a little closer to try to hear it better.
“You ever come down here before?” he asks as we approach the jetty that marks the end of Fulton Beach. He hops up onto one of the rocks and then holds his hand out to help me up.
“I’ve been here a few times,” I say, hoisting myself up. The jetty stretches thirty or forty feet into the water and gets almost completely engulfed at high tide. It is that time of year when the sun will set exactly in line with the rocks, so for that moment before it dips below the horizon, if you stand at the beginning of the jetty it looks like the sun and the rocks are connected.
But he walks out, toward the end, where the waves crash against the lower part of the rocks, surf spraying in the air. He sits on the largest rock and pats the spot next to him. Straight ahead, the sky is a brilliant palette of orange, red, and pink. I take a deep breath and watch as the sun continues its plunge toward the horizon.
“Everyone should get to see the sun rise or set on their birthday,” he says. He looks at me and smiles. “Happy birthday.”
In the short time since we’ve been sitting, it’s already gotten darker, though the sun hasn’t completely disappeared yet. The light is gorgeous, soft, and bending, the kind that could make anyone look beautiful. Griffin doesn’t need any help in that area, but still, the effect is stunning. The light throws shadows across his face, accentuating the square cut of his jaw, the elegant, gentle slope of his nose.
“So what’s the matter, sweetheart,” he says. “It kills me to see you looking like this.”
I shoot him a look. “God, you are so full of shit.” But I smile as I say this, and already I’m starting to feel a little better.
“I’m trying to be less full of shit, though. I really am. And regardless of how full of shit I happen to be, I am an excellent listener.”
“So you’ve said.”
“So I have. Try me. And if I suck, then you can punch me in the face and never have to speak to me again.”
“You’d let me mess with your pretty face?”
He grins. “Ah ha! I knew you thought I was hot.”
“I said pretty. And there’s a difference.”
“You’re pretty. Seriously, though. Level with me.”
I look out at the waves rolling up the beach, the white crests tinged pink with the setting sun. “Her life has completely changed. And I can tell that she tries really hard to put on this strong front and pretend that she’s not in pain all the time or that it doesn’t bother her she can’t remember anything, but the fact is, she’s got to have round-the-clock care. And she will for the rest of her life. I just hate seeing her like that, and I hate that there’s nothing I can do to change it.”
“I’m really sorry, Jill. That fucking sucks.”
“Yeah, it does. So that’s what I was kind of losing my shit over. I just don’t know what to do. Because I don’t think there’s anything that I can do. It was just so sad, right before I left we were sitting there talking and she started telling me how she kept thinking about the last time she and my dad went out somewhere together, how he’d taken her on this helicopter ride—which is actually pretty funny because he’s so afraid of heights—and how she wished she could do that again. And the one-year anniversary is coming up in a few weeks. And I know that’s got to be hard for her. She and my dad were really one of those couples that were still in love, that still really liked to go out and do things and be together.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Griffin says. “My parents are like roommates that fight all the time. Or that’s how it used to be, anyway. Now they just stay as far away from each other as possible, which usually means my mom stays at the penthouse in New York and my dad travels around doing whatever the fuck he wants.”
“Traveling around doing whatever the fuck you want . . . kind of sounds like what you were doing before you were . . . kidnapped.” I smile.
“Hey. I really was kidnapped. I don’t know why you won’t believe me.”
“Because any normal person who is kidnapped would call the police. Or would do . . . something.”
“Something?”
“Yes, something! I don’t know exactly what—I’ve never been kidnapped before. Why would someone kidnap you, anyway? To get to your father?”
“That was their plan, I think. But it just shows how they know absolutely nothing about my father. Probably to him, they were doing him a favor. Poor bastards.”
“But what do you think they wanted?”
“Money. He’s got plenty of it. And a confession, too, I guess.”
“What kind of confession?” I try to keep my voice light.
Griffin shrugs. “Who knows. I’m sure there’s plenty of shit my dad could cop to, but never will.”
“Like what?”
He waves his hand like he’s shooing a fly away and looks out at the water. “I’m sure my dad’s pissed off plenty of people in his lifetime. Just like I’m sure my dad’s been pissed off at many people—myself included. He can be kind of ruthless when it comes to that sort of stuff. One track mind, if you know what I mean.”
I try to sound nonchalant. “I don’t.”
“It’s all about the money. You know, the whole money equals power equals you must have a giant dick equals you are therefore superior to everyone else and can go around doing whatever the fuck you want.”