Fic: Understanding Love (Sun/Sawyer)
Title: Understanding Love (second story in a series, following Understanding)
Pairing: pre-’ship Sun/Sawyer
Rating: PG-13, for language and non-graphic mentions of sex
Warnings: same AU as previous story: post-raft, Jin did not survive, but the rest of the show’s events stay the same. Please, honest to God, help me if I’m contradicting their backstory. I’m not trying to screw with canon here. I will yank this down and fix it pronto if I need to.
Summary: Why is Sawyer the only person Sun feels like talking to? (Don’t let the title fool you into thinking this is something it’s not…this pair don’t move that fast!)
Understanding Love
Sawyer had been back out at his shelter for over a week now. Once the threat was over and he started snarking at everyone around him, they were anxious to let him go back to his life. When he returned to guard over the remains of his stockpile of contraband, nobody particularly wanted to deal with him anymore. His sarcasm had turned vicious and he began to pity himself in a way that made him attack anyone who came near him, except Sun. At least mostly. So it had fallen to Sun to make the long trek out to the beach to change his bandages.
Her first few trips had been quick and efficient, although he hadn’t been inordinately nasty to her; she just didn’t feel the need to stay and talk to him, mainly because he didn’t seem to want that. She told Jack that he was mild with her, at least compared to how he was with anyone else coming within a fifteen foot radius of his tent. She didn’t tell Jack that that wasn’t the reason she volunteered for the job. She found Sawyer refreshing. He said what he felt, even if he often took the edge out of his voice and words for her benefit, and he didn’t ask her anything about herself. So she normally asked him nothing about his arm that she didn’t have to, nothing about his moods that were too probing, and she left him when she was done.
One overcast afternoon, she peered inside his tent and found him looking just as blank and dreary as the sky.
“Is it bandage time already, Sunshine? And I was just about to go for my pedicure.”
Ignoring his sarcasm, she asked, “How does your arm feel?”
“I don’t know. You saw it yesterday. It ain’t turned colors since then.”
He pulled off his shirt, grimacing as he bent his arm to slide it out. He stayed in his spot on the ground, turning his head as she knelt beside him and pulled off the bandage gingerly.
“Can’t you just rip it off?”
She mumbled in Korean, questioning why he couldn’t just shut up, and it drew her a look, one more quizzical and amused than annoyed. When he caught her returning his gaze, he resumed his brooding.
She said, “It has changed colors, Sawyer. The…” she cursed to herself what is that word? “…bruises were green yesterday. They are yellow, now.”
“To match my sunny disposition.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s it to you?” He hissed as the dab of alcohol hit his arm, cold.
“I’m just trying to be nice to you. I don’t know why that makes you so angry.”
“It doesn’t. You, Sunshine, do not make me angry, not nearly as much as the rest of them. But it ain’t about anything you need to worry about.”
“They worry, Sawyer. They all ask me how you are.”
“Then tell them to come ask me themselves.” She only snorted, casting him an incredulous look. He said, “Oh, I see. They send you like you’re some sort of shield. Or kryptonite.”
“What?”
“Let’s send in the delicate little woman to make him behave, because he won’t break her and he can’t charm her.”
She shook her head, mainly because he was wrong on both counts, though she had the good sense not to say that.
He continued, “Tell them if they wanna really handle me, they should send somebody tough enough to actually be a threat.”
“I’m not handling you, whatever they think and whatever you think. It doesn’t matter to me if you want to be an asshole, although I think it’s sad. Would you like me to pick a fight with you? Do you want to hurt yourself?” She pressed the new bandage against his arm, holding it firmly with one palm as the other fumbled for the cloth strip that would hold it in place. She circled it around his arm, tying it resolutely. “Have you ever hit your head against a tree?”
“Not intentionally.”
“You should know, pretty trees…delicate trees…tough bark.” She let out a quick breath of frustration, mumbling under her breath more words he would never understand, noting how his eyes had gone from angry to stubborn to surprised, now amused. “What?”
He smiled, holding in a chuckle. “I don’t think a damn one of them worries like you do, but if you plan to get violent just to prove it, I believe I will be a good boy.”
She sighed, refusing to return his gaze. “I’m sorry. I only meant…”
“I know exactly what you meant.” He smiled again, eyes twinkling. “Except for the Korean, and that, I’m not sure I want to know.”
She ducked her head, determined not to encourage him with a smile. Smiles were his fuel, she had learned. If he thought he could get someone to smile, he’d do nearly anything, even make himself look ridiculous. It didn’t help that his own smiles were infectious, much like Jin’s had been. She supposed that that’s why she doubted their sincerity from time to time, why she imagined secrecy and violence lay behind even Sawyer’s lightest expressions.
After she adjusted the bandage, she stood up, stretching the blood back into her calves. “Done. I’ll be back tomorrow.” She pulled her bag off the ground, depositing the old bandage into it for washing, and turned to go.
“Wait, Sunshine.” She turned back, and he said quietly, “You busy?”
“No. Why?”
“I need to get out of here, stretch my legs again. But if I go out there by myself, they’ll be all over me with questions.”
“So your plan is to take for a walk the only person on the island they feel more sorry for? You know I don’t bite their heads off when they ask questions.”
“You could, you know. You do with me.”
“I do not.”
“That’s because I’m smart. It’s some thick bark you got, Sunshine.”
“Sawyer…”
“If your next words are ‘I’m sorry’ or anything that sounds nasty in Korean, we will have us a tussle.”
She scrunched up her face. “A what?”
“A fight. Now, you need a walk as much as I do, and we can have a good time playing red rover till -- Well, shit. This would be easier if you understood half of what I said.”
“I understand you just fine when you’re not talking.” She allowed her face to warm into a sly grin, unable to help herself, and that sparked another smile from him, a shaking of his head, before he pulled back the tent flap, motioning with his hand for her to exit first.
*****
They made their way down the beach very slowly, Sawyer using his eyes to will people to leave them alone, Sun casting her face downward for the same reason.
Sun had expected the water to be rough, choppy, but it was rather tranquil, laying flat and dark blue-green under the blank sky. It rather reminded her of Sawyer’s eyes sometimes. She was amazed by how he could be so bluntly honest about most things, but there were other things pushed so far beneath the surface he probably didn’t know what they were anymore, only that they shouldn’t come out. She glanced at the side of his face, his untrimmed beard, and wondered what things he was hiding, although she was content to let them stay buried. This man was not hers, so she had no claim on his secrets. She assumed, anyway, that she would like him better if she didn’t know.
She tried to refocus her thoughts on something tangible. She’s learned lately that the tangible was much easier to deal with. “You need to cut your hair,” she told him
“I’m not about to try.”
“Do you have…?” Another word she didn’t know. They caught her by surprise. She made a snipping motion with her fingers.
“No scissors. Gave ‘em to Jack. But I bet he’d let you use ‘em.”
“Me?”
“Weren’t you offering?”
“I’ve never cut anyone’s hair.”
“Well, I’d be willing to bet you’ve never changed bandages either, but you do just fine at that.”
“Okay. Tomorrow. I will. I don’t know if I trust you with scissors anyway.”
He snorted in reply. That had become his favorite mode of communication, but it was preferable to when he growled out curses.
Sun found that she was almost looking forward to this haircut. Maybe she would even wash his hair, if he’d let her. Sun liked hair. Jin had always enjoyed feeling her fingers slipping over his scalp, and he would return the favor, massaging her head until she fell asleep. It still amazed her how Jin could be so gentle when she had come to radically change her definition of him. It shouldn’t have been so strange to remember his kindness, because the intensely passionate but very sweet man was the one she’d married, and he was the one that generally slept beside her, ate her food, washed her back after slipping into the shower with her, gazed at her like… Well, those gazes were gone soon enough, replaced by ones accusing her, making her think it was her fault if he had become a destructive person. And it was, wasn’t it?
Then there were the looks that scared her, when she was admitting his body to hers and he looked at her like she was worth every bit of pain and self-loathing, and she would be intoxicated by those looks until they were both worn out, Jin sleeping, and she lay there realizing all the negativity and self-hatred was sitting squarely on her shoulders now, leaving her feeling heavy. That was what they did: passed the guilt and blame back and forth, without speaking about it directly although it still exploded between them, until she was learning English and plotting her move to America. But she was so in love with him, needed him so badly, that she couldn’t go. Now, she wondered if that was even why she stayed, if maybe it wasn’t just some pathological love of hurt that brought her back to him again and again.
She shook her head, remembering the feeling of crashing into his arms before the raft left. For once, that had been something real. Painful, guilty, yes, but not in any way the vindictive, bruising thing they’d nurtured since she caught him with someone else’s blood on his hands. As the raft left, she’d felt so broken, but she knew he would return to her and they could melt down their sore and hollow selves into something new and old at the same time, and mold each other into people they actually wanted to be, people less violent, able to make love instead of inflict hard, deep, desperate sex on each other.
Sun let her eyes focus on the world again, instead of inward, as tears stung her eyes. She realized that maybe she did need this walk, to feel the ocean breeze blow the tears from her face. And it felt surprisingly nice to know that the entire time she’d been light years away, Sawyer was walking quietly beside her, perhaps lost in his own thoughts. But when she turned to look at him, he didn’t seem at all preoccupied with himself; though he kept his eyes on the sand ahead of them, she felt his focus was on her.
She said, “I’m sorry I’m not very good company.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t ask you to entertain me.” Cautiously, he said, “You thinking about Jin?”
“It is easier to find a time when I’m not thinking about him.”
“I was too.” She just gave him a look, and he continued, “I thought he was the toughest son of a bitch after the plane went down. Always picking fights, always treating you like he owned you.”
“Sawyer -- “
He held up a hand, calming her with his expression. “No, I get it now. As quick as he got angry, I’m betting you knew exactly what buttons to push and you pushed them a lot. But I’m not trying to tell you how to be. I’m just sayin’ I think I saw what I wanted to see. Yeah, he may have been meaner than a damn snake, bossier than Jack, but I think he was so afraid of losing you that he damn near couldn’t function.”
“Sawyer…”
“I know. You don’t wanna talk to me of all people about Jin.”
“It’s not -- ”
“I’ll just tell you this, and I’ll leave it be. I saw you two when we were getting the raft ready to sail. I saw the way every bit of his hardness dropped away when you gave him that book. I think he cried for an hour after that. Would’ve been less crying if he’d just had it out, but he was holding it all in.” He glanced at her face again, and seeing her tears, said, half-helplessly, “Damn. I wasn’t trying to start the waterworks again, Sunshine. I’m just telling you what I saw, so you’ll know that I don’t think he was a bad man.”
“You don’t know how he was.”
“If you got secrets, I don’t wanna hear ‘em. Not that I think you’d tell me anyway. But I know what I know. That bottle -- I was…” He frowned, shaking his head and sighing in frustration. “Well, I was digging through the notes, and he refused to read what you wrote. I could tell by his face when he waved me away that he didn’t want to think about not seeing you again, about us failing.”
“But it was gone.”
“What?”
“The note. The bottle came back, and I -- Kate -- we -- ”
His face clouded over for a minute. “Did she…?”
“No. I wouldn’t let her. We just…looked to see who had written. But my note to Jin was gone.”
“I’ll be damned,” Sawyer mumbled. Then his face contorted in anger. “Shit.” He stopped, running both hands over his face.
“What?”
His good hand slapped at his thigh, and he gritted his teeth, ducking his head as he forced the words out. “I stuck it in my pocket. I was gonna make him read it, so he’d stop scowling and torturing himself about it. But everything happened so fast, and…God, I’m sorry, Sun.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it ain’t.” He looked up to see her face, and she wasn’t angry with him, so he let out the breath he’d been holding in. “I didn’t read it, either.”
“I know. Only because you couldn’t.”
His jaw dropped in shock, a small smile coming over his face. “Is that what you think of me?”
“That doesn’t make you bad, Sawyer, just human.”
“I suppose.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“What?”
“Do you know what it’s like to need someone so much you’re afraid of it?”
He nodded. “One time.” Her smile provoked an addition to that statement: “If you’re thinking Freckles, you’re wrong.”
She bit her lip to suppress a smile. “When?”
“I was 18.” With a dismissive shake of his head, he said, “But, of course, when you’re eighteen, it’s hard to tell love apart from hormones and just wanting someone to give a shit about you.”
“I think it’s hard no matter how old you are. Come on,” she said, pulling at his good arm for a moment. “I think we should go back.”
“What’s there to go back to, Sunshine? I feel fine. Tired, but you’re not gonna have to carry me back, I swear.”
“So what should we do?”
“We?”
“I’m not leaving you out here to…think about bad things by yourself.”
“Who says I’m thinking about bad things?”
“I do.”
“Well, if I can’t make you go away, I guess you’ll have to stay here and brood with me.”
“I’m taking a nap,” she said, sitting down beside him then laying back against the sand.
“Sure you are,” he snorted, turning his gaze back to the water. When she closed her eyes, she could still see the flat gray of the sky, the unfathomable depth of the water, the reflection of both in his eyes. She didn’t ask him what was wrong with him. She had a feeling he would eventually tell her, so she waited patiently, hoping it was something she would be able to hear.
Pairing: pre-’ship Sun/Sawyer
Rating: PG-13, for language and non-graphic mentions of sex
Warnings: same AU as previous story: post-raft, Jin did not survive, but the rest of the show’s events stay the same. Please, honest to God, help me if I’m contradicting their backstory. I’m not trying to screw with canon here. I will yank this down and fix it pronto if I need to.
Summary: Why is Sawyer the only person Sun feels like talking to? (Don’t let the title fool you into thinking this is something it’s not…this pair don’t move that fast!)
Understanding Love
Sawyer had been back out at his shelter for over a week now. Once the threat was over and he started snarking at everyone around him, they were anxious to let him go back to his life. When he returned to guard over the remains of his stockpile of contraband, nobody particularly wanted to deal with him anymore. His sarcasm had turned vicious and he began to pity himself in a way that made him attack anyone who came near him, except Sun. At least mostly. So it had fallen to Sun to make the long trek out to the beach to change his bandages.
Her first few trips had been quick and efficient, although he hadn’t been inordinately nasty to her; she just didn’t feel the need to stay and talk to him, mainly because he didn’t seem to want that. She told Jack that he was mild with her, at least compared to how he was with anyone else coming within a fifteen foot radius of his tent. She didn’t tell Jack that that wasn’t the reason she volunteered for the job. She found Sawyer refreshing. He said what he felt, even if he often took the edge out of his voice and words for her benefit, and he didn’t ask her anything about herself. So she normally asked him nothing about his arm that she didn’t have to, nothing about his moods that were too probing, and she left him when she was done.
One overcast afternoon, she peered inside his tent and found him looking just as blank and dreary as the sky.
“Is it bandage time already, Sunshine? And I was just about to go for my pedicure.”
Ignoring his sarcasm, she asked, “How does your arm feel?”
“I don’t know. You saw it yesterday. It ain’t turned colors since then.”
He pulled off his shirt, grimacing as he bent his arm to slide it out. He stayed in his spot on the ground, turning his head as she knelt beside him and pulled off the bandage gingerly.
“Can’t you just rip it off?”
She mumbled in Korean, questioning why he couldn’t just shut up, and it drew her a look, one more quizzical and amused than annoyed. When he caught her returning his gaze, he resumed his brooding.
She said, “It has changed colors, Sawyer. The…” she cursed to herself what is that word? “…bruises were green yesterday. They are yellow, now.”
“To match my sunny disposition.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s it to you?” He hissed as the dab of alcohol hit his arm, cold.
“I’m just trying to be nice to you. I don’t know why that makes you so angry.”
“It doesn’t. You, Sunshine, do not make me angry, not nearly as much as the rest of them. But it ain’t about anything you need to worry about.”
“They worry, Sawyer. They all ask me how you are.”
“Then tell them to come ask me themselves.” She only snorted, casting him an incredulous look. He said, “Oh, I see. They send you like you’re some sort of shield. Or kryptonite.”
“What?”
“Let’s send in the delicate little woman to make him behave, because he won’t break her and he can’t charm her.”
She shook her head, mainly because he was wrong on both counts, though she had the good sense not to say that.
He continued, “Tell them if they wanna really handle me, they should send somebody tough enough to actually be a threat.”
“I’m not handling you, whatever they think and whatever you think. It doesn’t matter to me if you want to be an asshole, although I think it’s sad. Would you like me to pick a fight with you? Do you want to hurt yourself?” She pressed the new bandage against his arm, holding it firmly with one palm as the other fumbled for the cloth strip that would hold it in place. She circled it around his arm, tying it resolutely. “Have you ever hit your head against a tree?”
“Not intentionally.”
“You should know, pretty trees…delicate trees…tough bark.” She let out a quick breath of frustration, mumbling under her breath more words he would never understand, noting how his eyes had gone from angry to stubborn to surprised, now amused. “What?”
He smiled, holding in a chuckle. “I don’t think a damn one of them worries like you do, but if you plan to get violent just to prove it, I believe I will be a good boy.”
She sighed, refusing to return his gaze. “I’m sorry. I only meant…”
“I know exactly what you meant.” He smiled again, eyes twinkling. “Except for the Korean, and that, I’m not sure I want to know.”
She ducked her head, determined not to encourage him with a smile. Smiles were his fuel, she had learned. If he thought he could get someone to smile, he’d do nearly anything, even make himself look ridiculous. It didn’t help that his own smiles were infectious, much like Jin’s had been. She supposed that that’s why she doubted their sincerity from time to time, why she imagined secrecy and violence lay behind even Sawyer’s lightest expressions.
After she adjusted the bandage, she stood up, stretching the blood back into her calves. “Done. I’ll be back tomorrow.” She pulled her bag off the ground, depositing the old bandage into it for washing, and turned to go.
“Wait, Sunshine.” She turned back, and he said quietly, “You busy?”
“No. Why?”
“I need to get out of here, stretch my legs again. But if I go out there by myself, they’ll be all over me with questions.”
“So your plan is to take for a walk the only person on the island they feel more sorry for? You know I don’t bite their heads off when they ask questions.”
“You could, you know. You do with me.”
“I do not.”
“That’s because I’m smart. It’s some thick bark you got, Sunshine.”
“Sawyer…”
“If your next words are ‘I’m sorry’ or anything that sounds nasty in Korean, we will have us a tussle.”
She scrunched up her face. “A what?”
“A fight. Now, you need a walk as much as I do, and we can have a good time playing red rover till -- Well, shit. This would be easier if you understood half of what I said.”
“I understand you just fine when you’re not talking.” She allowed her face to warm into a sly grin, unable to help herself, and that sparked another smile from him, a shaking of his head, before he pulled back the tent flap, motioning with his hand for her to exit first.
*****
They made their way down the beach very slowly, Sawyer using his eyes to will people to leave them alone, Sun casting her face downward for the same reason.
Sun had expected the water to be rough, choppy, but it was rather tranquil, laying flat and dark blue-green under the blank sky. It rather reminded her of Sawyer’s eyes sometimes. She was amazed by how he could be so bluntly honest about most things, but there were other things pushed so far beneath the surface he probably didn’t know what they were anymore, only that they shouldn’t come out. She glanced at the side of his face, his untrimmed beard, and wondered what things he was hiding, although she was content to let them stay buried. This man was not hers, so she had no claim on his secrets. She assumed, anyway, that she would like him better if she didn’t know.
She tried to refocus her thoughts on something tangible. She’s learned lately that the tangible was much easier to deal with. “You need to cut your hair,” she told him
“I’m not about to try.”
“Do you have…?” Another word she didn’t know. They caught her by surprise. She made a snipping motion with her fingers.
“No scissors. Gave ‘em to Jack. But I bet he’d let you use ‘em.”
“Me?”
“Weren’t you offering?”
“I’ve never cut anyone’s hair.”
“Well, I’d be willing to bet you’ve never changed bandages either, but you do just fine at that.”
“Okay. Tomorrow. I will. I don’t know if I trust you with scissors anyway.”
He snorted in reply. That had become his favorite mode of communication, but it was preferable to when he growled out curses.
Sun found that she was almost looking forward to this haircut. Maybe she would even wash his hair, if he’d let her. Sun liked hair. Jin had always enjoyed feeling her fingers slipping over his scalp, and he would return the favor, massaging her head until she fell asleep. It still amazed her how Jin could be so gentle when she had come to radically change her definition of him. It shouldn’t have been so strange to remember his kindness, because the intensely passionate but very sweet man was the one she’d married, and he was the one that generally slept beside her, ate her food, washed her back after slipping into the shower with her, gazed at her like… Well, those gazes were gone soon enough, replaced by ones accusing her, making her think it was her fault if he had become a destructive person. And it was, wasn’t it?
Then there were the looks that scared her, when she was admitting his body to hers and he looked at her like she was worth every bit of pain and self-loathing, and she would be intoxicated by those looks until they were both worn out, Jin sleeping, and she lay there realizing all the negativity and self-hatred was sitting squarely on her shoulders now, leaving her feeling heavy. That was what they did: passed the guilt and blame back and forth, without speaking about it directly although it still exploded between them, until she was learning English and plotting her move to America. But she was so in love with him, needed him so badly, that she couldn’t go. Now, she wondered if that was even why she stayed, if maybe it wasn’t just some pathological love of hurt that brought her back to him again and again.
She shook her head, remembering the feeling of crashing into his arms before the raft left. For once, that had been something real. Painful, guilty, yes, but not in any way the vindictive, bruising thing they’d nurtured since she caught him with someone else’s blood on his hands. As the raft left, she’d felt so broken, but she knew he would return to her and they could melt down their sore and hollow selves into something new and old at the same time, and mold each other into people they actually wanted to be, people less violent, able to make love instead of inflict hard, deep, desperate sex on each other.
Sun let her eyes focus on the world again, instead of inward, as tears stung her eyes. She realized that maybe she did need this walk, to feel the ocean breeze blow the tears from her face. And it felt surprisingly nice to know that the entire time she’d been light years away, Sawyer was walking quietly beside her, perhaps lost in his own thoughts. But when she turned to look at him, he didn’t seem at all preoccupied with himself; though he kept his eyes on the sand ahead of them, she felt his focus was on her.
She said, “I’m sorry I’m not very good company.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t ask you to entertain me.” Cautiously, he said, “You thinking about Jin?”
“It is easier to find a time when I’m not thinking about him.”
“I was too.” She just gave him a look, and he continued, “I thought he was the toughest son of a bitch after the plane went down. Always picking fights, always treating you like he owned you.”
“Sawyer -- “
He held up a hand, calming her with his expression. “No, I get it now. As quick as he got angry, I’m betting you knew exactly what buttons to push and you pushed them a lot. But I’m not trying to tell you how to be. I’m just sayin’ I think I saw what I wanted to see. Yeah, he may have been meaner than a damn snake, bossier than Jack, but I think he was so afraid of losing you that he damn near couldn’t function.”
“Sawyer…”
“I know. You don’t wanna talk to me of all people about Jin.”
“It’s not -- ”
“I’ll just tell you this, and I’ll leave it be. I saw you two when we were getting the raft ready to sail. I saw the way every bit of his hardness dropped away when you gave him that book. I think he cried for an hour after that. Would’ve been less crying if he’d just had it out, but he was holding it all in.” He glanced at her face again, and seeing her tears, said, half-helplessly, “Damn. I wasn’t trying to start the waterworks again, Sunshine. I’m just telling you what I saw, so you’ll know that I don’t think he was a bad man.”
“You don’t know how he was.”
“If you got secrets, I don’t wanna hear ‘em. Not that I think you’d tell me anyway. But I know what I know. That bottle -- I was…” He frowned, shaking his head and sighing in frustration. “Well, I was digging through the notes, and he refused to read what you wrote. I could tell by his face when he waved me away that he didn’t want to think about not seeing you again, about us failing.”
“But it was gone.”
“What?”
“The note. The bottle came back, and I -- Kate -- we -- ”
His face clouded over for a minute. “Did she…?”
“No. I wouldn’t let her. We just…looked to see who had written. But my note to Jin was gone.”
“I’ll be damned,” Sawyer mumbled. Then his face contorted in anger. “Shit.” He stopped, running both hands over his face.
“What?”
His good hand slapped at his thigh, and he gritted his teeth, ducking his head as he forced the words out. “I stuck it in my pocket. I was gonna make him read it, so he’d stop scowling and torturing himself about it. But everything happened so fast, and…God, I’m sorry, Sun.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it ain’t.” He looked up to see her face, and she wasn’t angry with him, so he let out the breath he’d been holding in. “I didn’t read it, either.”
“I know. Only because you couldn’t.”
His jaw dropped in shock, a small smile coming over his face. “Is that what you think of me?”
“That doesn’t make you bad, Sawyer, just human.”
“I suppose.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“What?”
“Do you know what it’s like to need someone so much you’re afraid of it?”
He nodded. “One time.” Her smile provoked an addition to that statement: “If you’re thinking Freckles, you’re wrong.”
She bit her lip to suppress a smile. “When?”
“I was 18.” With a dismissive shake of his head, he said, “But, of course, when you’re eighteen, it’s hard to tell love apart from hormones and just wanting someone to give a shit about you.”
“I think it’s hard no matter how old you are. Come on,” she said, pulling at his good arm for a moment. “I think we should go back.”
“What’s there to go back to, Sunshine? I feel fine. Tired, but you’re not gonna have to carry me back, I swear.”
“So what should we do?”
“We?”
“I’m not leaving you out here to…think about bad things by yourself.”
“Who says I’m thinking about bad things?”
“I do.”
“Well, if I can’t make you go away, I guess you’ll have to stay here and brood with me.”
“I’m taking a nap,” she said, sitting down beside him then laying back against the sand.
“Sure you are,” he snorted, turning his gaze back to the water. When she closed her eyes, she could still see the flat gray of the sky, the unfathomable depth of the water, the reflection of both in his eyes. She didn’t ask him what was wrong with him. She had a feeling he would eventually tell her, so she waited patiently, hoping it was something she would be able to hear.