All thanks to Ankor.
I don’t see him outside of our lessons. I avoid the resort and spend most of my days after our morning class down at the beach, hiding out under some palm trees that offer shade and eating the cheapest food cart snacks I can find. Already, even after just one week, my money supply is dwindling. It makes me nervous. Because I know what I had to do just to get my hands on this much, and I don’t know where I’ll be able to find more.
So far, my escape to paradise plan isn’t proving very practical. At this rate, I’ll be living on the beach pretty soon. But then again, I’ve seen some hippie tents down at the far end of the beach, and they don’t look too bad. Maybe I can join a hippie commune.
Yeah, right, I think. With what skills to offer? I could offer to do their laundry and clean dishes, maybe. That’s about it. Pretty sure most communes have a stricter entrance requirement than that.
The morning before my ninth—or is this tenth? I’ve lost count—swimming lesson begins, I open the safe in my room and thumb through the stacks of cash, just to be sure. I can probably do five, maybe six more days at this resort, max. After that, I won’t have a choice. Hippie commune it’ll be.
I should probably leave sooner. Check out today, if I’m smart, and find some little crappy hostel to rent an ultra-cheap room from. But I can’t bring myself to do it. Every time I think about leaving, my throat closes up, and all I can think about is Ankor. The way he watches me every single lesson, sharp as a hawk, like he’s ready to swoop in and save me at any possible second from anything that could go wrong.
He’s the only reason I feel safe in that water. The only reason I don’t dissolve into panic every single time I feel my whole body emerged in the pool. Because I know he’d never let anything happen to me. Because somehow, even though we only spent a handful of days together, I know he’d never hurt me.
Before our lessons in the mornings, when it’s just the two of us, we talk. Not about anything important. And he never presses me again—he doesn’t ask about my scar or for more details of my past. We just chat about shows we like, books we’ve read. About the weather and resort life, and places I should check out on Maui.
Those last, he always offers up with a sad little smile, like he’s letting me know he’d take me to those spots in a heartbeat, if I wanted. And oh, how I want to. So fucking badly.
But I can’t.
After our lessons, I always force myself to leave. To walk straight out the door of the resort, fists balled at my side, shoulders bunched, because if I don’t strain every muscle in my body toward the goal of leaving, I know I’ll cave in and wind up staying.
He must know it too, because I can see how much pain it causes him, every single day, to let me go.
Today will be like any other, I tell myself. A chat, a lesson, and then back to my beach spot. But when I get to the pool, I find Ankor already in the water, swimming laps.
I watch for a moment, breathless at the sight of his glistening back muscles, the streamlined, easy way he glides through the water, as if he was born in it. I’ll never look like him. I’ll never be that good at this, that at home in the pool, never mind somewhere like the ocean.
When he finishes, his hand touches the far wall before he hauls himself up, in the deep end, hanging onto the ledge. He turns, and his eyes find me immediately. I love that, too. How every day whenever he spots me, it’s like the rest of the world melts away, and we’re the only two left in it.
“Come on in,” he says.
I smile and start my way down the ladder. When I’m shoulder-deep in the shallow end, I wave. “Okay, I’m in.”
“Oh no.” He shakes his head. Then he extends a hand and beckons me to him. “All the way in.”
A cool sliver of ice sneaks into my stomach when I realize what he means. My throat tenses up, and my heart feels like it’s going to punch out of my chest. “I can’t,” I yell.
“Yes, you can. Sinclair, you’ve been lapping the shallows for almost two weeks now.”
“A week and a half,” I protest. But who’s counting.
“Time to go the whole way,” he says. “You can do this.”
I eye the far end of the pool. The water looks so much darker there. Foreboding. I bite my lower lip, my forehead knitting with worry. “What if I sink?”