I wake when she stirs, climbing off the bed to get dressed. I turn to watch her, the sun is just rising, and the room is filled with soft gray light.
“Where are you going?” I ask sleepily.
“Back to my room,” she says; her tone is short, and I frown.
“Everything okay?” I ask, sitting up.
She turns to me and smiles. “Last night was amazing, but… Frankie, we’ve been clear about what we expect from this marriage. It’s working the way we’re doing it. We shouldn’t change anything.”
Of course, I should have known she wouldn’t feel the same way as me. I’m a walking sucker. I thought things could change, but it’s clear that she doesn’t feel the same way.
For one insane moment, I want to tell her how I feel, but I don’t want to be left with dust when she runs away because I have feelings she doesn’t return.
So, I nod.
“Sure, whatever you think is best.” I get up. “Although I am having a run and a shower before breakfast.”
No emotion is needed when you treat it as a business relationship. That’s all that is. That’s all it needs to be. I won’t be mean, grumpy, or take my moods out on her. She didn’t ask me to have these feelings. She had an itch that I could scratch, and that was all last night was.
She stands awkwardly at my door. “Are we good?”
I reach for my sweats. “Sure, the weather should be good today. We should head down to the beach again.”
She nods. “Sure, I’ll see you there.”
All through the run, the shower, and even as I have breakfast with her, I slowly bottle up my feelings for her. There is no room for them.
I bring an action book to the beach, sit on the lounger, and look for a server to order drinks from. Amelia stares wistfully out at the ocean. The waiter comes over, and I turn to him. “A beer and a cosmopolitan,” I order.
“Sorry,” Amelia says suddenly, and I glance at her, “those plastic toys in the sand. Do they belong to kids, or can anyone play with them?”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “You want to play with the toys?”
“I want to build a sandcastle,” she laughs. And the sound is so beautiful.
I look at the waiter, who answers. “Yeah, there are no rules that only the children can play with them.”
“Thanks.” Amelia stands up and reaches a hand down to me. “Come on, let’s see if you can build a sandcastle.”
I pull a face, and she shakes her head. “No, no, you have to try.”
I take her hand and stand. She almost immediately lets go of mine and leads me toward the plastic toys. Rather ungracefully, she plops down onto the sand and pulls some toward her, using a plastic shovel to fill it with sand.
I sit down next to her and watch her for a moment before she looks at me pointedly. “Come on then.”
I shake my head and pull a bucket to me, filling it with sand.
The waiter comes and goes, bringing us drinks as we try and build a sandcastle. I notice he’s not the same waiter that took the order, and I take note of the tattoo of prayer hands and a cross on his hand. I’m so focused on trying to build my sandcastle that I don’t pay attention to Amelia. I throw the last dump of sand in the middle and glance over at her, and my jaw drops.
She’s built a beautiful, albeit amateur, sandcastle, but it does look like a proper castle. When I look at mine, it looks like a heap of sand, with other heaps of sand in the corners of it.
Amelia sees me looking at her and glances at my sandpile. She bursts out laughing and tumbles backward into the sand. “That is terrible, Frankie.”
I chuckle. “I tried,” I say.
Amelia shakes her head. “No, seriously, that is the worst sandcastle ever made.”
As she sits up, I push her over into the sand. “I’m going to read. You can keep playing with your sand.”