Undertow (3 page)

Her phone rang and Marissa jumped, tipping her coffee over. It spilled all over the newspaper she’d bought to discourage people from talking to her. Groping around in her bag, she felt the hard rectangle and yanked it up to her ear. Too late; the call went to voicemail. “Perfect,” she growled, and a couple of guys waiting in line turned around to see if she was talking to them
.

The number on the caller ID wasn’t familiar. Curiosity finally won, and she hit dial. Three rings followed by a reggae riff
.
Right when she was ready to hang up
,
a man answers. His voice was deep, melodic. And friendly.

“Jim here.”

Marissa scoured her memory. Jim? It took her a moment before it came in a flash. She met a Jim, a cute Physics major, at the party Erin dragged her to last weekend. “You need to get out of this pit. Besides, I need a designated driver,” she’d begged. “Come on, lots of guys will be there. No frat boys. Promise.”

“Hello, hello?” Jim’s voice called through the phone. “Anybody there?”

“Oh, hey, I’m sorry,” she mumbled in a rush. “I missed your call and dialed back—I didn’t recognize the number.”

“Well, thank you, thank you,” he said. “Glad you did, now I won’t have to call you back again. Whassup?”

“Excuse me?”

“How’s life? Miss me yet?”

Miss him?
She’d only just met him.

He laughed. “Nah, I guess not. Not yet.” Charging ahead without waiting for her to speak, he said, “I was hoping we could meet up, get a bite, catch a show.”

 A date? Was she actually ready for that yet? Frantic, she said, “Well, I . . .”

Bursting in before she could make up an excuse, he said, “A movie? Nothing major. Popcorn, lemonade maybe.” He paused and added, “I can’t stand to go see a movie alone.”

“Have you considered a DVD?” The sarcasm came out dry, and fell flat. She bit her lip.

“Sure, great idea. You can come to my place to watch it with me. That’s good, too.”

“Umm . . .”

“Relax, I’m just kidding,” he said. “You name the time and place, whatever. I just really want to hang out. Are you in?”

She considered this. Well, why not? Since Drake, nobody else seemed even remotely interested her. But their relationship was over. She should move on already, like everyone kept prodding.

“Okay, maybe lunch instead? Or coffee?”

The confidence faded from his voice and she felt sorry for him. One date would be okay, right?
A chance to test whether was ready to jump back in the whole dating game. Plus, Jim
was
really cute. The way he’d talked to her at the party made her comfortable and excited at the same time. If Drake hadn’t messed her up so bad, she’d be thrilled to hook up with this new guy.

“Sure. That all sounds great. Jim, right?”

He chuckled quietly, a sound Marissa decided she really liked. “Well, alright then. We’ll go see a movie, get a bite to eat, then have coffee . . . in that order, right?”

Was he for real?
Or was he just messing with her?
Well, she could give it right back!
“Exactly. Three days, three dates, you buy.”

Jim’s enthusiasm could have jumped through the airwaves. “Anything you say! How about we start Friday night? That gives us the weekend to wrap up our triathlon.”

Marissa winced.
This guy must be crazy
, she thought.
Or else I am
.

Four

M
arissa bounced on her heels while she waited for Erin to finish packing and vacate the apartment. It was taking the girl way too much time to leave, and Marissa’s nerves were frazzled from waiting all afternoon. Already three o’clock, her time to prepare for the evening ahead was running out.

“You better get on the road before you wind up in rush hour,” she said, prodding her roommate to hurry.

Erin fluttered around the kitchen, searching the cabinets through her collection of vitamins. Her habit of storing her pharmacy next to the coffee filters and cinnamon drove Marissa nuts. That’s what the medicine cabinet in the bathroom was for, she told her once.
Erin just gave her a stupid look.“But I need juice to take the pills, and the juice is in the fridge.”

“I can’t leave until I find my calcium.”

Marissa rolled her eyes.
Seriously?
“Just drink milk while you’re gone. Or eat some yogurt.”

“I’m lactose intolerant. I told you that, like a hundred times. Oh—found it!” She turned around, holding the bottle triumphantly.

“Great. Well, have a good trip.” If she could physically carry her to her car, she would. Instead, she offered to lug her second suitcase. Erin was only going home for three days, but she packed like she was embarking on a month-long safari.

Once Erin was gone, nothing was left to distract her from the evening ahead and Marissa’s anxiety went supernova.

Jim arrived exactly at six thirty. Promptness wasn’t his style, so Marissa knew the night must be as significant to him as it was to her. The carnations he held dripped water from their plastic sleeve and he reminded her of a little boy who’d picked dandelions for his mother.

“Hey sugar,” he said, and leaned in for a kiss.

Their lips met with a gentleness like the soft lapping of waves on the sand at low tide. A peculiar blend of excitement and peace filled her as she breathed in his warm scent of wintergreen.

Stepping back, he held out his other hand. “Brought the eats.” His smile was brilliant, and his tousle of blond curls made him look like a doll.

A really hot man doll
, she thought.

They dished the Kung Pao tofu and rice—how lucky he’d turned out to be a vegetarian, too—into her roommate’s mismatched bowls. She’d graced the table with candles and cloth napkins from the dollar store, and when Jim pulled her chair out as though they were dining at a pricey restaurant, she surprised herself by blushing.

“How about we listen to some tunes?”

 “Sounds great,” she said, and scooted her chair back to stand.

“You stay right here,” he said, his arm blocking her chair from any further move. “I got it covered.” He pulled out his iPod and placed it on the dock. Strains of Bob Marley filled the air and she felt herself relax.

They laughed and asked each other ridiculous questions while they ate. “If you could create your own planet, what would it be like?” he asked.

Her answer came quickly. “People would live in the water, like dolphins swimming around in a turquoise sea filled with peace.”

“That’s awesome,” he said. “I was thinking outer space, with weird plant creatures who live off sunlight from the six suns. There’d always be a sunrise and a sunset.” 

The questions continued through dessert and turned more serious as the night wore on.
Do you want kids? Where do you want to live? Why do you think we’re alive?
By the time they’d shared the last bite of cheesecake and found the bottom of the bottle of Chardonnay, Marissa wanted nothing more than to curl up next to Jim’s heart and stay there forever.

Instead, she settled on wrapping herself in his strong arms and yielding to his mouth on hers.

It was two in the morning, and she was caught in the hellish dream again. Same scene as every night: the enormous log, pinning her in the sand while the surf tugged insistently until it finally pulled her out to sea. She watched her body thrash around in the frigid water; knowing it would drown. Then she was back inside her skin again, surrounded in blackness. The crushing pain overwhelmed her.

This was the part of the dream where she usually woke up, desperate to escape and gasping for air. But tonight, when she jerked in her sleep, Jim was lying beside her. He wrapped his body tightly around hers and held her close. Reassured, she sunk back into the dream.

Yielding to the inevitable, her muscles froze like concrete in the cold water. She didn’t want to die, not here, alone in the black ocean. An intense pressure seized her, collapsing her chest and forcing the salt water from her lungs in a sudden rush. Something silken and firm brushed her lips, pried her mouth open. Warmth spread through her body as the pain receded. A wrap of some sort enfolded her. Waves of peace and exhaustion swept through her. In that strange way dreams have of shifting randomly from one scene to another, a face appeared. An iridescent shimmer as the sunlight filtered through the dark water and reflected off his skin, so translucent she could see the veins below, faintly blue. Marissa reached out with longing, mesmerized, but he vanished.

She cried out at the sudden abandonment and woke. With Jim’s thick legs pressed against hers, Marissa stared into the dark room. The vision from her dream was so vivid, and she realized beyond doubt that she had never desired anyone as much as she did that exquisite creature.

The unexpected desire brought with it a sudden insight: that awful night at Crescent Beach, she didn’t just black out on the sand, emotionally and physically exhausted, or suffer a concussion and elaborate hallucination. Her dream wasn’t some nightmare her mind created as a metaphor for the drama in her life, the loss of Drake and her life as she knew it. It wasn’t a dream at all.

Yes, she
had
fallen asleep on the beach. But when the tide came in, she was trapped by the log and dragged out into the ocean. She nearly drowned
,
she was certain now.
But she was rescued, impossibly, by a creature who should not exist. A man, one able to endure frigid water and strong currents.

A man who lived in the sea. With Bethany.

Five

J
im was easy. Or, to be truthful, being with Jim was easy. Comfortable. He never tried to impress her with his intellect or wit, unlike Drake, who got off on making Marissa feel inferior and immature. Jim didn’t screw with her mind, either. He was a face-value kind of guy. When they hung out, it was chill. Peaceful, even.

But beyond that? Sure, she liked Jim, enjoyed his company. He always had a ready quip to make her laugh. They shared tastes in music and politics. And the chemistry definitely worked.  Still, did she love him? Absent was the heat, that burning obsession over every imagined slight or feared rejection. With Drake, she’d agonized when he was away, craved him even. At first sight, Marissa had known Drake belonged with her.

That no longer mattered. Her relationship with Drake was game over, true love or not. Plus Jim was sweet and sexy and actually made her feel good about herself.

Even if she wasn’t certain about her feelings for her new boyfriend, their friends all assumed she was madly in love with him. Erin teased her about being so hyper and giddy, and said Marissa acted like she was on another planet sometimes. True, she spent all her free time with Jim, and she hadn’t even called Kels in weeks.

But Jim wasn’t to blame for her behavior.

Each night, Marissa dreamed of a man in the ocean, a creature, unsurpassed in beauty and strength, who had saved her from drowning. It was that intoxicating fantasy which invaded her mind, not a crush on some mere mortal guy. She longed to escape her world and join his.

If only she knew how.