Beyond the Sea (6 page)

Peter shook his head. What had happened? He couldn’t see anything. It was too dark. He knew something had pulled him to shore. It felt like hands had grasped his ankles, and he knew long hair had slipped between his fingers. A too quick flash of lightning revealed the angelic face of Melia. He knew her voice too; alluring and calming. How quickly his emotions had changed, from anger to fear to the deepest fear he’d ever felt, to thinking some horrible creature was dragging him underwater. Then relief and finally confusion. Where had Melia come from?

Melia watched Peter’s eyes dart all around. What was he looking for? He was breathing heavily; too fast to be normal. Was he alright? Blood dripped down his right shoulder. When she gently touched it, he jumped. Oh, right. Humans couldn’t see in the dark.

“You’re bleeding,” she told him.

“Oh.” He put his hand where hers had been, pressing on the wound.

“What were you doing?” she asked again.

Peter shifted his weight nervously. “I wanted up on the rock.”

“During a storm?” she asked incredulously.

He shrugged. “I was angry. Coming here makes me feel better.”

“It does.” She took Peter’s hand. “Let’s sit.”

“Ok,” he agreed and allowed her to pull him down. They were close. His hand brushed her thigh, her wet hair whipped in the wind, tickling his face.

“Is your head ok? It looked like you hit it.”

“Yea, it’s fine. I think my shoulder got the worst of it.”

“Good. Why were you angry?”

Thunder boomed. Lightning struck again. The storm was getting closer. Peter’s sight became accustomed to the dark. He looked at Melia. “My parent’s really pissed me off.”

“What happened?”

He shook his head, sighed, and let go of his bleeding shoulder. After wiping his hand clean on his wet shirt he said, “It’s a long story. Basically, they hate me.”

“How could anyone hate you?” she asked, sounding genuinely oblivious.

He laughed. “Do you really want to know?” Through the dark, he saw her nod. “Ok, then. But I warned you, it’s a long story.” He smiled. “My mom had me when she was seventeen. Obviously, I wasn’t planned. She barely made it through high school and wasn’t able to go to college. She blames me for it. She and my dad got married right after graduation. She always complains about how she never got a real wedding…and sometimes I wonder if they ever would have gotten married if it wasn’t for me. But they did and I guess it was really hard. My mom stayed home with me while my dad went to college. But things got better and we were ok.

“When I was eight, Adam and Ava were born. I was excited to have siblings. Even then, though I was young, I knew something was different. It was the way my parents talked about it, about how exciting it was to have a baby they
tried
for. I remember my grandma saying she could actually be happy this time my mom was pregnant. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was sitting at their baby shower, and it hit me then that my parents resented me.

“And it only got worse. My dad was finishing grad school and wasn’t home much. My mom was busy with the twins and left me to do all the chores. She’d told me before she wished they’d given me up for adoption.” He shrugged, avoiding Melia’s pitying looks.

“Anyway, my mom is going through some bull shit religious awakening, and every time she looks at me she is reminded of her ‘premarital sex’ and ‘unchristian choices’. I guess I’m unholy for being born out of wedlock. She’s always telling me I’m gonna go to hell. I used to feel guilty about it, like I really was some huge burden. But it’s not like I asked to be born. And today- today I didn’t go to church because I was hung over. She said she wished she didn’t keep me. I got pissed, and came here.”

His words hung in the storm-thick air. Why did he just spill his guts to Melia? Even Connor, who had been his friend since the fifth grade, didn’t know he felt that way. What was it about her that made him feel like he could trust her with something so personal? It must be the weird way you get from a near death experience.

“Peter,” she said softly. “I’m really sorry. I can’t imagine hearing something so awful from my own mother. The worst she said to us was that she would sell us to the seal women if we didn’t behave. Of course, she was joking.” She smiled. “You know you shouldn’t blame yourself, right?”

Thunder crackled above them. “I know now.” He half smiled. “What’s a seal woman?”

“Just something she made up, I’m sure,” Melia said quickly.

 
A gentle rain began to fall, the soothing sounds of its drops lost in the crash of the waves. The wind blew, covering both with a cool mist. Peter shivered.

“Do you want to come over?” Melia asked, somewhat nervous he would say no.

“Sure,” Peter said, hoping he didn’t sound too eager. Melia exited the overhang and gazed at The Ridge.

“It’s kind of a far walk,” she spoke aloud, realizing for the first time how long it would take to
walk
there. She always swam.

“My car’s up there.” Peter pointed to the parking lot. “And I didn’t lose my keys.” He smiled as he fished them from his pocket. Silently, they walked up the path.

“Do you care if I get your seat wet?” Melia asked before she got in the Mustang.

He did care, but he wasn’t about to say so. And, after all, he was just as soaked. The engine revved to life. Peter turned down the radio (which had been left blaring) so he could speak.

“You know, it’s probably not safe for a girl as pretty as you to be out alone at night.”

“Nothing in the ocean will hurt me,” she replied casually.

“I’m not talking about what’s
in
the ocean,” he told her, working to keep his eyes focused on the road. Her white sundress became almost see through when wet, and she wasn’t wearing a bra. It took everything for Peter to keep his eyes off her chest.

Melia didn’t understand at first until she remembered a time Edward had given her the same warning. In the water she was safe since she was faster and stronger than any human. But on land, she was at a disadvantage.

“Usually I bring my dog with me. That way I’m safe.” She smiled, feeling that was a satisfactory response. Wolfy started barking as soon as Peter got out of the car. Luckily he remembered that his gym bag was in the back seat. The clothes in there were less than clean, but they were at least dry. As Melia led the way around the back of the house, he noticed she was barefoot. She opened the door and the most gigantic dog he’d ever seen wildly greeted his owner. As soon as the wiry coated dog caught sight of Peter, it lumbered over and jumped, putting his paws on Peter’s shoulders while licking his startled face.

“Wolfy, down!” Melia instructed, but the huge dog didn’t listen. Peter dropped his bag and put both hands on Wolfy’s head, petting him and laughing.

“I think you were right about being safe; no one in their right mind would cross this dog.”

“Yea,” she agreed. “But he’s definitely no guard dog.”

Peter looked around the house. From the pool area, they entered the house through a fancy covered veranda into an equally fancy, huge living room. Though it was dark, Peter knew the entire house was overly ostentatious.

Melia felt that strange flutter when their eyes met. Peter was a curious thing, and she wanted to know more about him. Aware that they were wet and sandy and standing on her mother’s favorite Persian rug, she waved Peter to follow her upstairs. She grabbed some clothes and went into the bathroom to change, leaving Peter to look around her room in awe.

It was girly, with the white trim and flower patterns on the wooden furniture. He could tell it had been professionally decorated, and Melia added her own random style into the mix. A large photo collage hung on the wall near the bathroom door, filled with pictures of Melia and some dark haired girl that looked familiar. Peter leaned closer and was shocked when he realized the black haired girl was Jamie Forester. She was prettier in the pictures than Peter remembered her to be in real life. In one photo she was smiling, with one arm around Melia, standing in front of Cinderella’s Castle. In another, both girls were making goofy faces wearing ridiculous New Year’s Eve party hats on Time’s Square. Peter couldn’t help but chuckle at the overly dramatic pose of the girls at the
Harry Potter
theme park, both wearing robes, holding wands as if dueling.

He knew Melia and Jamie were friends, but he never knew they were
that
good of friends. He turned to look out the west windows. He loved the view. Carefully setting his bag down on the shiny hardwood floor, he moved to look out the window. The storm had intensified and so had the size of the waves. What had he been thinking, going out on a night like tonight? The question of what had Melia been doing out on a night like tonight bothered him more. She had been barefoot, quite a ways down the shore from her house, alone and completely drenched. Where had she come from? Was it really possible she could have pulled him from the water?

The bathroom door opened and Melia emerged, wearing short, black athletic shorts and a black tank top, and was towel drying her hair.

“Do you have dry clothes?” she asked.

“Uh, yea.” Peter held up the gym bag. He felt nervous. Swallowing hard, he walked past her into the bathroom.

Melia sat on the bed, waiting for Peter. She had never paid much attention to human boys before (especially teenage human boys), but when Peter came out of the bathroom wearing jeans and a light blue tee shirt, she couldn’t help but find him attractive. She sprang up when she saw the wound on his arm, feeling guilty for not addressing it earlier. She closed her hands around his bicep, noticing for the first time that he was quite muscular.

“You can’t have bruised already,” she said, frowning at the large purple mark.

“No, that’s from yesterday.” He looked at his arm. “It’s not bad. Not even deep.”

“No, you’re just all scraped up.” She let go and turned her head up, only inches away from Peter. “Your eyes are pretty.”

He blinked. “Thanks. Yours are too.” And they were. At first one would think her eyes were a pleasing shade of green, but upon closer inspection, Peter was able to see almost every color imaginable. Reminding him of turquoise sequins, Peter admired their beauty for a while longer before looking away.

Melia sat on the bed. “So why do you go to the ocean when you’re upset?”

“I don’t really know.” He sat next to her. “I’ve been going there ever since I could walk. It’s familiar, it’s fun…it’s the only place I can go and feel free. It’s so big and limitless—” he cut off. Since when was he so poetic and lame?

Awe burned in Melia’s gorgeous eyes. “I know. When I’m in the ocean I feel like nothing can touch me. I’m safe from everything, and everything makes sense. It’s where I’m supposed to be.”

Not taking her as literally as she was being, Peter agreed. “Yea. It’s peaceful. Especially at night, ‘cuz there’s no one there.”

“And especially during storms.” She smiled deviously.

“Well, not normally. Normally I have more sense. But…”

“But you had a reason tonight.”

“I guess.” He leaned back on the pillows. Butterflies flapped in his stomach. He hadn’t felt that way in a while. Not even with Janet. And at the same time, Melia was oddly comforting. He had a strong urge to wrap his arms around her and just hold her, which was unnerving because Peter was definitely not the cuddling type. “So, what’s your story, Melia VanBurren?”

She had rehearsed it many times. “We used to live in San Francisco. Then we moved to New York and then here.”

“That’s it?”

“Yea.”

Peter raised his eye brows. “What’s it like being Edward VanBurren’s daughter?”

“Oh, it’s nice. He’s not home very much though. My mother either. She likes to go to New York with him. She’s a city girl.”

“And you’re not?”

“No, I missed the ocean when I was in New York.”

“Isn’t New York City surrounded by an ocean?”

“Yea, but it wasn’t the same. I missed
this
ocean.” She waved her hand at her windows. People usually didn’t question her. She smiled nervously.

“I’d miss it too.” Peter smiled back. “So why did you move back? I mean, if your dad goes to the city all the time it doesn’t make much sense.”

Her hand subconsciously flew to Lana’s shell necklace that was around her neck. “My sister…she—she died and we…”

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks,” she said quietly and felt bad for lying. True, Lana’s mangled body wasn’t found in San Morado, but a lie was a lie. “It was really hard on my mom, especially with the case being unsolved.”

“Unsolved? Like a murder?!”

Melia nodded. Peter put his hand on hers.

“So,” he began, eager to change the subject. “What do you like to do for fun?”

“Swim, of course. Uh, I take underwater pictures.”

“Underwater pictures? That’s interesting.”

“I took some recently, want to see them?”

“Yea.”

Melia brought her laptop over onto the bed. She sat close to Peter so they both could easily see. Peter was impressed. The pictures were high quality and looked professional.