Southern Secrets

I didn’t know where we were but I was content. Laying on a private beach. A towel separating me from the sand and Harry sitting on a near by rock writing in his leather book. When I asked him where we were he responded with “It’s a secret, our secret.”

I couldn’t help but staring at him, he was beautiful. The way his muscles flexed as he scratched out something in his notebook. The way his hair floated in the hot breeze. The way his sunglasses sat on his face and his teeth consumed his bottom lip as he gazed out at the endless ocean.

The beach was within a cove, a house sat inside a large cave at the back of the cove. It was small, just big enough for the essentials. I knew it was Harry’s escape the second I saw it. I knew that this was his attempt at romance but more importantly it was vulnerability. It was Harry showing me his deepest of survival tactics.

I had seen it before. I had known that my parents had an escape, just like Harry and just like I myself had escaped to London.

Escaping is an interesting concept. We escape from the function of avoidance. Or survival.

“You might burn a hole through me.” Harry interrupted me from my thoughts. I shook my head slightly and blinked regaining focus on him. “Are you okay? You are very very deep in thought.”

I nodded and smiled as he jumped from the rock began the journey to the beach towel I was occupying. He laid next to me looking up that the sky. “This is your escape.” I stated allowing my eyes to drift to the sky as well.

“It’s important to have a safe haven.” His body adjusted slightly “It brings clarity and security.”

I loved listening to him. My mind consumed me with thoughts of the end of summer. What would happen when I had to go home? When he left for tour and I was stuck within endless books and notecards. “I don’t want to leave.” I let out feeling a tear roll down my face hoping Harry wouldn’t notice.

“We don’t have to leave, we can stay as long as you like.” He assured me but he wasn’t understanding me. He wasn’t understanding that I didn’t want to leave, ever.

“No Harry, I fear the day that I have to go home. It consumes me. It takes every amazing moment with you away knowing that I won’t be able to wake up and see your hair and your eyes and you hands. I can’t stand thinking that one day you’ll be an ocean away from me.” I was fully sobbing. I couldn’t hold it in and maybe it was the malt liquor i had been drinking or maybe I was just putting a liquor blanket over deeper problems.

“Adalida, I need you to sit up” he said to me doing the same. He let his hand find my smaller one as if it was second nature for him. I natural reflex for him to comfort me. Make me feel protected and safe. A feeling I hadn’t felt in too long. “I don’t expect miles, oceans, hours to change the beauty I see in you.” I didn’t buy that and he could tell. “You have changed my life in ways that I can’t even figure out myself.” He looked up then back at me. “You,” he said lifting my chin; “are my infinity.”

It was like a bad movie. I could hear his words. I could feel him kiss me after he said them as the sun went down. But I couldn’t stop my mind from racing. My past consumed my thoughts even when I thought I was truly happy again.

“I’ll be right back.” He stated and ran off to the small house. Returning with a bottle of white wine and two glasses. “You’ve had enough of that sad liquor, I’m going to get us drunk.” I chuckled at him wiping the tears from my face. “We will get drunk and tell each other all our secrets.”

I shook at the thought of sharing all my secrets with Harry. I came here to escape; not relive everything I feared.

one

two

three

glasses later and I buried my face in Harry’s neck as he held me on a beach towel. “I have a lot of secrets. I have secrets my mind can’t escape. I have secrets that have made me want to do horrible things.” I was getting sick with “word vomit” as mean girls would put it. “Have you ever wanted to leave?” I looked him in the eye under the light of the moon.

“Leave where?” he asked confusion in his voice.

“Leave the planet, the universe, your life?” worry struck his face and I knew I should stop but I couldn’t. “I wanted to, I wanted to so bad. I had all these pills, they were white and orange and pink and blue. And I had to take them everyday and then one day. On a Tuesday in the winter, I was wearing this leather jacket and I was so cold. They were all scattered on my floor and I had locked the door and I had these cups.” I was frantic. I was motioning to him where everything had been placed in front of me. Talking with my hands more than I should be. “They were glass cups, from when I was a child, like what jelly comes in and the characters were washed off as best as they could be. I remember looking at them and thinking I would be gone before the lion on the grape jar would be gone.”

I took a long shaking breath. “Or before my younger sister would have a chance to break it. I filled each one with alcohol. Grape was whiskey, strawberry vodka, cherry tequila and blueberry had some liquid cough syrup in it.” I had become so consumed with the story I wasn’t even fixated on Harry anymore. I was shaking and I just kept talking. A part of me was telling me to stop, telling me to laugh and play it off like it was nothing, like I was joking. But I just kept filing his ears with my “word vomit”. “ I took all the blue ones with the grape glass, the white with the strawberry glass, the orange with the cherry and the pink with the cough syrup. I remember sitting thinking about Earth without me. I remember thinking about the songs I wouldn’t hear, the pictures I wouldn’t take. How my house would change, what my room would become. I tried to stand up to get to my closet, I thought about my favorite dress. I wanted to be found in my favorite dress. I didn’t make it to the closet.” Harry was in pain I saw it in his eyes and I knew my story had ended anything Harry and I ever had.

I looked at Harry for a long time and he looked back. I studied his face and slurred an “I’m sorry”

“What happened next?”