It's Perfect. Until It's Not

I was running away.

I’d left behind a bad situation in Kansas – a life I desperately wanted to avoid thinking about or dealing with – and never looked back.

Where do people go to reinvent themselves? Where do they move to get a shot at a new life, to live out their dreams?

For me, it was Venice.

No, not Italy – Venice, California. That funky little beach town chock-full of all the people too weird for the rest of Los Angeles. (Which is saying something.)

I didn’t need to go halfway around the world to escape. Compared to what I was used to back home, Venice might as well have been another planet.

I was running because love had dealt me a bad hand, and I had played it even worse. As far as I was concerned, I was done with love.

Funny… because while I was running away from it, that’s when it came and found me.

It was my first day settling into the neighborhood. I’d just rented a room in a house nearby, and I was enjoying the fruits of my awesome new digs: a two-block stroll to the beach.

As I lay there on my towel, slowly getting over my self-consciousness about my pale skin and incredibly unfashionable one-piece, both of which came courtesy of Kansas (note to self: go get a bikini as soon as possible), I saw him.

He was absolutely gorgeous – a blond-haired surfer with several days of scruffy facial hair. Late 20’s. Bronzed skin. Muscles to make your jaw (and panties) drop. He was wearing only board shorts and flip-flops, so I got the full show: enormous biceps, powerful chest, broad shoulders, massive thighs.

I couldn’t see his eyes because of the sunglasses he wore, but he had a strong chin, sensual lips, and cheekbones to die for.

Big hands and feet, too.

I’m just sayin’.

Now why couldn’t I get a guy like THAT back in Kansas? I thought.

Note to self: learn surfing as fast as humanly possible.

He was walking towards the water with his board under one arm, and he dropped something as he passed – a little round object that plopped in the sand.

“Uh, excuse me,” I said, rolling over to pick it up.

He kept walking.

“Excuse me!” I called out.

He turned around with a scowl.

“You dropped your – ” I started to say, then looked down at the little cellophane-wrapped package in my hand.

Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax.

I immediately blushed.

I might have been thinking naughty thoughts about his body, but I wasn’t about to say ‘sex wax’ out loud to a stranger.

What the hell is sex wax?!

The label said, ‘The best for your stick.’

…your ‘stick’?!

Did he put it… ‘down there’?

Why was he bringing it out to the beach, then?!

“Uhhhh… you dropped this,” I said, blushing even worse, as I lifted it up to him.

“Thanks,” he grunted, snatched it out of my hand, and then walked off without another word.

Rude!

Just goes to show, hot guys don’t always have the best personalities.

Even insanely hot ones with perfect physiques.

I sighed and just enjoyed the show as he moved towards the water.

That was when my phone rang.

I knew from the ring tone who it was.

Rick.

My stomach twisted and I felt sick.

He doesn’t know where you are, I told myself. You don’t even have to answer it.

But… part of me felt like I owed him at least that much.

I held the cell in my hand for a few seconds… steeled myself… and then finally hit ‘Accept’ on the screen.

“Hello?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even, though I still think it trembled.

“Katie? FINALLY,” he snapped, pissed off like always.

“I don’t want to talk to you if you’re going to yell at me, Rick.”

“I’m not yelling – I was just concerned.”

‘Concerned’ sounded an awful lot like it was a couple of steps away from yelling, if you asked me.

“Look, just… come home, Katie. We can talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Well, we HAVE to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

He ignored me and breezed right past. “Where are you? I checked with Jen and Susan, and you’re not there – where are you staying?”

“I’m not telling you.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and I knew he was struggling to keep his anger in check. That’s what he always did when he was trying not to blow his top.

Unfortunately, that brief pause was enough for him to hear what was going on around me.

“Are those waves?” he asked incredulously. “Was that a seagull?!”

Crap.

I should have answered this back at the house, where it was nice and quiet and not full of hints…

“What do you want, Rick?”

“Are you at the ocean?!”

“I said, what do you want, Rick?”

“I want you to come back!”

“Well, I’m not.”

“We’re going to talk about this, whether you want to or not!”

“No, we’re not,” I insisted. “I’m done talking.”

“After everything you did to me, I think I deserve that!”

Guilt welled up inside me. “Rick… I told you how sorry I am…”

“You humiliate me and break my heart, and you’re SORRY? Wow, must be nice to just be ‘sorry,’ and that’s it.”

I felt like crap. Lower than dirt. “I just… I don’t want to talk right now.”

Jealousy got the better of him. “No, you want to go get a suntan and play in the water and find some drunk douchebag and sleep around – ”

Suddenly my guilt was gone, replaced with icy contempt. “Only one of us ever slept around.”

He got even angrier. “ I told you, that wasn’t what it looked like!”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It was just business over drinks – I love YOU – ”

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

He saw it wasn’t going the way he wanted, so he went back to questioning me. “Where are you? Florida? Are you on the East Coast? …did you go to the CARIBBEAN?”

“I’m hanging up now, Rick.”

“DON’T YOU DARE – ”

I hit the little red button.

Immediately my entire body started shaking, and the sobs welled up uncontrollably. I pulled up the beach towel to hide my face as I cried.

I wasn’t crying because our relationship was over. I still felt sad about that, but it wasn’t the main thing. The worst was how I’d ended it, and how many people I’d hurt in the process. The guilt and shame were overwhelming.

I kept sending him to voicemail every time he called – six times in the next four minutes. After number seven he finally stopped.

I thought about blocking his number, or at least turning off my phone, but I guess my guilt got the better of me. I felt like he was right – that I did still owe him something.

Maybe I hadn’t left behind everything I’d hoped.