The Same Deep Water by Lisa Swallow Page A

something about me, can I ask you something?” he asks.
    “What?”
    “You said your parents were dead. What happened?”
    An exchange of secrets, slipping through a crack in the barrier between the part of Guy that recognises part of Phe, and wants to take hold. I take my hand away and wrap my arms around my knees.  
    “Remember I told you their death was an accident? It wasn’t.”
    “Oh.”
    I heave a breath. “I got out.”
    “Out of where?”
    “I can’t talk about this, Guy, the nightmares will start again.”
    “I understand all about nightmares.”
    “I understand about feeling cursed,” I whisper back.
    Guy touches my cheek and I tremble, against the cool breeze on the beach, the fear dug up, and the need for Guy to take hold of me. Guy looks the same as at the cafe last Monday – tired and defeated – and my heart hurts for him. “I want to explain so much, but I can’t. I don’t know how to.”
    “You don’t need to until you’re ready.”
    Guy wraps an arm around my shoulders and I rest my head against his hard chest. “Why do you trust me?” he asks.
    “Shouldn’t I trust you?”
    “I just told you I hurt everybody who’s close to me.”
    “How can you say that after what you did for me?”
    His lack of response worries me and I move to look at him. Guy takes my hand and traces the lines on my palm. “When I saw you in the dark, I had to fight against running over and dragging you away from the edge. I wanted to hold you, to absorb your suffering. I’m sick of hurting people. I thought taking away your pain might absolve me somehow.”
    “I don’t believe you hurt people, Guy.”
    “I don’t hurt people deliberately. It just happens.” He takes a deep breath and looks at me. “Since the moment I saw you on the edge, I’ve wanted us, but I’m scared. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
    I touch his face. “You’ve already helped me so much. That first night and in the days after.”
    Guy looks at my hands. “I messaged you every evening so that every night when you closed your eyes to sleep you would know somebody out there cared.”
    Guy’s words choke me; the carefully hidden man revealing the fractured edges of his soul and the depth of his heart. “Being with you is transforming my world, and I don’t think the list is the only reason, is it?”
    “What if I do hurt you?”
    “Then I’ll cope.”
    “Will you?”
    I understand his need to pull me from the edge. I share the hatred that another person could hurt in the same way. All this time and I failed to notice, too busy struggling against the dark tide threatening to pull me under. Guy is swimming the same deep water as me.
    “Yes. I can’t hide from the world and deny the good for fear of the bad. You live in the moment and I should too,” I tell him.
    Guy laughs softly and touches my cheek. “Living dangerously, Phe. You’ll be jumping out of planes next.”
    “Maybe I’ll pass on living in that particular moment.”
    “So what happens?”
    “I don’t want to wait until it rains.” I shift closer to him, willing him to embrace me.
    “You’re crazy.”
    “We already know that.”
    Exhaling, Guy curls his hand into my hair, and then rests his forehead against mine, warm breath heating my face. “This pulls us into something different. I’m not sure.”
    “Kiss me, even if only once.” I move my head so our lips touch, the buzz of connection immediate.
    “If I kiss you it will be more than once.”
    “Good.” I turn my face and meet his mouth curling a hand around his neck to pull him closer. Guy places one hand in the sand, circles his other arm around my waist, and he kisses me. The warm pressure of his mouth moves from tentative to firmer as I push my lips against his, eagerly responding and pressing myself into him. Mouth harder against mine, Guy parts my lips, exploring as I push my tongue against his.
    We kiss for what feels like forever, a single moment frozen in time, not