Lucy went and sat on the sand, in the warm sun, and looked out at the sea. The water was clear and green, and the waves were washing in slowly, soothingly, and the sky was still the same sharp blue as it had been earlier in the day. The sand had squeaked underfoot as she walked across it, too, the way it had earlier that morning, which had made her smile.
She sat, thinking. It was nice, just being there, just sitting, doing nothing.
She breathed in. She thought. The air tasted of salt and felt a little sticky against her skin.
After a while, for no particular reason except that it reminded her of that morning, she reached back and undid the bikini top and took it off, and then folded it neatly and placed it beside herself on the sand. The way she had placed her clothes earlier.
She sat there for a while in just the bikini bottoms. She sat, leaning back on her arms, feeling the breeze on her skin and the sun warm on her chest. She looked out to sea and listened to the waves breaking. She felt oddly free, sitting like that, the same way as she had before. She felt free, for no particular reason. She just did.
As though nothing especially mattered any more.
She sat for a while. She decided she felt free, but also a little self-conscious, so after a while she sat forward and lifted up her knees, hugging them so her front was mostly covered. Mostly, but not quite. She sat slightly carelessly, and was quite proud of herself for being that little bit careless. She never really had before, not like this, in public. A few people walked past, and glanced at her, but no-one seemed to care, or to seem especially interested in what she was wearing, or wasn’t. That was nice, she thought, their disinterest. She decided she didn’t really mind what she wore either, and strangely, that made her feel free as well.
She sat, thinking. She had to work out what she was going to do next. She should probably find a job, she thought, an ordinary everyday job, but she wasn’t actually sure she’d be able to. She wasn’t sure whether she could do anything useful, other than writing software and running a software company, because she hadn’t actually ever had any other jobs but those. She had gone straight from school to university and then to working at start-ups and then to Bitmo. She had never had an actual job, standing at a counter, being polite to people.
She didn’t even know how to do a job like that.
She thought about that for a while, and started to feel miserable.
YOU ARE READING
Losing Everything
RomanceLucy loses everything that matters to her, her partner and job and business and all her money. She loses everything, and in doing so she reconnects with an old friend, Erica, and begins to fall for her instead. And as she does, she realizes that e...
