Lucy sat on a beach, at sunrise, naked. It was cold, and slightly windy, and far out to sea, half-lost behind haze and cloud, the sun was smearing the horizon with thick smoky fire. Lucy watched, not entirely sure where she was, not sure which beach she was on, but happy to be there. And happy just to be.
She felt almost peaceful, for the first time in months.
The wind was pulling at her hair, stinging her eyes, blowing dry sand all gritty and coarse against her bare skin. The air smelled of salt and rotting seaweed, and the sand beneath her was cool against her legs and hands. She pushed her toes and fingers into it, curling them, feeling the grains shift as she did like a gently tickling massage.
She was cold, but she didn’t mind. She was lost, but she didn’t mind that either.
She sat, watching the sun rise through the waves, and wondered what to do with the rest of her life.
*
Lucy’s clothes were in a pile on the sand beside her. A dark suit, a white shirt, strappy sandals with heels, and her underwear. On top of her clothes were the other remnants of her life. Her phone, her car keys, a full bottle of vodka, and what was left of her money. It wasn’t very much money. Eight fifty dollar notes held down against the wind by her keys. That pile was all she had left in the world, and not all of it was even hers. The car keys weren’t, not any more, not really. It was just that whoever actually owned her car now hadn’t found her to ask for it back. The money wasn’t really hers either, and neither was the phone.
She had remnants of her life, leftovers, but that was all.
That life was gone now, but sitting on the cold beach, she didn’t really care.
She sat, and looked at the sea. After a while she picked up the vodka bottle, and held it, just to feel its comforting shape in her hands. To feel smooth glass, and its sloshing, oddly heavy weight.
She sloshed it, and thought.
She was glad she’d brought the vodka. She’d once cared a lot about vodka and what made one sort better than another. This was a good bottle, and she would have cared a great deal about having it, if she actually still drank.
She didn’t drink though. Not any more. She only had the bottle with her in case she changed her mind about that. She had carried it down from the car, and onto the beach, just in case. But she wasn’t going to drink it.
She was fairly certain about that.
She sat and thought instead, and watched the sunrise. Naked.
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...
