Losing Everything

Chapter 3.7

The beach was still mostly empty. There were only a few people around, despite Erica’s concerns. Not that it especially mattered any more, Lucy supposed, not now that she was dressed.

There was a pleasant kind of brightness to the morning, a fresh sharpness in the sunlight and breeze that the air never seemed to have in muggy Sydney. There was sand, a lot of sand, and the blue sky, and a small spit down the far end of the beach which seemed to be made of brownish rocks. The sea was blue-green, and the water was oddly clear, as though the sand was heavy enough to be churned up by each incoming wave, but then to fall back down to the sea floor right away, as soon as the wave had passed, instead of hanging in the water, clouding it.

“Where are we?” Lucy said, suddenly wondering.

Erica glanced at her, surprised.

“Seriously,” Lucy said. “I have no idea where I am.”

“Shoal Bay.”

Lucy thought about that. “Um, where? I mean, where actually is it?”

“Does it matter?” Erica said, then sighed. “It’s a couple of hours from Sydney.”

“North?”

“South.”

“Oh, right. Um, shit.”

Erica was looking at Lucy like she was wondering how Lucy could get that lost. “How did you even get here…?” she said.

“I told the GPS and started driving. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“But how did you know where to go?”

“I knew where you were,” Lucy said, because that was obvious. Then she added, “Just not where that actually was.”

They walked a little further. The wind rippled Lucy’s shirt against her, sensually, like a light caress on her skin. She could taste salt on her lips, and feel it sticky on her skin as she finished drying, underneath her clothes.

“You knew where I was?” Erica said.

“Yes.”

“Like you had people keeping track of me or something?”

“I looked at your website,” Lucy said. “Ages ago. At your mailing address. You have a post-office box here.”

“Oh. Yeah, of course.”

Another silence. Lucy listened to the sand squeak as she walked.

“Why did you know?” Erica said suddenly. “I mean, why bother keeping track? Why did you need to know where I was?”

Lucy shrugged.

“Don’t do that,” Erica said, almost sharply.

“Do what?”

“Shrug and ignore me when you feel like it. You’re not my boss any more.”

“Yes,” Lucy said. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“So why did you know?”

“I kept track of you. I looked sometimes, so I knew where to find you.”

“But why?”

Lucy started to shrug, then stopped herself. “I don’t know,” she said instead. “Why not?”

Erica seemed to think about that.

Lucy looked at her, and remembered making some promise to herself at sunrise about changing things and living differently. Honestly was probably a good first change to make, she decided.

“I loved you,” Lucy said. “I’m still in love with you a bit. So I kept track of you. It’s really not that complicated.”

Erica nodded, and walked a little further. She didn’t seem to know quite what to say next.

“How fucked up are you?” she said in the end.

“With everything at work?”

“No, like how fucked up. How high are you right now?”

“Oh.” Lucy thought. “Um, pretty bad, I think. Still stoned as shit. Like so high I’m actually not, if you see what I mean.”

“So I can’t really take anything you’re saying seriously?”

Lucy thought about that, too, quite carefully. “Actually, no,” she said. “I think you can take me seriously.”

“Except you would say that.”

“I suppose I would.”

“Also,” Erica said. “And just by the way. I imagine you can’t drive right now?”

“I can drive.”

“No, you can’t.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re absolutely not. You can barely walk.”

Lucy shrugged.

Erica looked at her for a moment, and then sighed. “Okay,” she said. “You’d better stay at my place for a bit, after you eat. A least until you’re sober.”

Lucy nodded, and kept walking, unsure if Erica was really as reluctant as she sounded.

“Thank you,” she said, after a while.

“It’s fine,” Erica said, then, “Up here.”

They climbed some wooden stairs up to the road.