AN; Yes, this chapter needs a serious edit. But hope it is enjoyed!
We stayed in the same motel for two nights more, solely because I'd taken to painting her. The night we'd first stayed there, I'd started a drawing of her, whilst she was laying, tired in bed, telling me little things about her childhood. And I was listening, but at the same time, I had begun to sketch her. Her hair was smoothed sideways across the pillow, upper body bare and tanned back exposed where she hadn't pulled the covers up high enough. In the front section of my suitcase, I had bought my pad, pencils and basic paints, just in the case of boredom. But I wasn't bored, I was overwhelmed with love. I had only planned on drawing something sweet and simple, just her down to very bare details. But the more she talked and told me who she was, who she had been, the more my pencil stroked, outlined her on the page, filling that shell of her with all the details I could see. And I sat there, at the end of the bed, for a few hours. The next night too. That was the night I decided to give the picture colour. I mixed paints for her skin tone and her hair and the hue of the shadows that the creases in the duvet created. Mio scrunched her nose up at the smell, but still sat close and watched me as I worked.
"Do you remember that book you gave me?" I asked, adding colour to her hair on the paper.
"At Christmas?"
"I have it in my bag," I said softly, "it's lovely. I loved it."
She smiled at that, rubbing the shape of my leg under the duvet. I was slightly worried about getting paint on the hotel covers and having to pay a fee, so I was being extra concentrated, and trying not to be distracted by Mio's touches. Mio was reading as I painted, an old copy of a book with a foreign title. She had her hair knotted loosely at her nape, and had been living in her robe. Though it was a motel and we had run away, it felt as if we had moved, that it was our shabby apartment, and we were two, slightly skint, jobless young women, living on love. But soon we would move again, and I would have to mould that idea around another unfamiliar hotel room.
We were close to the coast. Sometimes I smelt it, the sea, when I cranked down the window to feel the breeze. But I couldn't find it. I leaned over Mio at red lights to see if it was just on her side, to no avail.
It was on our fourth day away from Twin that we finally found it. We stayed off the highways and drove in the direction of the smell and eventually came up alongside the beach.
I didn't even have to ask her to stop. I knew she wanted to be there as much as I did. I was glad then as she was parking up that I'd packed my swimsuit, hoping to come somewhere near the ocean. I helped Mio sift through the bags, looking for the towel she'd packed. We'd been using the ones in hotel bathrooms, but she'd packed one for herself when she left.
"What about you?" Mio asked, eyebrows lowered with worry.
I smiled and shrugged. "I can brush sand off."
"I can go get one quickly. I'm sure there's a shop around here somewhere," she said.
"I'll lie on top of you," I said, grinning.
She took that very seriously and nodded, straight-faced.
I burst out laughing, clutching my stomach."I'm joking," I said and to that her face relaxed and she smiled sheepishly, "I'll just dry off in the sun and lay on the sand."
"Are you sure?" She asked, frowning, thumb brushing my jaw.
I nodded against her hand, and her fingers stroked up against my cheek, eyes skipping down over my nose and mouth. To be affectionate in public was something I was only just starting to get used to. Hiding felt like it was becoming a thing of the past. Nobody knew us. I could touch her modestly, she could touch me, I could kiss her. So, I did. I bowed my head to her mouth and kissed her, chastely. She liked that. Her towel-worry evaporated and she smiled broadly. I think she had been thinking the same thing as I had, that we could be whoever.
She rolled her towel up under her arm and draped her sheer robe over her shoulders, the one she wore in the evenings. I was holding my swimsuit in my fist, following her down the steps onto the beach, barefoot. With it being summer, there were quite a few people sprawled out under parasols and resting on proper beach towels. But they were mostly couples and older people. We blended right in. It felt homely, unlike the beach on vacation, where we had to look over our shoulders constantly, but that felt like it had been years ago. We were living and existing in a different time from that. Here, miles away from Twin, we were different.
Once she found a good enough spot, she laid her robe down on the sand and sat on it.
"I need to get into my swimsuit," I said, looking past Mio, "where should I go? Hang on."
Mio nodded into her lap. "Sit here, could you change here if I held up the towel?"
I just blinked. "What if someone sees me?"
"They won't. Look," she gestured off down the beach, "no one's looking at you."
They weren't. All I could see were sunglasses and squinted eyes in the sun. Couples were chatting on their tummies and others were dozing in the heat.
"Are you sure? Don't let them see me!" I said, sinking down into her lap.
"I won't let them see you." Her voice was soft. She held the towel up over my back so I was sheltered in her lap, smiling up into my face. We were close, but I was able to shrug out of my dress, just awkwardly. I trusted that Mio would shade me from un-watching eyes anyway.
I tried to get comfortable and widened my legs around her waist, sitting on the cross of her shins. I started to slip my dress over my shoulders but Mio stopped me.
"No, no, pull it up from the bottom it'll be easier." Then she glanced at my chest and added, "are you wearing underwear?"
"Not a bra," I said, squirming slightly in her lap, grabbing a handful of my dress skirting.
I started to tug it up my body, exposing my thighs and my midriff, then popped my head through the neck hole, leaving myself very bare in her arms. I leaned up to toss the dress behind her, and took advantage of that close opportunity but kissing against the base of my throat.
I gasped. "We can't finish here, so... don't." I was speaking quietly as if someone would hear us, when I knew they couldn't. Nor could they see us.
"Cute," she whispered, then placed one last kiss on the swell of my breast before leaving me be.
I couldn't, in that moment, orchestrate how much I wanted her. It was an indescribable amount that had expressed itself in a way that made it slightly uncomfortable to sit.
With a bit of awkward help from Mio, I wriggled out of my underwear and clung, nude, to her body. She fished out my swimsuit and passed it to me. Getting that on was the difficult part. I would have to spin around and sit backwards in her lap, so that I didn't accidentally knee her in the face, then I would shimmy into the tight material. I couldn't stop wondering what others were thinking if they were looking, whether they were curious as to why I was squirming under the cover of a towel. That spurred me on to pull it on faster, not wanting to sit naked in public for too long. Then I exhaled and stood up, adjusting the straps of my swimsuit and smiling.
"Thank you, that was a first," I said, cheeks feeling flushed with the heat of my struggle.
"Getting naked on the beach?" She laid the towel down on the sand and sat on it.
"Yeah. That."
"Never been to a nudist beach?"
I laughed. "The only place I've been apart from America is Canada, and there's not many nudist beaches in Winnipeg. Have you?"
She shrugged.
"Well, now you'll have to get into your suit. I'll hold the towel now," I said with a smug grin.
She flashed her skirt up to show me her black tie bikini bottoms. "Wore them underneath."
"How evil! And you didn't tell me," I gasped, giggling, "this was your plan! Evil!"
"Maybe it was," she hummed, turning over onto her stomach.
I went down to the waterfront and waded in, inhaling sharply through my teeth at the coolness of the water. The waves were tame, and only licked gently at me, lapping with docile rhythm. I dunked myself under in the shallower section, before swimming further out. I was alive. I was so alive. And whilst the first two days of us travelling, I had been anxious about our wild plan, I realised then that I wasn't scared then. I had nothing to be afraid of. Mio was lying on a bathroom towel, tanning in the sun, waiting for me, knowing I would come back. We wouldn't have to be apart anymore. There were no more reluctant goodbyes or melancholy kisses.
Though I hadn't known much, and I still didn't then, she was teaching me of love as I yielded to her. Ancora imparo. There was more for me to know. But I'd surrendered myself to her so she could show me. I'd been moulded into a thing of want.
We lazed on the sand for a few hours more, me laying on her hip, on top of her robe, flattened on the sand. She complained that her shoulders felt too hot so I jogged up, with a few dollars in my fist, to the stores on the boardwalk to buy her some sunscreen. She then let me sit on her lower back and rub it into her shoulders and neck. She did mine too, despite me complaining that I rarely ever got sunburn. We switched positions a few times, before cooling off in the sea, then tanning again. The beach got emptier as the hours ticked onward. At one point, I think we both fell asleep and woke when the sun was lowering down over the ocean. She was quick to wake, shaking herself limber and helping me up off of the sand.
That night, we didn't leave that coastal town. We stayed in a chain hotel, similar to the one we'd rested in on our first night away. But the sheets were rougher, and the pillows were harder. The water pressure was weak and the shower head was broken, and neither Mio or I were the type to complain. We just made do. We slept, curled like cats, with our jackets draped over the hard pillows, hoping it would bring some extra comfort. I slept at ease.
But when I woke, she was not beside me.
I started, glancing over at where she should've been. Had she left me? I scrambled up, pulling back the duvet as if she could've been hiding under there. Across the room, her suitcase was still zipped and leaning against the wall. I was so used to her being beside me that I instantly panicked at the sinking hollow feeling of not being able to feel her.
"Mio?" I called out. The bathroom door was open.
I hurried through, skidding on my feet. She was sitting on the plastic bathtub edge, head in her hands, hair loose and framed about her face. I dropped to my knees in front of her, trying to get her to look at me, trying to pry through her stubborn fingers and see her face. But she wouldn't budge. She was crying, but very softly, like she didn't want me to hear. I smoothed my hands around her face, tucking back her hair and trying to soothe her.
"What's happened? What's wrong?" I asked anxiously, attempting to speak softly.
She was snivelling, breath hiccuping like she couldn't even speak if she wanted to. I rubbed her shoulders and stopped asking, as to not overwhelm her. Then I noticed, her phone was sitting, open, on the tiles. I had assumed neither of us had checked our phones. I hadn't because I knew what I would find on there, messages I probably wouldn't want to read.
"Did you look at your phone?" I said gently, still rubbing her shoulders.
She nodded into her hands.
I clicked through the messages, all from Mr. Reed, and my stomach dropped. They were awful, worse than I'd expected, all pricking and demeaning.
You're nothing without me.
You need me to live, you think you can keep running without my support? You have nothing!
Come home. Now.
You're failing as a mother, don't you see that?
Have you taken that girl? What is wrong with you?
Come back now before you run out of money and get stranded. Then you'll come back and start kissing my ass. I can support you now when you can't even support yourself.
I pushed the phone away. I had started to tremble slightly with my nerves. I didn't know what she was thinking. She wouldn't even talk to me.
We were very quiet for the rest of the morning. I sat on the edge of the bed whilst she sat in the window or paced about the room. I already felt as if I was going to cry, my cheeks were hot and my jaw was aching.
"Are you going to leave me?" I asked in a hoarse voice.
She rubbed her brow, obviously thinking of what to say to me. She didn't want to hurt me, but she would have to at some point. "I don't want to," she said.
I knew what that meant. My heart sank at that knowing. I couldn't go back, but I had no money, I couldn't afford a plane ticket. I would be stranded, because I could not go with her. There was nothing I wanted back in Twin. I sobbed very silently, tears brewing and spilling down my cheeks. I didn't want her to see that, but she was gazing at me, her own bottom lip wobbling.
"Don't you need me anymore?" My voice had thinned completely with my tears.
Mio came closer to me, dropping to her knees in front of me, hands pressed on my knees. Her eyes were glossed over with her own impending tears. She said,
"Do you think I would do something this stupid if I didn't love you?"
I gazed at her, dumbfounded, and spoke, my voice laced with disbelief. "You love me?"
She was crying then, sniffing, and holding my knees."Yes, I love you. Idiot." Her hands came up to my cheeks and rested there. My tears bubbled and fell, dripping off of her wrist bone and collecting against the lengths of her fingers. "Do you love me?"
"You know I love you. You know I do," I said with a breathy laugh, leaning in to kiss her tear-streaked face. She laughed too; her kisses were placed clumsily and wetly, the taste of salt between our lips. I closed my arms around her, holding her to me, and letting her cry softly.
"Please don't leave me," I whispered into her hair.
"I don't want to, I won't. I won't leave you, Norah," she said, her voice making my chest hum.
"How will we keep going?" I asked.
She took a shaky breath in. "I've been paying through my card, just taking from what's already in my bank. Then my savings too. We're fine."
"What about Canada?"
"There, I'll have to open my mom's inheritance fund. It's enough, I think," she said uncertainly.
Guilt made my chest clench and ache. "Okay, new rules," I started, "crappy motels only, and stay multiple nights if it's part of an offer. Saving gas money; we can stay in towns a few days at a time, we have no destination, so we don't have to drive every day."
She nodded.
"Let's get out of here, today. Let's find a shit motel and stay there for a bit. Besides, I like this town. I wanna be by the beach for a bit longer," I said in a level voice, still slightly teary-eyed.
"Me too," she sniffled, hugging my waist tightly. "You know, you're so good for me. You keep me afloat."