She jumped out of her nap the moment she heard her uncle screaming.
Lia quickly sprung up out of bed and ran the short distance to the front door in time to see partially over her uncle's meaty shoulder, Michael holding a plastic ball in his hands, looking guilty yet confused as her uncle yelled relentlessly at him.
She speedily wedge herself in between them.
"Está bem!" she'd assured her uncle in his rage and pushed him back from the door. As her uncle took his shouting further into the house Lia face Michael in the doorway, dressed in a long shirt that just about covered her panties. Michael's eyes seems to struggle to stay upon her face when she finally addressed him.
"What are you doing here?" she snapped.
"I-I came to find you." He said looking guilty when she looked at him.
"Why?" she interrogated him, on edge now and hearing her uncle in a rage behind her. Michael looked stunned and at a loss for words.
"I hadn't seen you in a couple days, I was starting to worry." He said with concern and they both jumped when they heard a crash behind her. "I'm sorry I...I can go." He said and stepped nervously back from the door.
"Wait. Give me 5 minutes." She said and nodded toward the steps down to the beach. "I'm coming." She said.
20 minutes later she was storming out of the house, a thin blanket and roll of paper in hand, angered by the argument she'd just engaged in with her uncle.
When she approached, Michael was sitting on the steps gazing out at the ocean.
"Is everything okay?" he asked her when she finally nudged him by his shoulders and led the way down the steps. She was silent mostly. "Lia I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to upset anybody-"
"Did Ramel tell you to come here?" she asked.
"No. I just walked along the beach, the same way you always come and found you by myself." He said. She calmed a little now focused on their feet moving along the beach.
"Listen...you can't come here...to my house." she said. Michael nodded slowly, drinking in her words with compassionate eyes. "My uncle doesn't like visitors." She said.
"Okay...I understand, it won't happen again." They continued walking slowly in silence and then Michael turned to her. "How come you haven't been around lately?" he asked.
"I've been busy..." she shrugged vaguely. He looked down at his sandals, walking slowly.
"With your cousin?" he finally asked. She looked out at the ocean.
"No. Just busy." She said. They made it all the way out to the usual cabin, and she threw both the doors open. It was noon and the sun was blazing overhead. She quickly filled the space inside the cabin with her blanket, spreading it out gingerly on the floor. The whole time feeling Michael's eyes burning holes in her skin. Finally she stood up from her crouch, turning to face him.
"Lia. Come here." He extended a hand to her. She slowly descended the steps to meet with him again. He took her hand in his and squeezed it lightly, gazing into her eyes. "If you were in any kind of trouble, you'd tell me wouldn't you?" he asked. She chewed her lip turning her eyes over to the horizon. "Wouldn't you." He nudged her.
"I'm not in any trouble." She said simply.
"Even still, I want you know you can talk to me." He said. "You can always tell me if anything's going on at home...anything at all that you don't like I don't care what it is." he said, his eyes trained on her. "And I promise you, I won't judge you. You can think of me as your confidant." her brows knitted then.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Confidant? Hmm like...the person you trust enough to tell your deepest secrets to." He answered.
"Well...would you confidant to me?" she asked, the words rolling off of her tongue in her sweet accent, and a wide smile spread over his face in a way that completely melted her heart.
"Would you confide in me." He corrected her. "Yes, I would confide in you." He said simply.
"And what would you tell me?" she asked and Michael moved his eyes away from hers. A smaller smile arising on his face this time.
"Boy you sure know how to turn a question around." He chuckled a little and sunk his hands deep into the pockets of his shorts. "Oh boy...I'd probably let you know about my father you know...sometime he puts a lot of pressure on me and my brothers to do well." He nodded shrugging. "We make a lot of music back home, he wants us to be the best. We're a pretty big deal in America actually." He shrugged and ducked his head humbly. "That's why sometime I just love to come here to get away from it all. I used to come here with my mother when I was younger, do you remember that girl?" he asked licking his lips.
Lia nodded slowly.
"I remember your mother. She was a nice lady." She smiled but it quickly faded behind a screen of indifference. For Michael's mother as nice as she was, was not her mother and his glowing fond expression subtly reminded her of that.
"She liked to get away from him too. I guess in some ways it was a blessing that my uncle decided to move out here and uh..." He shrugged one shoulder indifferently. "mmm...I'm not really looking forward to going back, that's what I'd tell you." He finished. Her eyes squinted out at the shore.
Still Michaels piercing gaze was dissecting her closely.
"Well?" he said expectantly.
"What?"
"You have a confession?" He asked her.
"Maybe...one..." she said finally. Michael nodded with encouragement. "I...still don't know how to swim." She said. Michaels features softened and he took her by her hand.
"Girl, take them sandals off."
*
She'd found it odd even to herself that there hadn't been anywhere near as much resistance when learning to swim with Michael as opposed to Ramel. Half of her issue had been trusting Ramel enough to get in the water in the first place, the second layer of apprehension rested in the reality of being alone within the presence of a man, layered on top of the fear of being in the water at all. Lastly was her fear of looking stupid.
All of those phobias however, had been scooped lovingly into Michael's gentle embrace and nothing comforted her more than the silky feeling of his bare abs brushing against her arm as he held her up in the water. His voice had soothingly uttered away the self-doubt replacing them with kind instructions and the whole time he held her close, taking her under his wing with care and transparency and a giggle and a smile that could make the hardest of women crumble into a girlish pulp.
"I've got you." The words had soothed her senses while he held onto her, allowing her to float above the surface. "All you gotta do is trust me..." he'd said.
It had taken some time, maybe an hour or so before she finally let go of all of the tension she was experiencing and in the same second, her body became light and the water carried her upon it like a weightless leaf above the surface.
"I'm doing it!" She'd screamed with delight her eyes remained clenched shut as she gasped.
"See, I knew you could do it!" Michael encouraged her and when she got too excited to stay up in the water, he'd straightened up by placing his hands firmly on her waist while she held onto his neck for support. Lia smiled and opened one eye. His eyes in that moment seemed consumed by hers, and darted over her features at the speed of light.
"Learning to float is the first step, I'm proud of you." He'd said, flashing his teeth she smiled back aware of the sudden fluttering in her stomach. "Can we go back now?" She asked. He'd taken her hand and led her out of the water again and onto the safety of the shore. He himself ventured back into the water a little while longer, making funny faces at her as she dried off on the shore.
For a moment in the silence she had time to truly think about her life and had felt the eclipsing sensation when she realised that soon her life would be void of any joy or smiles or goofy expressions. Michael would in a couple days be gone, and his youthful soul would go with him.
"Michael!" She called out to him from where she sad on the sand. He'd whipped his head around to face her, his hair limp with the weight of the water. "Come." She'd said and at her request he'd gone back up onto land. She'd felt her anxiety go down as her drew nearer to her and further from the unpredictable waters.
He flopped down beside her, leaning back and staring out at the tide as it drew therapeutically in and out again revealing soft moist sand under it.
"This is wonderful." He said and she smiled a little.
"Michael...there is something else I want to tell you..." she said quietly, and Michael turned his face slowly to her. "I don't want you to go home." She said. He took her hand in his and kissed the back of it softly.
"Don't worry, I'll be back." He said in a way that was carefree and sounded truthful but who knew what would happen during their time away from each other.
"Are you sure?"
Michael raised a brow.
"Sure I will!" He said. "I love Brazil. It's a beautiful place, and what kind of a man would I be to leave my favourite girl here all by herself huh?" He'd asked. She felt another smile emerge right before the self-doubt began to creep back in.
"What about America? You don't have a favourite girl there too?" she raised a brow. He chuckled.
"No I don't."
"...I wish I could go with you..." she confessed in a whisper under her breath.
"With me? Why would you want to? Brazil is paradise." He said enthusiastically and in that moment when she looked and saw the sincerity in his eyes, she truly for the first time understood that they were not the same at all and did not share the same outlook.
This to him was heaven.
What he saw through his eyes was a dream.
It was the rose-coloured perspective from a tourist, looking in from the outside and waving.
Tourists always talked about brazil in this way, about all of the grand and beautiful things they could see because that was their reality. A superficial fantasy of a perfect beach with sunshine almost every day.
She however knew the real brazil, the way it churned and spun like a machine. Offloading men from all regions of the world to try to have their way. How it looked from the inside was far from the paradise Michael described.
They stayed in silence a while, looking at the wrinkled ocean top.
Lia's breaths slowly deepened and her throat threatened to close around the shuddering air travelling down into her gradually tightening lungs. The feeling of the sky shrinking down on her was heavy and unpleasant.
She felt tears coming well before they fell out of her eyes as Michael's words, more painful upon reflection, almost served as a swift invalidation of her current life. Was she being ungrateful for her life? Were there people worse off than her? Did Michael even see the real her when he looked at her? Could he not see the pain she was experiencing? Or did he just not want to see it because it wasn't beautiful like everything else in his world?
A tear finally fell off the tip of her nose, and soon she felt Michaels hand firmly grasp hers. A long silence passed in which she simply let the tears spill over. Years of suppressing them and now finally she was awarded some release, unfortunately in the presence of Michael.
Finally she snivelled hard and Michael rubbed her back.
"It's okay Lia. I'll come back I promise." He said doing his best to comfort her. Lia took a deep breath in.
Why was she so upset, it's not like he was obliged to be completely honest with her anyway? It wasn't as if she had been very honest and open with him.
Besides that, it probably wouldn't matter anyway for she was just a small slice of his real life which existed back in America. In truth she knew nothing about the man he really was outside of these brief summer getaways.
It was all just a perfect illusion that existed in both of their minds.
This friendship. This moment.
Lia quickly wiped her eyes and stood up, turning her back on Michael as she returned to the cabin leaving him alone on the shore.
**
Michael had refused to let her sleep in the cabin by herself once he found out about the predicament she was in with her uncle.
She'd been kicked out, supposedly for good this time now that she had broken his one and only house rule.
He profusely insisted she go back with him to Ramel's place but she adamantly refused. Remembering how Ramel had ignored her after he'd picked her up all those nights ago, she presumed because she had decided to crawl into Michael's bed that night and not his.
She still remembered the awkward exchange as she'd asked where Michael was sleeping and he had explicitly told her not to bother Michael or his brothers.
Then moments later as Ramel changed out of his clothes and got ready for bed she hastily excused herself to the bathroom, completely disregarding Ramel's instruction, and quietly entered Michael's room to snuggle in with him instead.
For some reason she felt much safer about the prospect of being in his arms than she ever imagined she would have felt laying beside Ramel.
After unsuccessfully persuading her to go with him, Michael had gone back to his cousin's house on his own and Lia had let her head fall into her hands raking her chipped nails through her hair, dreading life and her current predicament. Angry at her uncle.
Wandering, if a storm were to come and too much rain were to leak through the roof of the cabin, whether she could stay with Damiáo for a few days. Bitterly recalling that Michael would be leaving in two days. She gave a heavy exhale of distress.
"You crying again?" Her head shot up from her palms. Michael's brown skin glittered in the evening sun. Now holding in his arms a thin comforter. His eyes were deep and now awash with concern. She sniffed and quickly wiped at her eyes.
"No."
He ascended the steps and threw his duvet down onto the ground next to hers
"What are you doing?" She asked stuffily, observing his actions closely. "Y-You can't stay here." She said worried that she would not be able to escape and go to work with Michael around all night. He suddenly stopped, his lanky form hovering over her, looking almost agitated.
"I only wanted to watch the sunset." He said. She fell silent and he sat down beside her. "Is that okay with you bossy?" He asked raising a brow. She chewed at her thumb but remained quiet, gazing out with him. They stayed calm and quiet as the sun disappeared behind the ocean for the day.
"What happened Lia...you used to be so happy when we were younger." He said, staring out at the ocean. She couldn't fight the next round of tears now that cascaded down her face. She skirted back wiping at her eyes, not wanting him to see her cry this much.
He turned back and looked over his shoulder when he noticed that she wasn't at his side anymore. "I really wish you would just open up tell me what's on your mind." He said with a little frustration behind it this time. He climbed into the cabin with her and sat on the opposing side atop his own comforter.
She shuddered looking into his deep eyes.
"You can't keep things bottled up Lia. They have to come out some way." He said. She sighed.
"I'm only crying because...my father used to watch the sunset with me..." she said, side stepping the truth somewhat, swallowing the huge bump in her throat. Then she shook her head placing a barrier up between them yet again but Michael quickly grabbed her hand urging her to continue. "H-he built this cabin...you know..." She rambled on.
"I know." Michael answered. "You'd never stop telling me about it when you were little. It drove me insane because I always wished my dad would do something like that for me." Michael vented for a moment in deep thought then looked up at Lia again. "So where is he now?" Lia shrugged.
"6 feet in the ground somewhere." Michaels eyes were as steely as hers now. "he was good to me...but he wasn't a good person. He lied, stole, even killed for money. But he gave it to my mother and me...and my uncle." She sighed. Michael interlocked his fingers with hers and lay down facing her, listening to her story.
"I was sitting right here when they shot him, I was waiting for him. He promised to be home to watch the sunset with me but he never came back" Lina swallowed thickly. "...my mother wouldn't let me see his body after they shot him. I heard what her and my uncle said about my father. That he had too many wounds...and that when he died, he was unrecognizable." Fresh tears revealed themselves but she didn't allow herself to get caught up in them. She breathed evenly and held Michael's hand tighter. "He did everything he could. he wanted to get us out of brazil. And now that he's gone, I see why. I would do anything to get out too." She said and avoided Michael's eyes. He sighed.
"Does your uncle want to leave?"
Lia scoffed.
"That pig doesn't want to do anything." She said venomously and Michael appeared taken aback by her comment. "he lived off my father's back like a leech when he was alive. He let him go out and die and he did nothing about it." She said suddenly electric with hate. "and once he died..." she bit her tongue and blinked rapidly. She shook her head. "my mother couldn't live without my father and...he took advantage of that. He was the closest thing to my father." She rubbed her nose and tried to keep calm. "That's why I can never respect him, not really." Michael swallowed, assessing her face.
"Boy...that's a lot of stuff you've been going through Lia." He entwined his hands more with hers. "But...God never puts more on your plate than you can handle. It means you're a very strong person." He said. Lia gazed at him, trying to find comfort in his words. Desperate to believe them. "You know I'll always be here for you, and if you ever want to get out of your uncle's place then I'm sure Ramel would be happy to have you at his place for a while." He said. Lia's eyes lowered from his face for she knew the truth.
Ramel would want nothing to do with her or her lifestyle in his home. It was probably the reason why he'd told the rest of his boy cousins that she'd vanished off the face of the earth, rather than invite her over to see them. She wasn't even friend material, clearly. Ramel was likely hoping they wouldn't come looking down at the beach when he was teaching her to swim and find him with her. Because he was ashamed of her.
For all she knew so was Michael.
She coiled away slightly but noticeably enough for Michael to shift himself closer to her and extend an arm out to her.
"Come here menina." He pulled her back in and she, reluctantly at first, warmed up to his soothing embrace. She felt her soul become lighter as he cupped her and her burdens in his arms and bared with her the weight, so willingly and without complaint. She'd breathed in his soft soapy scent. He'd been using Ramel's island soap, that she could tell, but it was layered with something else too. Something unique to only Michael.
"I can talk to Ramel if you want me to." He said and she shook her head softly.
"No. I made it this far on my own."
"Yeah but if things are bad..."
"Michael really, I just want to keep this conversation between us." She said. His large deep eyes met hers and then he nodded once and resolutely.
"Okay. Then we will keep it between us." He agreed. He lay on his back glancing at the wall and then he sat up. "What's this Lia?" he asked picking up the rolled up poster that she had bought from the house with her. Lia too sat up.
"Jorge Ben." She said and he unravelled it. He peered at the photo and she witnessed the corners of his mouth upturn slightly.
"What is he, a musician?" he said smugly.
"Of course! He is my favourite singer, I hang him on my bedroom wall. He keeps me company." She said and witnessed Michael staring blankly at the page.
"Oh that's nice." he mumbled disinterestedly before he rolled up the paper again and placed it back down beside him.
"I bought it so I could hang it in here. Will you put it up for me?" she asked biting the skin of her thumb. She witnessed Michael's eyes slowly slide over to her then double take when he realised that she was talking to him.
"Me? Oh...umm...I don't have any nails or tape." He said simply and lay back down. Lia sensed his resistance and didn't push it.
Then slowly but surely, to the sound of sweeping waves, they both fell asleep in the cabin.