Sneak Peek: Memories by Moonlight

Another sneak peek, from later in the "Julia's Story" scene - I'd post the whole scene, but don't feel it's quite ready yet. Another editorial pass, and I'll post it next week Wednesday.

After a brief but intense relationship with David Saunders, he dumps her and her world falls apart. Returning home, she has the following melancholy moment:

***

            Later that night, she fled the lonely silence of her house to walk alone along the gravel path leading down to the lakeshore. As a child, she remembered riding her bike down to the tiny cove. It was a popular local spot for swimming, other than those years of algae bloom closing the lake, but she had pleasant memories of youthful splashing, jumping from the high rocks, shrieking as she plunged into icy waters whose depths only warmed on the hottest of summer weeks.

            Julia sat on one of the many rough stone stabs lining the shore. She leaned back against a tree, the bark rough to her skin. She stared out across a lake shimmering with moonlight. Lighting the first of those old joints, she inhaled and coughed, then eased into both the habit and the melancholy buzz that followed. Mulling over her father’s words, she listened as water lapped gently against the shore.

            A gaggle of surreptitious giggles interrupted. A pair of girls, and then a single boy darted through dappled patches of moonlight. The was a flurry of shadowy undressing, laughs and a tumble as bikini top and swim trunks were cast aside, and hurried splashes as the three dashed naked into the water. Teenagers, by the sound of their voices, and from her silent seat she watched in interrupted flashes of light as water sparkled like diamonds off their youthful skin.

            They laughed and splashed, then went silent. A few whispered words, slow wet sounds, and another giggle. Soon after, the boy left the water. Then a glimpse of the two girls, their youthful bodies pressed together in an embrace, midnight curves and silhouettes twirling slowly in the lake, long hair drawing dark lines in the water. Eventually, they pulled apart and not long after, softly padded out onto the rocky lakeside, wringing out their hair. They went to retrieve their bikinis, then shrieked in outrage as they realised the boy had taken them. A distant laugh, and the girls ran after it.

            Silence resumed. Julia stubbed out the last of her joint. She remained alone, suffused with dull resentment and heavy sickness twisting her stomach.

            Never before or since had she felt like such an absolute failure. The night faded to a dull gray, the sun rose, and she rose with it and returned home.

            The year that followed was an intense and dark year, from which she emerged—angry. With everything but especially with the man who used her up and discarded her like a fruit peel whose meat has been consumed. Julia saw as little of her father as was feasible, the two floating around the large family home like two corks in a bucket of water, occasionally bumping into each other but mostly keeping apart. He made tentative efforts to get her to talk, to let go of her anger; but he was always too… gentle, too soft; she despised his weakness and lack of persistence.

            Eventually, she moved beyond the pain and bitterness and reassembled her life. She left home, started over, began a new career, made new friends, took new lovers, and rediscover who she was and what she could be. It was all built on a foundation of anger and hurt and loss, because she never forgot and though it seemed impossible, Julia knew—even if she eventually learned to not admit it to herself—that more than anything she wanted revenge on the man who hurt her so deeply.

            She wanted justice. She needed to believe that such a thing as fairness existed in the world even if her life had taught her that is didn’t. She wanted to know that a man like David Saunders could be punished for his cruelty.

            Ten years passed. One windy June evening after work, she found herself standing in a bathroom stall at a bar called Noir, looking down in disbelief at a girl called Cindy. This girl was drunk and desperate. Inexplicably, she also seemed to be the same man who hurt her so badly long ago. Younger, blonde—female!—with tits and full lips and wearing a short pleated skirt but gazing up at her with beautiful green eyes that seemed impossibly recognizable, the curve of the lips and audacious arrogance of the girl’s expression briefly so achingly familiar it stole Julia’s breath away. She—he?—slurred her name, called her ‘Little Caesar’, giggled, pushed a finger to her lips and shushed theatrically.

            “It’s me,” the girl, somehow her ex-boyfriend, hissed drunkenly, “David,” before slumping into Julia’s arms. “Shh—don’t tell anyone!”