Montauk by Nicola Harrison

Author:Nicola Harrison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

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When we sat back down he took up carving the wooden pocketknife again. I rested my head back against the wall and watched him, letting my eyes linger a fraction too long on his face, on the deep blue color of his eyes, and the left eyebrow that grew slightly different from the right, as if he’d gone over the handlebars as a kid and had a scar where the hair didn’t grow back quite right. I had a strange urge to reach over and touch it.

“What are you looking at?” he asked. “My raggedy hair? I know it needs a cut.”

“No, although, yes, you could do with a trim,” I said. “How did you get that scar on your eyebrow?”

“What scar?” He set the carving down on the floor and touched his brow.

“That one,” I said as I reached over and ran my thumb over the white skin.

He put his hand on my hand and held it there on his face for a moment, my palm resting on the side of his cheek. I felt a ripple run under my skin throughout my whole body, a longing to stay in that moment. Then he dropped his hand slowly, and I sat with my back against the wall.

“What are you hiding from?” he asked. “Anyone who wants to spend time up here is usually escaping something in real life.”

I shrugged.

“Come on. I’ve had rumrunners; I’ve had dogs; I’ve even had one village kid run out from school and hide out up here for days before we knew it. But I haven’t figured out what you’re running from yet.”

“Nothing,” I said quietly.

“So anyway, it’s from jumping out of the crib,” he said.

“What’s is?”

“The scar.” He pointed to his eyebrow. “I got it from jumping out of the crib. Apparently I used to jump and jump and jump as a baby, getting higher and higher and higher, and then I’d propel myself over the rails and land with a thud on the floor, never wanted to be caged in, I suppose.” He laughed.

“A wild one from the start.”

“That’s right. I’d cry until someone came and got me off the floor and put me back in. One day I catapulted myself right out onto a wooden rocking horse that was next to the crib, cut my forehead right open.” He rubbed the scar.

“And here you are,” I said. “You don’t feel caged in here?”

“Never,” he said. “With the ocean surrounding me, I feel free and at peace with the world.”

I nodded and in that moment I knew exactly what he meant.

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