Sick of Losing Soulmates

NOTE from the Gardener: The name of this story is inspired by a song of the same name by Dodie, which played on repeat during its writing. Thank you to Miss Ladybugfor her wonderful first-draft reading and editing.

The Kedah night clung to Samara, like a coat of thick, wet paint. It was a combination of the sweltering, almost underwater moisture in the air around her, and the beads of sweat which had broken loose from around her forehead and now made long, damp tracks down either side of her cheeks and hairline toward her linen blouse.

She wanted to sleep, but she didn't. Couldn't. She knew that the moment her body touched the sheets of her pull-out bed, they would be soaked through with sweat. In Chicago, where she came from, the rain usually meant a breaking of the heat; at the very least, a lessening, a dissipation. Not here, in Malaysia. She had booked an air-bnb in the Kota Kuala Muda region for three weeks, of which she had only passed ten days. It was removed from any of the main areas, down a long trail that vaguely followed the shore from where the Merbok River flowed out through the countryside, separating Merbok from its larger neighbour in Sungai Petani, out to meet the enormous, tidal-washed Straits of Malacca.

No--here, the heat was a constant, hated companion. The electrical whirring of fans did nothing to it, only washing the sluggish air in waves around her. Anything in the house made of wood; walls, bookshelves, cupboard, were all so swollen with moisture that their lined edges wept. It looked as if the house were crying, or sweating. In that way, it matched Samara perfectly. Raising one hand to the bottom of her throat, she scratched at the pool of sweat that had formed there, between the peaks of her shirt collar. Her nails, cut short as they were, stung hollowly as they left red lines against her sweat-slick skin.

She should burn the letter. Even the thought of lighting a fire was enough to make her already queasy stomach turn over, but she swallowed against the nausea of it. She should burn the letter. It had been sent a week ago, and arrived yesterday. She had recognized the handwriting on its front immediately, the careful lines now slightly smudged and hazy. She had read the letter, once quickly--already knowing what it would say, and the second time slowly, lingering in the mixture of disappointment and hurt. Then she had slipped the letter back into its envelope. The paper had grown soft during the humid day, and folded like cloth between her fingers.

Dear Sam, the letter began, I know you won't be happy with this. I've been offered a full-time position at the University and there's interviews for it that need to be done. I would love to come join you in Malaysia. Maybe next time? I know you've been planning this for us for ages and I'm really sorry. I'm really really sorry. We'll chat when you get home. Last time, I promise. --Vee

She glanced away from the still-closed letter. She'd read it so many times, that day, that she thought she could recite it with her eyes closed. It wasn't fair, she knew. The whole thing wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for her to be left stranded on a foreign island, it wasn't fair for Veronica to have cancelled, and it wasn't fair of her to feel the deep, burning tightness of resentment at the bottom of her stomach. The first couple of times, she hadn't--it had only been the lighter pang of disappointment. But too many letters, too many apologies, too much absence, now built like bile at the back of her throat.

Too many. She stared out into the darkness beyond her veranda, feeling the slight sway of the wooden swing beneath her as she set the letter down on the slats. It was suspended to the unstable roof with two lengths of rope. If the whole thing were to split in the center and come collapsing down over Samara, in that moment, she wasn't sure that she would care. The only thing to hold back the overwhelming darkness were two halos of light, which came from the globed bulbs beside either door. They wavered unsteadily, like lights underwater. Every so often, the shadow of a larger bug made one flicker. She could hear the flick and patter as they did a jumping dance over the slightly smoky glass. Smaller insects burned themselves on the sixty-watt bulbs. She couldn't see them now, in the dimmer light beneath the glow, but she knew that in the morning she'd find the husks of them; crisped and curled, laying on the heat-warped boards. The tiny forms of mosquitos and mayflies broken by the iridescent, gasoline-like carapaces of jewel beetles.

For another long moment she sat there, unmoving. Only one thumb disturbed her stillness, pulling at the top corner of the envelope until it had gone nearly round and bent. No--she wouldn't burn the letter. Like everything else around here, it deserved to be drowned. Picking herself up from the swinging bench, feeling it bump against the back of her knees, Samara pulled her phone from her back pocket and replaced it with the letter. It was only a ten minute walk to the water. She knew it wouldn't, of course, but some small thought at the back of Samara's mind hoped that the letter might make it all the way back to Chicago. That Veronica might find it, the writing illegible but for a few streaks of black on the waterlogged white, washed up on a trash-littered beach. Just enough left for her to recognize it as her own.

It was where it belonged. There, or at the very bottom of the ocean. Raising her phone, Samara clicked the flashlight icon. Immediately, the night became brighter--only in a single line in front of her. Immediately, small bugs began to flick around her hand, searching for the source of this new streak of daylight. Her shoed feet crunched slightly on the gravel that had been strewn over the dirt path in front of her house, as she searched for the small roadway that led down to the water.

She found it a moment later. Around her, the night was alive with noise. The chirping of insects, the calls of night-birds, the sound of her footsteps and that of her breathing. In the trees to her right, far off, something cooed. But mostly, it was the heat that made noise. Most people don't realize, until they've experience it, that it does that. Like a low, steady thrum behind the back of her ears, inside of her skull--like the lowest string of a bass guitar being pulled. An insistent, throbbing noise that became pressure over time.

She wasn't as young as she'd once been, but a lifetime of hiking and swimming had kept Samara in a shape that most people would have found enviable. Beneath the green linen of her pants and the lighter, white-grey linen of her summer blouse, her limbs were long and limber. Not thin, the way she had been when she was younger, but like rope. Finely woven and strong. A sweep of blonde hair hung behind her, tied in place by an elastic band. It swung from one shoulder to another as she walked through the darkness, following the beam of her flashlight. Next month, she'd be thirty-six.

It was the music, which first caught her attention. Almost too low to hear, but rising gradually the closer she came to the rusted gate at the end of the pathway. Tinny. Played from a small speaker, dissipating quickly into the openness of the night around it. She could also hear the sound of water, splashing against rocks. Not like waves; too uneven for that, too... living. Not the sound of water, but the sound of something in it.

There was something more strange than the music, though; more than the fact that somebody was playing it, shortly before midnight, at what she had assumed was a perpetually empty beach. It was American. She recognized the notes of Bon Jovi's Never Say Goodbye, drifting through the humid air.

Ducking under the chain-locked gate, Samara moved slowly toward the edge of the water. Here, the hanging trees pulled back and the grass rose for a moment before descending steeply down to a long, narrow stretch of beach. It was untended, more rock than sand, and shallow. She found the source of the music, before the person who had placed it there. A grey plastic speaker, propped between two rocks. A small black circle sat on top of it. Samara recognized it immediately, as something that she used to keep in her car; a disc case.

Who the hell is still listening to music on CDs? She wondered.

She barely noticed the stack of clothes laying on the sandy grass beside it.

Her question was answered a moment later. Small rocks scattered under the bottom of her feet, sand squelching, as she made her way to the shoreline. In this area, more rocky than others, the shore dipped down steeply to make a half-bowl in the side of the shoreline. As she breathed, Samara could smell the salt from the water. It tingled against the openings of her nose. Even here, there was no breeze to be felt, and the heat eased only slightly.

"Hello?" She called into the darkness. The water was illuminated only slightly, a vague white-green as the weak Malaysian moonlight fell over it. The color of milky tea.

"Uh--hullo," a voice called back, from the water. It came from further down the shore than she had expected, coming back to her from around a curve in the stacked-up rocks. The voice was unmistakably masculine, but young sounding. She thought she could catch the hint of an accent, in the single word; but where, she couldn't place. Not Malaysian, though. At least, she didn't think so.

That was confirmed a moment later. She saw an arm, connected to broad shoulders, pull itself around the outcrop. He floated on his side, his body hidden beneath the water. All she saw, at first, was a shadow of short-shaved dark hair and a white-skinned face of planes and angles. She couldn't be sure, but she thought he could be remarkably handsome. She saw the face tilt toward her, and she raised a hand in greeting.

"Hey, I'm--Sam." She used the short form of her name.

"Carter," the voice called back to her from below. He was treading water now, about ten yards from shore. It raised his shoulders slightly, giving her the impression of steeply sloped collarbones and an angular neck. She had been right. He was younger than she was, unmistakably; handsome in an almost militaristic way. Larger than her, as well, but with a face that told her his body, beneath the water, was leanly muscular.

"Mind if I join you, Carter?" Her voice carried around the bowl of rock.

"Uh--" he paused, and Samara could hear the hesitation in his voice, "No, sure. Of course. I'm just, not--" he hesitated once more, and only then did she realize the source of it. Under the water, he was naked. And of course he was, he hadn't been expecting to see anybody else here; no more than she had been.

Well, fair's fair.

Bending down, she unhooked the small clasp at the front of her pants. Folding them carefully, she left them a couple of feet in front of the speaker, on a slightly larger rock that jutted up from the sand. Her shirt followed, the fabric sticking to her body as she worked it up from her hips and over the line of her shoulders. It tugged the base of her ponytail up, pulling at the back of her head before she managed to get it off. It went on top of her pants. She hadn't been wearing a bra--not in this heat. She wasn't facing him, so she couldn't be sure whether Carter was watching her. That thought sent a small flush of warmth down the middle of her body, beginning at the bottom of her neck and ending just above her stomach. As gracefully as she could, while balancing on the rocky sand of the beach, she worked her underwear down her legs. They'd been white, and plain, but sweat had made them go nearly translucent.

Only when she turned to enter the water did she see that Carter wasn't watching her. Could have been. Might have been. But wasn't, now. He floated on his back, staring up at the sky overhead. Samara walked into the water, letting it rise around the top of her thighs before she stretched her arms above her head and dove the rest of the way. The water wasn't cool--at any other point she would have found it almost tepid, but compared to the air it was like stepping inside of a fridge. She breathed deeply as she resurfaced, kicking with her legs as she worked the elastic out of her hair with her fingers. She let it roll tightly down her wrist.

She exhaled deeply, tasting the unmistakable tang of salt in the small droplets of water that clung to her face and lips. Only then did Carter turn to face her once more, arms going beneath the water as he straightened.

"Feel better?" He asked. They were still separated by the space of about seven meters.

"It feels amazing," Samara dove once more, resurfacing a couple of feet closer to the young man. She wiped the water from her face and pulled her hair back with both hands before continuing, "Is that a hint of an accent, I hear?"

"Aussie," he replied, "My parents are from Port Hedland. We moved to Wisconsin when I was fifteen, so it's a bit of a mixed bag."

"Small world," Samantha shook her head, "I'm from Chicago."

"No shit," his voice phrased it as a question, "Small world indeed. What brings you here, Sam?"

She couldn't be sure, from the phrasing of his question, whether he meant Malaysia or the beach. She decided to answer both.

"I was trying to patch things up with a girlfriend... ex-girlfriend, I suppose. As of yesterday," she cleared the knot that came, unwanted, to the back of her throat at that first-time admission, "Needed to clear my head."

Instead of reacting with surprise, Carter instead leaned back into the water and stared up at the sky. Behind the darkness, it was nearly the same color as the water--somewhere between mottled green and navy blue. The color of old dish detergent. Small stars speckled the darkness, which seemed to multiply the longer that Samara stared at them.

"Same reason?" She asked, not knowing where the question came from.

"No--" he said, a bit too quickly. Then, slowing his words, went on, "Well, maybe. She's off to the University of Idaho. Didn't think long-distance would work." She could see the ripples as his shrug disturbed the water around his shoulders, "Just life, I guess."

"Just life," Samara nodded in agreement, speaking almost to herself. She didn't bother to ask who she was, in Carter's story. She could tell that they'd drifted closer together, not by sight, but by the closeness of his voice; they were now separated by a little under three meters.

"University," she raised her head to glance at the young man, "what a time. If you don't mind me asking, how old are you, Carter?"

"Twenty-four," he didn't seem taken aback by the question, "She is--was--still is, I suppose, twenty-two. We took a couple of years off to travel, and it turned into a couple more, and then... Well, she's ready to go back to school. I guess I'm just not, yet."

"Not going to follow her there?"

He shook his head, "No--I don't know. Not yet. Maybe one day. Maybe I would have, but she didn't ask..."

Samara knew, from the sound of Carter's answer and how it trailed off, what the story was. She didn't need to ask anything more. She'd lived that story before. Was living that story, maybe. He loved her, and sometimes the mysterious she loved him too; sometimes, at the convenient times and in the convenient places. The cruelest thing you could do to another person, she thought. Loving them sometimes. In her chest, she felt a small knot of pity being tugged, like a rope, in opposite directions.

She knew her emotions were heightened, a bit raw, because she felt the sudden desire to cry. It was born from Carter's words, but she knew that wasn't the source of it; that was the letter. The slow coming-apart of the angry façade she'd been putting up over the last twenty-four hours. Ducking beneath the water, she allowed herself a single exhale; nearly a sob, before resurfacing. She hoped Carter would take the wetness of her cheeks as coming from the ocean water. It was. Mostly.

"I hope you're alright with Bon Jovi," he nodded toward the shore as she came back up for air, "I've got..." he hesitated, and Samantha looked at him, a bit puzzled. It wasn't until she saw a slight flush in the planes of his cheeks that she understood, "It's uh... one of their albums."

A layer of her sadness pulled back, and Samara almost found herself laughing.

"Which album is that, again?"

Carter cleared his throat, casting a long-suffering look in her direction. He obviously knew the answer. Samara didn't, but based on his reaction she had been trying to come up with names in her head. The only two she knew, by this particular band, were their title album and 2020.

"Slippery When Wet," Carter answered, a bit more quietly than he had been speaking previously.

Samara laughed, letting the sound leave her properly this time. She treaded water, waving her hands beneath the surface to keep herself floating. Now that they were closer, she could make out a wavering reflection of Carter's body, beneath the water. She was sure that he could do the same with hers, if he chose to. They both looked paler than they would have, above the water. She'd only seen light and color like that, before Malaysia, in the bottom of night-lit pools in friends' backyards.

"How long have you been here, Carter?" She asked.

"About a month," he'd begun a slow paddle back to the shore, and she saw the dipped-in impression of a chest as he lay on his back, letting the waves do most of the work, "I'd planned to leave for Thailand, but now... I'm not sure. Maybe back to Wisconsin. Maybe." Against the waterline, his shoulders moved in a shrug. He glanced at her, "How about you?"

"Ten days. I'm leaving for Bhiwandi in a couple of days. My girlfriend always wanted to see Mumbai. She loves elephants..." Samara closed her eyes against the stars, "Guess it doesn't really matter, now."

"Shit," Carter said softly, "Come with me."

She raised her head, feet dipping deeper into the current as she glanced at him over the slowly-rolling waves. One dark brown eye dropped in a quick, conspiratorial wink, "I've got a bottle of High West. Seems like you could use a drink as much as I could."

Samara followed the young man, slightly slower. She was surprised, when he reached the beach. Instead of being embarrassed, he simply stood out of the water and walked forward, to where his clothes had been piled next to the speaker. She saw the bare broadness of his back. For a moment, she hesitated--after all, he hadn't exactly invited her to watch him. But he knew that she was there, and he gave no sign of being uncomfortable with his nakedness in front of her.

And he looked good.

The thought made her grin, treading water. Sure, he was young. But his body was a collection of finely-toned lines; from the slightly curved plain of his back, down to where his hips dimpled inward as they met the cheeks of his bum. He dripped water onto the sand, picking up a towel and pulling it over his short-cropped hair for a moment before wrapping it around his waist. Pulling on a tee-shirt, he seated himself on the rocky knoll. In the moonlight, she saw a glass bottle appear. About the length of his forearm.

"Coming?" He held the rye up.

"Gonna watch?"

"Right," he lay backward, raising an arm and wrapping it over his eyes so that his nose was buried in the crook of his elbow, "Sorry."

Samara stepped out of the water, feeling the small stones shift under her feet. Her blonde hair hung wetly down her back, and she squeezed it in her hands as she made her way up the beach. Stopping beside her own clothes, about ten feet away from the young man, she paused.

"Mind if I borrow your towel?" She asked, "Forgot one."

"Uh, yeah--" he sat up, still holding his arm over his eyes, "One second."