Soul Tides

SEVEN || bad guy.

Back at her house, Dylan had stayed up in case she got a call from Mara. Her mother had long gone to sleep so she propped herself up in the built-in daybed within the bay window. Curling up with an old book of poems, she tried to immerse herself in their words, but found her eyes wandering out the windows that surrounded her.

From her spot on the daybed, she had a full view of the front of the house facing south, Mara's cottage to the east, and the great lake to the north. Sitting with her back to the lake, she glanced out every few minutes to see if Mara had made it home safely, but the driveway remained empty and the dirt road ahead was void of any vehicle.

A gentle breeze swept through the open window behind Dylan, wrapping around her bare shoulders and down her arms like a haunting embrace of a past lover, both warm and chilling at the same time. Although subdued, the gust had flipped the pages of the book in Dylan's hands, letting loose a ripped fragment of a Rilke poem that fell to the floor.

In how many foreign cities
did you speak of your lonely nights
and those of mine?
Are you being played by hundreds? Or by one?
Do in all great cities men exist
who tormented and in deep despair
would have sought the river but for you?
And why does your playing always reach me?
Why is it that I am always neighbor
to those lost ones who are forced to sing and to say:
Life is infinitely heavier
than the heaviness of all things.

Dylan checked her phone again, but found no new notifications, aside from a racy text she was choosing to ignore from the friend she'd met earlier for dinner. Looking again at the poem that fell out, she safely tucked it back into the book.

It was just after one in the morning and another fifty minutes until closing time at the bar, but Dylan was prepared to wait all night if needed. Her body was accustomed to working late hours, and the idea of going to sleep was always a dreaded one for her. On the rare occasion she wasn't working at the hospital or lab, her night routine was full of tossing and turning, fighting anxieties and memories in her head.

But last night, the heaviness she bore seemed to lift from her body. Whether it was due to the fresh air from the lake or being out of the city in general, she couldn't be sure. What she did know was that she fell into enough of a deep sleep that by morning, she'd unintendedly woken up with her arms and legs around the young woman she had just met.

As Dylan recalled her morning, headlights from a loud diesel truck washed over the hill and flooded the valley, lighting up the dirt road down to Mara's driveway. Two car door slams, and a giggling, wasted Mara led Jackson into her cottage.

The bedroom light came on and Dylan watched their two silhouetted bodies kiss as they moved between the windows in her room. Music turned on suddenly, echoing crude lyrics out through the night, and the pair made their way to the deck, falling all over each other.

Jackson leaned up against the back railing and began unfastening his belt as Mara let her jumpsuit drop to her ankles. Sliding his zipper down, she slipped her hand into his boxer briefs and knelt down. Dylan quickly turned away to return her books to the shelf, but found herself glimpsing out through the window once more after hearing Jackson yell for Mara in what sounded like aggravation rather than pleasure. Buckling his belt, he chased after her down the steps as she slipped into the water.

She's not your problem tonight, Dylan tried to convince herself. Turning away again, she folded the white throw blanket and rearranged the pillows, listening as Jackson continued to call for Mara.

Down on the beach, Jackson reluctantly stepped out of his boots and into the shallows.

"This isn't funny, Mara. Where are you?" Splashing around in irritation, he waded deeper. "We have some unfinished business that I'd really like to take care of." He dove under the surface and tried to look and feel around for her, but it was impossible in the dark. All he could feel was the lake grass below, tickling the bottom of his feet.