Free Rebound by Michael Cain

clenching his teeth so hard it
hurt. Slowly he willed his breathing slower, and when he stepped
back he started to walk toward the glass French doors leading to
the beach.
    “I have to go,” Kevin
said as he pulled the doors open and left the room, not looking
back.
     
    * * * *
     
    What
have I done? That’s all Susan
could think as she stood in the middle of the hotel suite, looking
out onto the pure white sands of Cancun, watching Kevin walk away,
down the beach, and then slowly out of sight. What had she done?
    Good thing was she
wasn’t thinking about Mark or the wedding or her feelings anymore.
She was just plain horrified that she could’ve been so selfish, so
thoughtless, so cruel. He’d done all this for her, in her time of
need--and she had to face it, she was freaking pathetic with need
about then. And not only had she tried to seduce him against his
will, but then she threw his attraction for her, from seven long
years ago, right in his face, like he was some juvenile pervert
trying to cop a feel.
    When
in reality he’s the best friend I have in the world .
    Sorry, Liz.
    Susan could no longer
set one higher than the other. They both meant so much to her. And
she hadn’t realized until he’d walked out that door that he meant
the world to her. She couldn’t live without him. Not for a single
day. How could she be such a fool, trying to use him like that, and
just to dull her pain.
    She would make it up
to him.
    But how could
she?
    She’d apologize as
soon as he got back.
    But what if he didn’t
come back?
    “He’ll come back,”
Susan said.
    But there were planes
leaving the island on the hour, every hour. She wasn’t so sure he
really was coming back.
    Susan ran into the
bedroom, did a quick change, pulled on some sneakers, pulled her
hair back in a ponytail and threw some cold water on her face. She
tasted tequila on her breath and did the fastest brushing of her
teeth ever. She set out at a dead run in the direction Kevin had
gone. He was walking. Hopefully she could catch up by running.
    Of course, even
though she’d been a minor track star in high school, she hadn’t had
time to run since her sophomore year of college, a fact that hit
her as she lumbered over the sandy beach, finally having to stop
and catch her breath about a hundred yards in. But she kept
walking. She had to find him before a plane came and took him away
from her.
     
    * * * *
     
    Cancun looks
very small on a map of the world. Even smaller when you look at it
on a globe. But when you’re walking down one of its snow white
sandy beaches, it seems the beach goes on forever. For a while,
Susan started to think she’d fallen into an episode of The Twilight
Zone . At first there had been
lots of people on the beach, but as she walked, the crowds at the
water’s edge slowly faded, until she found herself tripping down a
deserted stretch of beach. And though it seemed she could see
forever in both directions, she couldn’t see Kevin
anywhere.
    Where the hell was
he? She had to apologize. She had to make it better.
    If she could find
him.
    She’d find him.
    But what if he wasn’t
walking on the beach? What if he took a turn to the road and hailed
a cab? He could be on a plane--a plane anywhere--by now.
    “He’s here, you
ignorant bitch!” Susan shouted at herself. “And I am going to find
him!”
    “I believe you,” a
woman’s deep voice said, floating through the tropical breeze like
the scent of orchids. “You don’t have to bite my head off about it,
though.”
    Susan turned to see a
thin woman who looked like she was in her seventies, her long white
hair pulled back in a braid, dressed in a short-sleeved biker-short
style wet suit, polishing a surfboard leaning against a giant palm
tree. Her skin was brown and deeply lined, yet radiant with pure
energy, as were her brown eyes, glowing with self-possession. And
her smile, wide and happy and white.
    “I’m sorry,” Susan
sputtered. “I didn’t know anyone was