Free At Last by Ella Stone

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 out here.”
    The woman chuckled and gave Susan the eye. “So you were talking to someone who’s not there?”
    Susan stood