With Sand on Your Toes

 

By KatiKat

 

Sitting down on the sloping beach, Kevin dropped his shoes and backpack on the ground and buried his toes into the warm sand. It felt so good, like coming home, feeling the golden grains wash over his cold skin. He usually felt cold unless on the beach or in the salty water, amongst the waves. The waves...

 

Kevin looked out at the vast ocean, the red sun kissing it as it dropped slowly below the horizon. The waves crashed against the shore, high tide eating away the space where the beach-goers usually laid out their sun tanned bodies. The water beckoned him, called him, almost reached out to him tempting him with its depth and warmth.

 

He felt its strong pull and it was hard to resist. Usually, he would tear the clothes from his body and dive in, let the water carry him away, beyond the safe distance to land other swimmers usually kept. But today, today, he had other things on his mind that allowed him to resist the sea.

 

Digging in his pocket, Kevin pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open. His thumb hesitated only a second above the keypad, then pressed a series of buttons, putting together a number he never used, never wrote down but still remembered, keeping it safely tucked away in the part of his brain that belonged only to Toby, the safe place to where he fled when things became unbearable.

 

The number shining on the display, his thumb hovered over the last button. Heart hammering in his chest, he finally touched it only fleetingly, though the number engaged immediately. Kevin pressed the cell phone to his ear, the air unable to pass his constricted throat.

 

It rang and rang and rang and with every tone his heart-rate picked up and he felt closer to tears. Pressing the heel of his right palm to his forehead he let the phone ring and ring because for him, there was no other option. If Toby didn't pick up...

 

Finally a click. "Yes, Toby here."

 

The smooth voice stole the rest of the air from Kevin's lungs, leaving him unable to speak.

 

"Hello? Anybody there?" A bit of impatience in the tone. "Look, buddy, if this is a prank-"

 

"Toby." He wasn't even aware that the name had been sitting on the tip of his tongue, so close to his lips.

 

Silence, a stunned reaction from the man on the other end of the virtual wire. "Kevin?" Toby breathed out as if not believing his own ears. "Kevin, is that you?" When met only with silence, he continued: "Kevin, talk to me, babe!"

 

Kevin took a ragged breath, not realizing that there were tears slipping down his cheeks. "Toby, I can't do it anymore," he sobbed, his voice thick with desolation and tears. He closed his eyes tightly, wiping them with the back of his hand.

 

"Kevin? Tell me what's wrong," Toby demanded, his tone rising with alarm. "Babe?"

 

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Kevin sighed out: "Does your offer still stand? Do you still want me?" Another stunned silence that brought more tears to his eyes. "Please, Toby, I have nowhere else to go. Please."

 

"Of course, of course I still want you. I love you. I love you so much, Kevin." The words were coming in a rush as if the other man was trying to make up for the moment of stunned silence that was the his lover's undoing. "You just took me by surprise. I never thought that you would actually... That you even consider..."

 

"Can I please come to you?" Kevin asked in a small voice, needing to hear it, needing the reassurance that he wasn't making it up in his imagination, that when he made the long journey to his lover, Toby would be waiting for him, welcoming him with open arms, that he wouldn't simply switch one place where he was just tolerated for another.

 

Relieved laugh. "Yes, come to me, please. I'll be waiting for you. I've been waiting for so long to hear that from you."

 

"Thank you," Kevin whispered and his voice broke, the emotions overwhelming him.

 

"I'm here."

 

Kevin swallowed painfully, the warm spot in his heart that belonged to Toby warming even more. "I love you." He flipped the cell phone closed before he could say anything more or make more of an idiot of himself, blubbering like a teenager. He hid the phone in his fist, pressing it to his forehead as if trying to draw the energy from it.

 

He looked at the ocean with red-rimmed eyes. The sun had slipped away and the dark of night was spreading over the water. But to him, it didn't feel threatening. With the knowledge that he only had to get to Toby, that Toby would make everything right again, the anxiety in his soul washed away with the cleansing waves of the ocean.

 

"I'm going to Toby," he whispered to the sea he had shared so many secrets with in the past. "I'm going to Dante's Cove."

 

The End