Love and Chaos by Gemma Burgess Read Free Book Online Page B

breathless, and it’s a waste of time.
    A few minutes later I glance back again. He’s still behind me. Just floating in that stupid little dinghy, using the oars to keep pace.
    Whatever.
    My arms and legs ache, but I don’t stop. I figure this pain is my punishment for being such a moron. For trusting a guy with the morals of a vulture. For not realizing there’s no such thing as a free lunch. (Or dress. Or trip to Aspen. Or charge card at Bergdorfs. Or … anything.) At one point, thinking about everything I’ve done, by accident and on purpose, but always with total stupidity, tears build up behind my eyes.
    The last three men I slept with—Mani, Jessop, and whoever I was with at the Soho Grand—thought I was a hooker. Or something close to it.
    But I thought they liked me. I really did. I thought I was just unlucky in love.
    What would my parents think? What if my dad knew? How could I be so stupid ?
    I start sobbing, and my mouth fills with water, so I have to tread water for a second, making dramatic strangled choking sounds.
    The boat boy stalker is right behind me. “Listen, it’s Angie, right? My name is Sam, and I—”
    “Please fuck off, Sam!” I am trying as hard as I can to sound normal and tough.
    Stop crying, I tell myself sternly. You can get through this. Just get away. Keep swimming.
    And so that’s what I do. I swim, and breathe, and force every other thought out of my head.
    “Angie?” Sam the boat boy calls out again. “Are you okay?”
    “What are you going to do about it if I’m not, Sam?” I call over my shoulder. “Save me? I don’t need to be saved. I just need to get home.”
    About two hundred feet from shore, just as the sun has finally set, swimming suddenly gets easier. It feels like the tide is helping me. I’m aiming for one of the smaller hotels, which I’m hoping will mean it’s an exclusive luxury-type place, where everyone keeps to themselves and you tend to not know the other guests. My arms and legs are almost cramping now, and I am exhausted, but I won’t stop. I’m determined to make it.
    Finally, my feet hit sand. I turn around and see Sam, the boat boy, still twenty feet behind me in his stupid dinghy. God, what is he going for, some kind of Mr. Perfect medal or something?
    “You can go now, Sam,” I call. “I’m safe and sound.”
    “I don’t think you’re ever safe.”
    Ignoring him, I keep swimming until I can easily stand up, my body more than half out of the water. Then I walk out of the sea. When I’m on the beach, I look back. Sam has finally left, already halfway back to the Hamartia . Sayonara, annoying boat boy.
    It’s at that moment that I remember my passport, clothes, shoes, and money—the three thousand dollars—are in my cabin on the yacht. Oh shit, my phone! How could I have left everything behind without a second thought?
    Fuck it. I’ll manage. I can’t go back now. I’ll figure something out.
    With as much dignity as I can fake, I walk across the sand toward the hotel. I’m wearing my white bikini and nothing else, but it’s a beach resort, so it’s not like I’m out of place, right?
    In front of the hotel is a faux-shabby beach bar, with reggae playing quietly. It’s a chill scene that stinks of money. The guests are predictably self-satisfied: the men are a little bit too sunburned, with the ubiquitous fat guy ostentatiously smoking an expensive cigar. The women are all wearing quasi-Ibizan tunic tops and deep conditioning their sea-and-chlorine-fried hair, pretending they’re going for the slicked-back look.
    And they’re all gazing out, with restless boredom, at the ocean, at the pale twilight sky and the only yacht in sight. The Hamartia . It’s so weird looking back at it, like it’s a toy. A tiny, stupid toy.
    Trying to look like I know exactly what I’m doing, I walk up to the bar. “I’ll have a Coke, uh, a Coca-Cola, please,” I say. “And I’ll start a tab.”
    “Room number?”
    “Um, I forgot!”