So Rare (Boys of South Chapel #3)

20. Hunter

Chapter 20

Hunter

THEN: Summer, Year One Ovulation Phase

Smooth pebbles shift underfoot as I make my way to the edge of the water. Villa Viola guests—and by extension, employees—have privileges at several lidos and clubs around Lake Como.

Although there are plenty of sandy beaches, I prefer the rockier options, like here along the shoreline that stretches along Lido Di Luminosa.

The rocky beaches are reminiscent of those surrounding Lake Chapel. So it makes sense that this is where I feel most at home. Where I go when I need to forget.

I’ve been in Italy for nearly four months, but I’ve yet to find a remedy to soothe the ache that flares to life in my chest twice each month.

Tears well in my eyes and heat scorches me from the inside as I try to calm my breathing and cool my nerves.

This feeling will pass.

This is PMDD. Nothing more.

I know these things, and I’m fighting against the darkness that threatens me at regular intervals. I take the minipill and an SSRI religiously, and I still attend bi-monthly telehealth appointments with one of the counselors I met in London. Even so, the same feelings creep in twice a month, each month.

It’s like clockwork.

Like painful, emotional, anxiety-laced clockwork.

I swipe a tear off my cheek. It’s no use. Instantly, more tears fall without my permission. With an angry huff, I scrub at my eyes with the back of my hand.

Though I have no reason to be sad—no new reason, at least—I can’t stop the emotions whirling through me. It’s as though my brain is conspiring against me, searching the recesses of my mind and conjuring up every sad, stressful, heartbreaking mistake I’ve made over the last few years.

A spark of self-loathing ignites inside me every time I ovulate. A painful reminder of what happened. Of the person I used to be. The man I used to love. What we lost. How I ran.

Despite my best efforts, that spark will continue to smolder over the next few weeks and eventually grow into an inferno of rioting emotions.

My body and mind are gripped with tension between ovulation and menstruation. I become more irritable. Apathetic, too. Especially right before my period begins.

My emotions and anxiety tighten around me like a vise, squeezing until I can’t help but wonder if I’ll ever feel “normal” again.

Joke’s on me, it seems. The answer is yes, because this is my normal now.

Mercifully, menstruation is like an emotional cleanse.

The physical symptoms wreak havoc on my body. My low back aches. My upper thighs tense up and cramp unexpectedly. A fogginess that can’t be cleared by sleep or rest settles over me.

I welcome it all with open arms.

Because once the physical symptoms hit and I start to bleed, hope returns.

Once I feel the contractions of my low belly, the signal that my uterus is shedding its lining, I know relief is on the way.

This is the worst of it: my darkest night of the month, when I bloat and I’m cranky and I hate everything. When nothing soothes me.

Ironically, it’s also the brightest night of the month, at least this time around.

As I stand barefoot on the water’s edge, I lift my face and take in the glow of the full moon.

“Hunter?”

Startled by the sound of my name, I yelp.

With my hand on my chest, I turn away from the lake. Away from the moon.

Sione stands about ten yards away. He’s barefoot, like me, and wearing an obscenely small pair of fitted athletic shorts—yoga shorts, he calls them—with a tight sleeveless tank that clings to his chest and puts a whole lot of muscle and ink on display.

Breathing deeply, I will my pulse to steady out and my eyes to refrain from ogling him.

“You scared the shit out of me,” I pant.

He tilts his head, his brows pulling together in concern, taking me in.

“Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”

Leave it to Sione to bypass all the niceties, stumble upon my secret pity party, and not even give me the grace of pretending that I’m not visibly upset.

“I’m fine.” It’s a lie, but I follow it with a partial truth in hopes that he’ll believe me and let it go. “Just not feeling my best. I came out here for a bit of privacy.” I add that last part as a hint that he should leave me in peace.

He watches, waiting for me to go on.

My stomach flips as I assess him in return. I don’t want to open up to Sione. We’ve become friendly, and that’s close enough. I want to keep this job—keep up appearances. Allowing him to see me grappling with the extreme low I’m dealing with today could put my employment in jeopardy. Or worse: it could make him pity me.

A full minute passes before he speaks.

“Right. Okay. We don’t have to talk about it. How did you find my secret spot anyway?” He comes closer and squats, swinging his drawstring bag off his shoulder.

“Your secret spot?”

This is my spot. This particular beach is far enough away from the Villa Viola property that I don’t have to worry about bumping into guests who might recognize me.

Turns out, the guests aren’t the problem.

“I come down here at least twice a month,” I defend. I find solace in the cool water lapping the pebbled beaches. A reprieve I crave when the PMDD symptoms get louder and I feel as if I could burn alive from the inside.

When the darkness is close to taking over, I stand at the edge of the lake and let the water lap at my feet.

I let it soothe me, and I let myself remember. The more I think of the men I’ve left behind, the hotter the memories burn and the ache in my chest blossoms into a beast all her own, the easier it becomes to convince myself I’m better off. To remind myself that they’re all better off without me.

The water helps me keep my cool.

“You must not have come at the full moon before,” he says plainly.

Face lifted to the inky black sky peppered with infinite stars again, I drink it all in. Despite the size and grandeur of the night sky, none of the stars visible tonight hold a chance against the splendor of the full moon.

“No,” I relent. He’s right. “The moon has never been here when I’ve come to this spot.”

He freezes, still in a deep squat that makes my inner thighs burn just to observe. “The moon is always here.” The confidence emanating from him contrasts sharply with his typically easy-going nature. “It’s with us now, and it’ll be out there still in two weeks. Even on the darkest night. Even when you can’t see it. It’s with us always. That, you can count on.”

Emotion burns behind my eyes and nose. I understand what he’s saying on a conceptual level. I know how moon cycles work. But his tone brooks no argument. His words are a simple promise. An assurance that though tides ebb and flow and the view of the moon changes each night, it’s always there.

The melancholy weighing heavily on me quickly morphs into anger.

How can he be so sure of something he can’t even see?

Heat creeps up my neck and into my cheeks. The emotional heaviness in my chest tugs hard against my rib cage like a corset pulled just as my lungs have fully deflated.

I don’t want him here. Not when I’m feeling volatile and sad, angry and unhinged.

I don’t want Sione to see me like this. I don’t want him—anyone—to know me on my bad days. Truth be told, I wish I didn’t know me on days like this. It’s not fair to ask others to tolerate me when I can’t even tolerate myself.

If he can sense my displeasure with his presence, he doesn’t show it. He busies himself emptying the contents of the bag, taking out the small items one by one and arranging them among the rocks.

Annoyance flashes through me, and I let out a derisive huff. “Did you bring rocks to a pebbled beach?”

Gaze lifted, he swipes a long strand of jet-black hair behind one ear. “These are crystals,” he states, his tone calm, his words direct. “I come here every full moon to charge them.”

There it is. The shakeup that breaks through my intrusive thoughts and reminds me that this world consists of so much more than me and this night and my irritation.

I may be wound up, anxious, desperate to peel my skin off my body and leave it on the shore to cleanse, then come back in the morning and start anew.

But this isn’t my spot.

Not just my spot.

What are the chances that Sione and I share the same secret place?

I take a tentative step toward him. “What do you mean charge them?” A few feet from where he’s crouched, I stop and survey the crystals. “Like a cell phone?”

He homes in on me, his eyes dancing with playfulness. He looks so much like his Mamaia in this moment: mischievous and soulful, earnestly focused on me. “Exactly. They get better reception when they’re fully charged.”

I know he’s teasing. But now I’m intrigued.

Curiosity races through me, momentarily dulling the pain that’s plagued me for hours. “What do you do with them once they’re charged?”

“I don’t do anything with them; they just are. As am I. I focus on them when I meditate. I hold them when my worries feel too big for my body.”My heart clenches, and my throat tightens. With a hand at my throat, I whisper, “What kind of worries?”

His hand freezes over a shiny white stone, carved into an elongated pyramid. His brows pull together, his gaze intensely serious as he meets my gaze.

“All kinds. Big worries. Small worries. Fleeting thoughts. Murmurs that grow louder and more persistent when I close my eyes at night.”

“I have those sometimes, too,” I confess, my knees suddenly wobbly.

Without asking if I can join him, I sit. Against the smooth but hard support of a million little rocks that make up this beach, I settle directly across from Sione and invite myself into his space.

“I think most of us do,” he states.

He doesn’t understand.

“Not like mine,” I insist. “Mine are loud. Angry. Mean. They get worse during certain times of each month…” I trail off then. He doesn’t want to hear about the intricacies of the hormonal imbalances caused by PMDD that plague me. “I do all I can to prepare. To silence them. But it never gets any easier,” I confess.

Instead of placating me, Sione sits quietly. Absorbing my words. Allowing me space to work through my thoughts.

Eventually, once he’s arranged the crystals to his liking, he rolls to sitting, crosses his legs, and presses his palms into the stones. His biceps and shoulders flex as he holds the position.

Without my permission, my eyes devour the sharp planes of his body illuminated by the moon. I don’t ogle too long, though. Because on the next breath, Sione is pulling me out of my head and back to reality.

“Which one speaks to you?” He studies me, then lowers his focus to the crystals in front of him.

Mirroring his position, I lean forward, assessing the dozen or so rocks juxtaposed against the smooth, earthy pebbles of the beach.

“They’re all pretty,” I murmur, uncertainty whirling in my belly.

He shakes his head and tuts. “I asked which one speaks to you, Hunter. Look at them and listen. Or don’t even look. Just let them speak.”

With a shaky inhale, I do as I’m told. I survey one crystal after another, listening, pushing away all thoughts, taking each one in. Stones of all shapes and colors contrast against the dull gray, brown, and beige rocks of the pebble beach. They’re stunning. All of them. So unique and special. No wonder Sione likes them.

“This one,” I say, ghosting my fingertips over a hazy purple stone.

“Amethyst.” He looks up at me, his eyes round and eager, as if this excites him as much as it delights me. “It’s often used in healing, especially self-healing and inner work. That one is yours, once it’s charged.”“How long does that take?” A thread of impatience works its way through me. It’s ridiculous. Juvenile, really. But I’m itching to pick it up and hold it.

“At least a few hours. I plan to be out here for a while.”

Sighing, I settle back, clasping my knees. “What do you do when you’re waiting for the crystals to charge?” I’ve never seen Sione play on his phone or mindlessly scroll through apps. He’s the most present, settled person I’ve ever met.

“Sometimes I meditate. Sometimes I nap. In the summer, I swim to cool off.”

I cock a brow. “In the dark?”

“It’s never dark on a full moon,” he corrects. “The temps have been brutal this summer, and no number of showers can compare with the way the lake cools me off.”

It makes sense, I guess. I’ve taken two showers already today, and yet I’m sticky and cranky and overheated once more, even long after the sun has set.

“You could swim, you know. Skinny dip if you’re feeling brave.”

The suggestion shocks me. At first, I’m sure he’s teasing, but one glance at his expression disproves that assumption.

“I used to skinny dip all the time in a quarry back home in North Carolina.” I don’t know what compels me to say that. It’s not polite or professional. Thankfully, the modicum of modesty I still possess kicks in and I leave out the part about being accompanied by my boyfriend. And sometimes his best friend.

“There’s no new water on this planet.”

The subject change is as random as it is jarring. I scowl, thrown off. Every time I think I have Sione figured out, he says or does something to remind me of just how complex and avant-garde he really is. “Is that some sort of doomsday prophecy?”

“It is not,” he states matter-of-factly. “It’s the truth. Water holds memory. Water has wisdom. Water can take literally any form. Water can settle and soothe the way no other natural resource can. The quarry water of your past is the same water before us now. There’s no new water on this planet,” he repeats. Then, softer, he says, “If stripping down in front of the moon and swimming in the lake might help, you owe it to yourself to try.”

The sincerity of the suggestion shocks me to my core. I never would have considered it, especially out here on my own. I was lost, consumed, festering in my anxiety and despair. I haven’t tried anything new to ease the symptoms of PMDD in months.

I consider the suggestion for a moment, then another. The longer I think about it, the more I agree. It’s worth the try. I’m worth trying for.

“What about you?” I say, the words scraping out of me more harshly than intended. I don’t want to take away his opportunity to swim. I also don’t know how I feel about undressing in such close proximity to him.

It’s abundantly clear that Sione isn’t attracted to me. But I enjoy his company, and he seems to enjoy mine. We seek each other out often, moving through our daily chores and activities together, even if they take longer that way.

I like him. A lot.

I’m intensely attracted to him.

But I’ve given all the hints I can. He’s not attracted to me, full stop, and I have enough self-respect to know better than to throw myself at him.

We are friends and nothing more. And that’s okay. I just feel… strange, I guess, undressing, swimming naked, putting myself in such a vulnerable position, while he’s so close.

Gulping past the trepidation mounting inside me, I search his face.

Kind eyes meet mine. A stoic, assured nod confirms his consent. “I will sit here. Wait with the crystals. Turn my body and give you my back. This way, so you can be sure I am not looking, and I can be sure no one will catch us by surprise.”

Oh . My heart thunders in my chest as I watch him, transfixed.

“Go, Mahina. Let the water help you. Let yourself accept the support you deserve.”

Mahina .

It means moon.

He’s called me that a few times before, but it’s never felt quite like this.

He turns as promised, so with a nod to myself, I stand and undress. Tears stream down my cheeks as I fold my clothes and leave them in a tidy pile on the shore. Sobs rack my body as I take the first step into the lake. The farther I move into the water, the more the pressure in my chest grows. I don’t bother glancing back. Sione is a man of his word. I don’t have to see him to know he’s sitting patiently with his back to me, offering the privacy and serenity I need.

My feet shift and slip on the silty lake bottom, causing me to throw my arms out and gasp.

Steady once more, I move farther from the shore, letting the chill of the water cool my limbs and kiss every curve of my exposed skin.

By the time I’m submerged to my neck, the tears are flowing so freely, I feel nothing but wet, from my head to my toes.

No new water on this planet. No new tears inside me now or ever again.