Refuge
He watches her from her tent, half naked and shivering in the cold night air, his skin still too sticky with perspiration to put his t-shirt back on. She's staring out to sea, her eyes seeing something his never can. He's seen her do this before, sit unmoving in the sand for hours, just watching the waves. He never understood it then, and he certainly doesn't understand it now, not after she had been so animated and alive to his touch.
Guilt makes him speak rather than any feeling of obligation. His voice is lost over the thrumming of the waves against the shore, but she hears him anyway. The glance she gives him is full of disgust and hate, and he wonders what measure of that look is for him and how much of it is her own self-loathing. When he doesn't say anything, she turns her eyes back to the sea, leaving him standing alone once more. Uncomfortable with her response he leaves the shadows of her tent and sits down next to her, close enough to be able to hear her ragged breaths on the wind. He knows he ought to say something, but nothing comes to mind. They had taken refuge in each other and it had given them a measure of relief, it was nothing more than that. But he still can't banish the guilt that it wasn't her face he saw, even though he knows that she wasn't seeing him.
So he follows her lead, and watches the waves as they crash against the shore, allowing a feeling of insignificance to sweep him away. When he glances at her again, she is staring out to sea, beyond his reach. He gets up without a word, picking up his t-shirt as he wanders back down the beach; knowing that she won't notice him.