Chapter 8

The day was diminishing fast. The deep gold sun was sinking below the horizon melting into the ocean. I buried my feet in the pure white sand and took a slow, deep lung full of salty sea air. Ever since I was very little I had always been drawn to the ocean. It was just so calming and peaceful, where all the horrible realities of the world seemed to wash away with the waves.

I sprawled out on the sandy earth, staring up at the dusky sky. It was lit up with colors, reds and oranges and even violets, like a watercolor painting come to life.

"You wanted to see me?" a voice called from behind. I looked over at Nathan standing at the edge of the beach, where the sand met the grassy moorland. His thin cotton shirt hung loose and his dark hair was not slicked back but blew around his face in the sea breeze.

"You look strange." It was the only thing I could think to say. He grinned.

"Bad strange?" He asked, sitting down beside me.

"No, just different." I stared right into his eyes, the exact color of the surf. Nathan looked away out to sea. His eyes studied the open ocean.

"Why did you want to meet me here?" He asked.

"Well, I was just thinking how much I love you, Nathan. And then I realized I've known you what three days and I hardly know anything about you." Nathan looked back at me, putting his hand on my shoulder and pulling me close to him.

"Why should that matter?" He said. "People can live their whole lives with a person and never really know them. But I? I've known you for less than a week and I already know that you're the person I belong with." I still wasn't satisfied.

"It still feels wrong." I sulked. "Just let me ask a few questions, please?"

"It's not the questions I'm afraid of, it's my answers."

"Then think before you speak." I said firmly.

"Then can I ask you something?" He implored

"Go ahead."

"Why here?" He asked, surveying the deserted beach.

"Because it's lovely." I stated. "And it's not here we'll be staying, it's there." I pointed to a rocky ledge at the end of the shoreline. Waves crashed on its jagged edges and upon its uneven surface was a small, self constructed shack made of driftwood.

"Is that safe." He asked nervously.

"No." I answered simply. "But that's why it's fun."

"Well it won't be if one of us slips on those rocks and dies." He said animatedly. I kissed him lightly on the lips, pulling away before he could ask for more.

"I'm not afraid. I am with you." I got up and started walking towards the cliffs, not looking back. Nathan ran up and snatched my hand and then we were racing towards the rough outcropping, nothing but the wind to hold us back.

Once I managed to clamor up the rocks, I sat on its slick surface and discarded my clothes until all I wore was my thin, silky slip that cut my long, muscular legs mid thigh. I hopped along the jagged rocks until I reached the edge of the precipice, where just below me the white crested waves licked the sides of the black stone as if threatening to swallow it whole.

"Hey, be careful." Nathan came up behind me. His arms slid around my waist and pulled me away from the edge. I looked at him starry eyed and unwrapped his hands from my waist and stepped out onto the edge again, focusing my eyes on the brilliant one great motion I leapt to the very tip of the outcropping and flung my arms out like a bird about to fly.

"What are you doing?" Nathan cried, reaching out to me. "You're going to fall!" I stepped down and looked at Nathan quizzically.

"Haven't you ever flown before?" I asked. When he didn't answer I went on explaining. "My dad and I used to come here all the time when I was younger. He taught me how to swim here and he even built me that little hut back there as my playhouse." I told him. "One day, when I was about four, he took me up here and showed me how to fly. He just held me right over the ocean and told me to close my eyes and put my arms out and I would be flying. And it actually felt like I was flying!" I laughed, remembering the feeling of the wind in my hair and the sound of my father's voice that day.

"Why don't you come here anymore...with him I mean?" Nathan asked. I sat down on the edge of the cliff and he sat down next to me, gripping my hand.

"Things change. People change." I sighed."Jack was born, then Thomas and somehow my voice got lost in all of theirs. We still come here, of course. During the summer when there's no school, but we just play in the sand so mother can keep an eye on the boys. I can't even remember the last time I took a dive off these cliffs."

"You jumped." He said, looking over the edge at the churning ocean water.

"Well, my daddy was always waiting down below to catch me, but yes I jumped." I said. "I wasn't afraid of anything when I was younger."

"How about now?"

"Now I'm afraid of everything." I smiled. Nathan gave a quick laugh and stared out to sea again, looking lost in thought. The dying sunlight lit his face in shades of warm red and gold. He didn't look real.

"Nathan, can I draw you?" I found myself asking without even thinking it first.

"What?" He said, knitting his eyebrows together and gazing at me. His eyes were a shadowy purple in the light.

I reached for my rucksack sitting in a crook in the rock and pulled out my sketch tablet and handed it to him. He flipped through the drawings, mostly of my mother and brothers. His eyes lingered over certain features like the eyes and the lips which I loved drawing so much. I loved to study people, to really look at them. You could learn so much about a person just by the way they smiled or frowned.

"These are amazing." he said quietly, handing back the sketch book. "So you want to draw me." I pointed to a piece of slanted flat rock.

"Sit over there." I ordered, pulling out my graphite pencils. "Look out at the ocean and nowhere else. Oh, and take your shirt off." I said, contently and to my surprise all he did was flash me a sly grin and pull his shirt over his head, revealing his hard, marble chest.

"Just sit like you normally would." I told him, trying to look unaffected by his bare skin. "Let your elbows rest on your knees. Don't smile, look serious. And whatever you do, don't move your head." He gave a slight jerk of his head in comprehension but kept staring out at the ocean. It was studying him that I realized how much he had changed since I met him, or maybe it was my perspective that had changed. He was much less boyish than I remembered and more rugged adolescence. While some of his features reflected his childhood, like his smile and his large blue eyes others were that of a man's, like his hands and his chin. His overall physical appearance lingered between the two.

"You're allowed to talk, you know." I said, roughly bringing out his face with my pencil. "Tell me about yourself."

"Well, I was born in Philadelphia on March 6, 1913. Uh, I spent most of my life there and some at our home on the Hudson. My sister's were born in 1918 and we moved to California for Lavinia's health."

"What's wrong with her?" I asked, sculpting out his cheekbones with my fingers.

"Aw, nothing a nice long stay in a mental institution couldn't fix." I laughed. "No, she's just a little dramatic is all. She caught the chicken pox last winter and it really scared my mother to see her beautiful little girl's face all scarred. I wanted to tell her not to worry because she has another one with the exact same face but...she insisted we move to a warmer climate after that."

"And what about your dad?"I asked. "Did he tell you anything more about the Titanic or Rose Dewitt Bukater?"

"No. He could tell my mother was getting upset by all this Titanic talk, so he left it at that." He said. "But he did seem to like you an awful lot." He remarked. "He keeps telling me how much you remind him of Rose."

"I just hope that's a good thing." Nathan nodded, keeping his eyes on the sea.

"I did hear him mumble something though," He added. "We left in such a rush after he walked you in, he seemed so angry almost. I think I heard I'm say she's alive but maybe I was just hearing things

Nathan's words confirmed it: She's alive. He had disappeared so quickly when my mother appeared at the door, then my father tells me to stay clear of him because he's a bad guy. Mr. Hockley did not seem like a particularly notorious character and nor did I want to believe it. It was my mother, I was sure of it. I was so sure that she had been engaged to Cal on the Titanic and that something made her fake her death to be rid of him. I was so sure that I wanted to go and confront her right this instant but my body didn't want to move.

"Here it's done." I said, shakily, handing him the sketch pad. It wasn't my best work, but the news had shocked me so much my hands could no longer keep steady. I still managed to capture his likeness in the hunched figure on the paper.

"Thank you." he beamed, leaning in and capturing my lips in his. A warm, lusty feeling ravaged my body. I wanted him, I needed him. No matter who his father was; he was different than him and I would always love him. "I've got something for you too." He reached for his coat and unwrapped two bottles filled with amber liquid from its fabric.

"But the Prohibition?" I asked him quizzically, not really minding he was breaking the law but more questioning how he got it.

"My father always says, when you're wealthy the rules don't apply." He smirked, handing me one of the bottles.

"Or maybe the rules do apply; maybe it's just easier to get away with them when you have the money to buy the cops off."

"Touché." Nathan shrugged. He tried to bite his cap off with his teeth. I rolled my eyes and snatched the liquor from his hands and smashed the end of the bottle on the rocks and handed it to him before too much alcohol spilled out. I did the same, cracking it against the stone and slurping the foam from the top. I winced and squinted my eyes at the harshness of the drink. It burned the inside of my mouth and I had to force myself to swallow.

Nathan took a swig of his whiskey and sighed with content. Being well bred, he must have a better taste for these things than I had and I didn't want to seem like a child, so I made myself take another gulp of hard liquor. I shuddered.

"You cold?" Nathan asked, taking his jacket and putting it around my bare shoulders. I nodded, taking another swallow of alcohol which now lay thick upon my tongue.

"Come on, I want to show you my play house." I took his hand and led him down the cliff to where the little shanty house stood among the tall weeds, dilapidated and graying with age. It was dark inside, it still smelled the same though, like seaweed and decay. Scattered across the sandy bottom were the remnence of my childhood: Assorted sea shells, a wooden sail boat, and a rag doll, ruined by the sea lay propped against the thin walls. On them my father had tacked all the little pictures I had made of the ocean and flowers and even my family, the last one being one of my mother and him with baby Jack and I. That was the last time we were here together. Before our lives turned so hectic we never had time to be together. My heart sank. I took another long sip of whiskey.

"I like it." Nathan said, walking the perimeter of the small hut. "It's quiet here. You can barely hear the waves even." I drained the bottle and dropped in on the floor, looking around the room at the blur of colors; everything was spinning.

"Eliza, Are you okay?" He said shaking my shoulder gently. I groaned and nodded, but truthfully, I didn't know if I was okay or not. A heavy fog had settled on my thoughts making it impossible to think clearly. Everything seemed lopsided. I felt ill, dizzy. I needed to lie down.

I slumped to the floor, dragging Nathan down with me.

"Seriously Eliza." He said taking my shoulders trying to gain eye contact, but my eyes could not focus on just one place, there were too many. "It's late anyways. I can take you home, come on." He tried to lift me up, but I refused.

"I told my parents I would be staying overnight at my friend Ginny's house." I slurred. "We have all night." Nathan ran his fingers through his dark hair, looking irritated.

"That's great, that just great." He mumbled. "Your drunk and you can't go home."

"I'm not drunk." I said, digging my nails into the floor which felt like it was slipping out from beneath me.

"Sure you're not." He groaned. "I knew the whiskey was a bad idea." I frowned and pulled him onto his back so he too was sprawled out on the dirt floor, staring up at the ceiling.

"Please, stay with me tonight." I said.

"I guess I have to. My mother's going to murder me." He moaned.

"We don't have to think about that." I said, dreamily. It was like my mind was slipping in and out of consciousness; between the real world and dreamland to the point where I couldn't really tell what was real and what was not. Perhaps Nathan wasn't real. Which is why I wasn't at all taken aback when this happened:

"I love you, Eliza." He whispered softly. He was so close to me now. I could almost hear his heart beating in his bare chest.

"I love you too." I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of the waves lapping against the beach and the sound of my blood pulsing in my veins. It resounded in my head which was starting too heavy to lift. I took his hand in mine and played with his fingers, he watched me intently. Suddenly the words appeared in my mind but they weren't even mine. "Put your hands on me, Nate."

He answered, kissing me so hard it took my breath away. He grabbed my sides and I sank down beneath him under his welcome weight.

A/N: This was so very hard to write, I hated doing it. I am not a very romantic type of person but I couldn't figure out what else to do. So, sorry times 5,000.