Chapter Five
DreamInColour
© 2004
Anya woke up a few
hours later in complete darkness. She shifted on the bed and groaned, “Good
idea to get drunk Anya.” She muttered. Her tongue felt thick and had the
texture of sandpaper. She tried to get more comfortable but it was all for not,
her head was pounding and she needed water. She sat up slowly, “Oh yeah I’m
feeling just so much more relaxed.” She silently went through the curse words
she wanted to utter at her ‘friends’.
It took about ten
minutes for her to actual maintain a standing position. She padded noiselessly
through her room trying not to see anything in it. She was surprised to see the
door open she usually slept with it closed. Exiting the room she heard deep
breathing and before she could stop herself she peeked into the room across
from hers. He was shirtless lying on his back and had a light blanket covering
him from the waist down. She didn’t want to stare she never stared. She’d been
around beautiful people her whole life. Yet he wasn’t your typical beautiful
person he didn’t act like the ‘beautiful’ people she was used to.
Her head reminded her
why she had woken up to begin with, taking one last look at his sleeping form
she tip toed downstairs to grab a couple Advil and a bottle of water. She
decided against climbing the stairs back into the room she didn’t want to see
and ended up on the hammock. She hung her leg over the side and swung herself
listening to the waves and contemplating why her friends would send her here.
She thought of the room upstairs and let a tear slip down her cheek, “What are
you telling me Daddy?” She whispered, “I can’t go up there you both are all
over that room. Why?” The waves and her pounding headache actually lulled her
to sleep.
He loved that his room
faced east, he always knew when the sun was rising. He could hear the waves and
that helped him wake up. He wanted to get some good waves in before breakfast.
He passed Anya’s room on the way down and was surprised that she wasn’t in it.
He shrugged, she couldn’t get far so he didn’t bother to worry about her, yet.
“Good morning Mr.
Heaven.” Her voice drifted towards him in rhythm with the waves.
He jumped a bit not
expecting her to be there let alone awake, “Well good morning…you uh…you
remember that?”
She laughed, “I have
the unfortunate problem of remembering everything no matter how drunk I get.”
She pretended to slur her words, “My God you’re gorgeous.”
He actually blushed,
“That sounds rather close actually.”
“Sorry about that I
didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“Ah no worries, you
were taken just slightly by surprise I’d wager. Didn’t expect to wake up here
did you?”
She shook her head with
a laugh, “I never expected to come here I didn’t want…” She stopped that
thought process then took in his attire, “You planning on surfing this early?”
Her change of subject
was not lost on him but he didn’t want to push her, yet. “The waves are amazing
as the sun comes up. Would you like to join me?”
“Oh no I haven’t surfed
in years.”
“Then you’re going to
need to get your feet back.” He said with a laugh, “Now at least I know why
there was a smaller board.”
“No that’s okay I don’t
think my feet will ever come back. You go on ahead.” She indicated, “I don’t
want to make you miss more waves.”
“Are you sure?” He was
already on his way down the steps.
“I’ll take a rain
check.” She said with a wave.
“I’ll hold you to
that.” He called as he bounded down the steps and grabbed the surfboard he had
discarded the night before.
“You do that.” She
whispered then settled back into the hammock. She watched him surf as the sun
rose and frankly thought any movie he ever made from that point on would never
make him look as good as he did then. She rather flustered herself to the point
of needing to do something else. She hadn’t changed since she arrived so
reluctantly she went to the upstairs room and looted around for something to
wear. She settled on a cute bikini and matching sarong then realized she was
famished. So she went into the kitchen and started cutting some of the fruit
gathered from around the island.
He loved how the sun
rose while he was surfing; he loved the feeling on his back. He already felt
like the last three years had been washed off of him. He wasn’t worried about women showing up out of nowhere and had
almost gotten to the point of not hearing the flashing of many cameras around
him. It was only a few days into his two weeks and he really felt like he would
be a new person by the time he returned to ‘real life’.
Upon returning he found
Anya still on the hammock but she had apparently changed and was eating some
fruit. He silently hoped that she would wear that the whole time she was there.
It was simple enough but it complimented her frame just perfectly. Her chuckle
brought him out of his daydream; “There’s some more fruit on the ledge there.”
She pointed.
He picked up the bowl
and sat on the railing leaning back onto one of the posts he smiled at her, “So
Anya who are you most angry at?” He popped a piece of pineapple into his mouth
and waited.
She chewed thoughtfully
for a second then replied, “Me.”
“You? Why you?” He
hadn’t expected that answer.
“I should have figured
out long ago that Daddy was just giving me something to do, like my mission to
find someone was to be a distraction from the lifestyle I was leading. I can’t
believe I didn’t get that.” She was revealing more of herself then she ever had
to anyone besides Bruce and Liv, why was she doing this?
“Why would you? I mean
your life was secure at that moment, yeah? Your parents weren’t going anywhere
and you could do anything you wanted.” Why did he care? He’d told himself he
was not going to be curious about Anya and her life. He was here to relax not
help some rich debutant.
“Exactly. So when they
died and Bruce told me about my father’s wishes I thought it was some sort of
divine plan. That Daddy and Mom knew they were going to die early and they’d
provided me a project to help me through my grief.”
“But that wasn’t the
case was it? They had no intentions of dying, they were just looking to give
you something positive to occupy your time.” The problem wasn’t in the fact
that he wasn’t relaxed it was in the fact that he WAS. Even though they were
talking about a relatively serious subject, he felt completely at ease.
She looked at him for a
solid minute and didn’t say anything. She wasn’t really sure how to take his
accurate description of her life. As she waited for the words to say he propped
a foot up on her hammock and began to push it gently. This was one of the few
times she ever felt comfortable in silence with someone. She usually felt the
need to say something, but it didn’t seem necessary here. She allowed him to
rock the hammock for a bit before she decided to change the subject again, she
was already quite shocked at the turn of this conversation and wasn’t about to
delve into her grief with someone who was still a virtual stranger to her.
“That said I have to admit I’m still slightly pissed off at Liv and Bruce. They
were quite presumptuous and meddlesome in planning this whole thing.”
“Liv? I KNEW you looked
familiar!” He almost dropped the bowl of fruit in his excitement, “You were at
the final ‘Rings’ premiere. I can’t believe I didn’t remember you.”
She smiled, “As I
recall you were being pulled at from every which direction. You were why I was
there…”
“Me?” He was confused
for a second then understood, “Liv wanted me for this project didn’t she? She’d
been bugging me about my schedule for weeks. Bugger me she is quite
meddlesome.”
“Only for those she
loves I guess. She’s lucky I have a couple weeks here to get over being mad at
her.”
“Well enough about
being mad.” He stood up and offered her his hand, “You haven’t seen the whole
of this island yet have you?”
“Not at all.” She took
his hand and allowed him to pull her up, “Is it at all interesting?”
“Of course, it’s
tropical plus there’s shite loads of fruit to be gathered…oh and this hot
spring I found not a hundred feet from here…and there’s a high point where you
can almost see the whole ocean…best put on sandals though love…some of the
terrain is a bit rocky.” He put on his Oakley’s then grabbed her hand again
after she’d put on her own pair of sunglasses.
She laughed as she was
pulled down the deck stairs, “So how shall we start our tour Mr. Heaven?”
He peered over his
sunglasses at her with a raised eyebrow, “Are you going to continue to call me
that the whole time?”
She shrugged, “If the
shoe fits.”
Shaking his head in
disbelief, “This means I must come up with an interesting nickname for you my
dear.”
“You are welcome to
try.” She came into step with him and let go of his hand. He took this as an
opportunity to animatedly describe the scenery he had encountered on his first
couple of days there.
They were halfway
through their walk when Orlando said, “You know that bloke you had living here?
Interesting fellow he was.”
“Who Andrew?” Anya
laughed, “Interesting is putting it mildly, why do you think I stuck him on an
island.”
“I don’t know but
frankly he was almost scary when I got here. He called me dude and kept saying
‘cheers’ whenever I would finish a sentence. It got right annoying to the point
were I had to remind him that the saying was from my country and he was using
it wrong.”
Anya continued to
giggle, “Let me guess he stared at you blankly then said. Cheers dude sorry
about that.”
“Exactly! How did you
know?”
“His spectrum of
vocabulary isn’t all that vast I’m afraid.”
“Because of his head
injury?”
“Sure.” She chuckled,
“Let’s blame it on that, and cut the guy a break.”
“Either way…” He helped
her up a large rock as they climb the island’s small incline, “I have to admit
I wasn’t at all sad to see him get on that helicopter.”
She tried not to focus
on how much she enjoyed it when he touched her and kept laughing, “I should
send a letter to the Aussie’s apologizing to them in advance.” She then took in
the view from the top of the slope, “My God.”
“Beautiful isn’t it?”
“There aren’t even
words. If I had known I actually owned this piece of heaven I would have come
here a long time ago.”
“Wait till you sit in
the hot spring…If you ever want to know where I am it’ll be there.” He hoped
down then grabbed her by the waist and pulled her down with him.
She tripped a bit and
held onto his shoulders for support. She stared at him for a second then burst
out laughing, “This is SOO like one of those cheesy romance novels.”
He chuckled, “Is this
the part where I’m supposed to take you on this rock face?”
“I’m not sure I haven’t
read this book yet.” Her eyes twinkled at him, “Sounds painful though, let’s go
find that hot spring instead.”
“Your wish is my
command.” He said with a smirk then led the way.
“Somehow I think there
are millions who would love you to say those words to them.”
He rolled his eyes and
looked over his shoulder at her, “Most are between the ages of 14 and 18,
hardly in my range.”
“Do you regret it?” She
asked.
“What? Taking the
‘Rings’ role?” He continued before she could answer, “No I wouldn’t change that
decision for the world. Sometimes though I wish it could have happened more
gradual than it has. I miss my moments of privacy; they are so few and far
between. I know it comes with my job and I’m getting paid a lot to put up with
it, but sometimes I’d give anything to tell people to fuck off and leave me
alone.”
“No one can ever
prepare you for what it really feels like can they? I’ve been living in a media
bubble my whole life and I still don’t think I’m prepared for it. You just sort
of go on instincts or something.” Anya agreed, “I don’t have a clue what it
feels like to be admired by as many fans as you have, but when it comes to the
media I know that circus.”
They arrived at the hot
spring and Orlando presented it with a flourish, “Nature is smiling on us.”
“There’s still a
morning cool to the air, guess we’d better take advantage of that.” Anya
removed her sarong and sandals without another word and lowered herself into
the water, “This is absolute bliss.”
He admired her for a
few seconds enjoying how good she looked with her eyes closed. Then he got in
and sat across from her closing his own eyes trying to stop himself from really
liking this woman. Of course he’d already passed that point, because now he was
just damn curious about everything that made her tick.