Why Me?

Paul hated sand. Bad Star Wars dialogue notwithstanding, his reasons maintained a trite similarity. Elaine looked at him sideways, a coy, gentle smirk on her face.

“What is it?” she asked, observing his discomfort.

“Oh, you know, the whole ‘I enjoy long quiet walks on the beach’ is such a dating cliche, yet here we are.” He chuckled. “Here we are,” he said under his breath. Elaine squeezed his hand.

He felt the sand squelch between the toes of his right foot, for their path had taken them down near the waterline where the sand molded itself, ever impressionable. Paul struggled with each step, the two of them leaving a trail of three footprints and a casting that matched his prosthetic.

“Well, I like it. It’s peaceful here,” she replied. “We can always go someplace else.”

“No, you’re right. I need peace. And the quiet, I suppose.”

“Well, it’s a beautiful night, Paul. See how the moonlight dances on the waves? It’s so romantic.” She turned his cheek to her with a gentle caress, but his eyes darted away. To the sea.

Elaine was right, he supposed. Crescent moonlight shimmered across the rolling waves, dashing about, mercurial. Faint clouds traversed the sky, thin vapor trails that dimmed the moon’s illumination at random intervals. Waves murmured languorously as they slipped into - then retreated from - the beach.

Salty tang met fragrant hibiscus, and the sea didn’t at first frighten him tonight. Paul stopped to scratch at his leg where his sock-wrapped stump slipped into his prosthetic. Only recently had he been able to walk on his own again. Memories assaulted him, and stole his strength. He plunged his hands into the sand to stop his fall.

So quick the fit had taken him, that Elaine hadn’t been able to react, and she turned helpless, too late to prevent it. “Paul, are you alright? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he shook his head in reply. “Just lost my balance while I was scratching my leg,” he lied.

“Well, let’s get you up. We can go back to the hotel. We don’t have to keep walking here. I don’t know why you wanted to come here. Especially when it’s gotten so dark already.”

“Elaine, that’s a wonderful idea. But I wanted to ask you something first.” That got her attention. He fumbled around in his pockets with a sandy hand, and withdrew a box just big enough to hold a ring. Elaine’s eyes widened and tears leaked out.

“Oh that’s smooth, Paul. You set this up, to come out here and fall down to propose to me?” She brought her hands to her mouth in both surprise and excitement.

Paul chuckled. Shit, that’s what this looked like. “I wish I was that creative, hun.” He watched her mood shift to disappointment. Some things couldn’t be helped, he supposed. Gesturing with the box, he beckoned her down. “Sit with me for a moment. I don’t feel like walking right now anyway.”

“Alright,” she said, her voice a mixture of curiosity and sadness.

Paul pulled his knees up to his chest and turned the box over in his hands several times, then began to stare out across the waves. He knew she kept her eyes on the box, except when she glanced at him, worried.

“So.” he started. “Elaine. Why me?” He leaned forward, resting his cheek on his arms, looking at her. Elaine’s dark hair melted into the night, so far from the lights. Just them and the surf. He focused on that subtle way the starlight reflected from the corners of her eyes, off her fading tears, shifting as her eyes met his.

“Why you? I’m not sure I follow,” Elaine said, perplexed. “That’s not exactly the question I was expecting.”

“I know.” Paul stared past her now, idly rubbing his thumb and fingers together to knock off the last bits of sand that clung to his hand. Time for the test. “That’s just my question. Why me?”

Why me? Why me? Why me? If he had a dollar for every time he’d asked himself that…

Silence grew between them. Paul let it. He’d grown tired of asking himself the question. He hoped Elaine could answer it to his satisfaction, but dreaded what it could mean. If there were a deeper purpose to the question, let that be his. Now his genuine purpose had led him to bring her here, with a proposition she did not anticipate, and he anticipated it would perturb her. Whatever answer Elaine managed to provide would come from a place within her, uninfluenced by context and predisposition.

“You want an answer right now?”

“No time like the present.” Was she mad? He could tell by the inflection of her voice.

Elaine slowly drew a heart in the sand, scooping out its contents and throwing sand aside, creating a low hollow where water seeped up from underneath.

“Fine. Here’s my answer.” She drew a shuddering breath, and pointed to her creation. She took the box from his hands and placed it in the center, then covered it with sand, patting it down and smoothing it over. Elaine hung her head, sobbing quietly in the darkness.

“I see,” he said, but did not. He struggled to his feet, and limped away. “I’ll see you at the hotel. Or not. Your choice.” He rubbed his hands together, trying to scrub away what sand remained on them. He hated that sensation most of all. I hope your nerves didn’t ruin this relationship, Paul. Why me?

***

Elaine stared at the mound of sand, remaining where she sat even as the waves lapped further up the beach. Their inexorable motion smoothed away any remnant of the heart, bleeding back into the ocean. She shook from chill and sorrow and rage, overwhelmed by her emotions.

“Why me?” What kind of question was that? She tried so hard to be angry at him. A seashell carried by a wave butted up against her shin. It floated back out but settled in the sand above where she’d buried the box. She really wanted to know what this was all about. Why did he taunt her with a ring box? Elaine scooped it out with the shell and held the box up in the moonlight.

“Why me?” she thought. He’d made no attempt to hide this from her once he’d gotten her here. He had proposed a question. She brushed her hair back behind her right ear, and just looked at the box. Soaked, its black suede exterior had captured smaller sand particles, where they twinkled, a mirror to the sky above.

“Why me?” Was Paul asking her to pity him? She’d watched him work so hard for months to learn to walk again with his prosthetic. Such a struggle it had been. He’d despaired, he’d raged, he’d thrown the leg across the room. He’d cried at night. She’d weathered his storm. Every literal step of the way, her admiration and love had grown.

“Why me?” Elaine asked herself, as if that would bring her any answer. She’d been minding her business the day she’d met him, sunbathing on the beach. Large waves had curled in, surging toward land. while surfers had shot through with skill and success, or slammed against the water and wiped out after misjudging their approach or losing their balance. Then there had been Paul.

“Why me?” She’d watched him more than the others that day, drawn to the way he’d approach a wave, taunting it to take him. Each time it would draw him up, he’d duck down low, and flow through, as much a part of the wave as the water itself. Maybe he’d seen her. She never knew for sure.

“Why me?” Elaine had eyed him through her sunglasses, and watched him falter. She’d laughed, knowing he’d come out of the crested wave and paddle back in, eager to tackle the next. She’d lost sight of him. Long moments passed. Someone near her had screamed, then she’d seen the blood in the water.

“Why me?” Of all the people on the beach that day, she was the one who had run into the water in the aftermath. A fin had sliced through the blood in the water near Paul, though she hadn’t known his name then. Shark! She’d gone anyway to his unconscious body, and had somehow managed to wrestle him up onto his board to pull him back to shore. Elaine had stayed by his side, using the strap of his surfboard to create a makeshift tourniquet around the ruin of his shin.

“Why me?” She’d ridden in the ambulance with him to the hospital, and had awaited the fate of this man whom she’d only seen from afar.

“Why me?”

Elaine opened the box. Where she had expected a ring, she found a shark tooth, its base carefully filed, affixed to a leather cord that had been curled into a fine loop, tucked into the bottom of the box. One edge’s serrations had chipped away, stuck in the moment after the accident, embedded in what had remained of Paul’s shin bone. The doctors had removed it, and given it to him as a keepsake. He’d turned it into this. She closed the box, sighed, and began walking back to the hotel.

***

An unopened bottle of Dos Equis dangled from Paul’s fingertips as he sat on a recliner in the dark. The door opened, and he heard a keycard land on the kitchenette counter, followed by Elaine setting her purse down. Ocean waves did their dance outside the balcony, and Paul lost himself in their distant thunder.

Paul evinced no objection when Elaine replaced the bottle in his hand with the small box she’d removed from the sand. “It was too much, wasn’t it? I’m sorry,” she said. More awkward silence. His silent vigil continued even as he pulled the box into his lap, fidgeting with it in the dark. He knew he’d made a mistake.

Elaine grabbed his right hand with both of hers, whispering “It was your knuckles.”

An incredulous laugh half-strangled by a sob escaped his lips. “What?”

She smiled and looked up at him. “They were bloody and cut up. You had fought that shark off, even when it took your leg, and didn’t give up until you passed out from blood loss. Paul, I couldn’t believe it. You intrigued me. I didn’t want you to die. I wanted to know more about you.

“Your courage...You commanded an unfathomable situation. Whether it was through fear, or survival, or determination. You won your life.

“When I reached you, you were half drowned, surrounded by blood. You lashed out at me even though you were unconscious. Still you fought.

“I wanted to be part of that life. Everything focused on that moment, and all I saw was a broken man continuing to fight.

“Paul, you…”

He put his finger to her lips and drew the box up. “Did you look inside?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“It was your shark tooth.”

“Are you sure that’s all?” he smiled, offering the box to her.

Elaine opened up the box, grabbed the leather cord at the base of the tooth, and pulled it free. Dangling from the end that had hidden in the base of the box, tied nicely in a bow, was a gorgeous sapphire ring flanked on either side by three small diamonds.

“Elaine, it would please me to have you say those words to me again, in front of our friends, and family, if you would honor me to be my wife.”

She slugged him hard in the shoulder. “You ass!” she laughed and cried.

“Yeah I suppose I am,” Paul agreed.

“Alright, well now it’s your turn. Serves you right,” she mockingly threatened.

“Oh really?”

She kissed him fiercely. “Yes really.” Elaine’s grin stole his heart.

“Why me”?