Page 77 of Give Him a Chance

Bernard swallowed, refusing to meet her eyes, not because he did not need her, but because he was not sure what he would do if he did. “I didn’t say I couldn’t.”

“It’s as plain as the nose on your face,” Lucy said quietly, shaking her head. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. Did you never learn?”

“I was taught. Once.” One terrible day. A terrible day he had always wished to forget.

Lucy’s eyes were raking over his face, and she bit her lip as she said, “You don’t have to tell me about it. And you don’t have to come in with me, of course, just—just stay here. Guard my clothes.”

And it was her genuine smile, a small one that was designed to comfort, not to tempt, that finally pushed Bernard beyond all the barriers he had carefully built up over the years.

Oh, to hell with it.

“I’m not saying I’ll be in that dratted ocean for long,” Bernard said stiffly.

“I’m not saying you have to—”

“Come on, then,” he interrupted, shoving his trousers down and wrenching his shirt over his head. “Let’s get this over with.”

Every step was agony, though that was only in part because of the shingles. Every foot he grew closer to the water, Bernard felt a chill shudder through him.

“Bernard—Bernard, don’t go in!”

But the person who had uttered those words could not reach him now. Instead, Lucy was by his side, holding his hand in hers and allowing him to lead them to the water’s edge.

This was madness. He couldn’t do this. He shouldn’t do this—people died doing this.

Bernard took a long, deep breath. Then he stepped into the ocean.

It lapped at his foot, barely reaching his ankle. He let out his breath in a long, slow exhale that made him want to run back to shore, put his clothes back on, and move to Birmingham, the city in England farthest from the shore.

“Bernard?”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” He could not have been less fine, but somehow, the presence of Lucy beside him made it possible to say such a thing, and for it to almost be true.

Bernard took another step forward. The ocean was now covering his ankle, his actual ankle.

How on earth am I doing this?

“You don’t have to go any farther if you don’t want to,” came Lucy’s voice from beside him…and simultaneously a long way off.

He turned to her, his grip on her hand tightening. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’m not going to leave you,” she said gently, her smile warm and without judgment. “I’m never going to leave you, Bernard.”

And though she spoke it with his false name, Bernard knew her heart was true. She was not going to leave him. And he was standing in the ocean, and she was here.

Slowly, slowly, Bernard moved step by step deeper into the rippling water. When it reached his knees, he had to stop, for he was suddenly overcome with a memory of standing at the edge of water much like this with his knees just as wet, and silence surrounding him where cries of laughter should have been.

By the time the water had reached his hips, he stopped. “That… That’s far enough.”

Lucy stepped against his side, bringing her hand around his waist. “I am very proud of you, you know.”

Bernard tried to laugh, but it was more of a ragged exhale filled with relief that the worst was over than anything else. “Yes. Yes. Good.”

He was doing it. Not swimming, not exactly. If she asked him to take both feet off the ocean floor, he would merely stride back to the safety of the shore.

But he had done it. He had come out here and faced—well, not exactly his fears, but himself. His past.

And he had done it.