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Chapter Six
Point of View: Narrator


Nick knew where he was going. He'd brought many girls there over the past several years for a day of romance. He wasn't sure what brought it to mind when Krystal told him to go to the first place he thought of, but here he was, expertly steering his boat through the gulf waters towards the little island that he'd found, praying it would be unoccupied, apart from the seagulls.

Krystal's enthusiasm for the boat had slowly built up and her need to grip onto things lessened the longer the boat cut the water. She almost felt safe, which was ironic considering how unsafe she typically felt water was. She looked over at him, standing at the helm, eyes focused ahead on the water, navigating the wild sea, the wind in his hair, and she realized that it wasn't the boat that felt safe... it was Nick.

"Do you go boating a lot?" she called over the wind.

"As often as I can," he answered, "It clears my mind."

Krystal nodded. She could see how it would. There was nothing out here except one and one's mind, and a span of empty, flat-edged water that stretched away into the corners of the earth, so it seemed. "And why does your mind need clearing?" she asked at last.

Nick shifted his weight and shrugged, "Sometimes things get overwhelming is all."

Krystal nodded, "Me, too."

Nick's eyes never tore away from the ocean. "People think you get famous and, zap, you have it all - the perfect life - and that everything in your past is of moot because nothing can hurt you when you're a star..." he shook his head, his eyes darting lightening quick between her and the water ahead of them, "But that's not true."

"It would be true for me," She said, grinning.

He shook his head. "I thought so too but I was wrong."

"What hurts you?" she asked.

Nick laughed, "I'm not telling."

"Oh c'mon, you were gonna tell some balding old guy in a Mr. Rogers Neighborhood sweater a little better than an hour ago," Krystal teased him, "Why can't you tell me now?"

"I was going to tell him I got chased by a herd of wild cattle down Sunset strip in Los Angeles."

"Interesting," Krystal laughed, "And you got away, I see?"

"I hid in a china shop and bulls aren't alllowed in there," Nick answered, grinning.

Krystal leaned back against the wall of the ship and looked down at the water. "People always think I'm crazy, or drunk, or high, or whatever," she said, staring down at the crystal blue water reflecting up at her as it danced away from the ship, "But I'm just having fun," she explained.

"That's what AJ used to say," Nick muttered. Krystal leaned up and looked at him questioningly. Nick shrugged, "He used to say that, then he'd go out and get drunk and high and come home and puke it all up and sit on the bathroom floor moaning all night. Then he'd get up the next morning and do it all over again. Except after awhile, drinking and smoking at night wasn't enough and all the pain waited until morning for him and he had to drink in the morning, too, and eventually he wasn't just having fun, he was running away from stuff."

"Don't you have things to run away from?" Krystal asked.

Nick nodded.

She shrugged, "Sometimes it's the only thing that helps."

"What do you run away from?" he asked.

"My mother," Krystal answered, "And my life in general. The memories..." she toed the floor boards of the boat and stared at her flip-flop clad feet. "My daddy died," she explained, "A really long time ago. But I dunno, in a way that was a blessing. I don't remember him being a monster."

"A monster?"

She stood up and unzipped her dress, sliding the straps down her shoulders and revealing a series of scars across her lower back as the dress slid away from her body. They were tiny scars, almost faded, now, puckered little marks across her skin. She pulled her dress back up and zipped it and turned to look at him. "He used to put his cigarettes out on us," she explained. "I don't know what else he did, but my mother always insists he's why I'm messed up..."

Nick gripped the helm tightly in his hands. Nothing made him angrier than a man that would raise his hand to a woman or a child. Nothing.

Krystal shrugged, "I run away from pain I wasn't old enough to remember and a mother who won't let me forget it."

Nick studied her a long moment. "My family was just one or two notches from being homeless. We always had a roof, but sometimes that roof was a car. When we had a home, it was in the ghetto and I wasn't - I dunno, I wasn't popular, I didn't have friends. I had my siblings, and they resented me because I practically raised them I baby sat them so much and, even now, I feel like I'm their father because my parents were always gone, always working."

Krystal nodded quietly at Nick.

"I became a singer to run away, and I got away and I got tangled up in some business stuff that hurt and now there's all this crap with AJ and this one girl, SIerra, and..." his voice trailed away. "Sometimes when I come out here in the middle of the ocean and I'm floating in this big blue emptiness, I dream about not turning around, about not going back, because out here, at least, I can't hurt anyone else," he said. "I guess I'm running from myself."

"Well Fred," Krystal said, "I guess we really are made for each other."

"Why's that?"

"We're both running."