Meet Me in Tahiti

Chapter Twenty-Three

The first thing Finn noticed as he entered the gazebo was Zoe’s hands rubbing her thighs. Up, down, up, down.

“You don’t have to do that, Zoe,” he said.

“W-what?”

“Your hands.”

Her hands stopped. “It’s a...a nervous habit, that’s all.”

“And I make you nervous.”

“No. I mean...no. Oh I don’t know what I mean. Yes. Yes? Yes, you do, because I don’t know what you’re thinking when you look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like...that. Malie says you used to look at me like that but I was sure she was wrong. And I still... I mean how could you possibly? Except that sometimes...like last night...at the food trucks... And now here I am, and my chair’s over there, and I don’t want you to think—because I don’t think. At least I do but I don’t. I mean, I thought... But I know you’re busy. Two resorts to manage and you were supposed to be in the UK, and you’re so late... I really don’t know why you’re here. Tonight—but not...not just tonight. I mean here and not in the UK. But you have guests tonight so I’m not expecting—I mean, they’re dancing and maybe you want to as well. And that’s OK because I—grghahgah!” And her hands were up off her thighs, covering her face.

Finn waited for her to come up laughing so he could tell her answers to all those questions, but the sound he heard emerging from between her fingers wasn’t a laugh, it was a sob.

“Hey!” he said.

She shook her head. What did that mean? Stay away? How could he stay away when she never cried and yet she was crying? His wonderful, indomitable Zoe, crying alone.

For a second he hesitated, but he couldn’t bear to see her distressed. She’d said—hadn’t she said?—that people she trusted didn’t need permission. And she trusted him. Against all odds, she trusted him.

One more heartbeat, that was all it took to decide, and he was gently, carefully scooping her up, bringing her with him over to the larger chair, cradling her on his lap.

He waited for a fraught moment, ready for her to tell him to let her go; instead she burrowed closer, her hands still over her face.

“Are you trying to break my heart?” He kissed her hair. “I can’t bear to see you cry.”

She shook her head but didn’t remove her hands.

“OK, so how about I answer your questions?”

A nod.

“Last night at the food trucks, I wanted to see you, I wanted to touch you. I’m here tonight, I’m here this week, only for you. I wanted you to come tonight because I had business to attend to and I didn’t want you to be alone, waiting for me at Poerava. I’m late because of that business but nothing was going to keep me away. I know your chair is out there, and when you’re ready to leave, I’m going to carry you to it if you’ll let me, but if you prefer I’ll call Cristina. My resorts can wait, just like the trip to the UK is waiting. I have guests, but as you said, they’re dancing. And here’s a deep dark secret for you—I dance like a flailing trout, so me dancing ain’t happening anywhere except in the privacy of my own living room. Or I can dance for you, now, if you could use a laugh.”

Obligingly, she gave a watery chuckle.

He nestled his cheek against the top of her head, crushing one of the tiare mā’ohi flowers she’d pinned into her hair and breathing in the intoxicating scent that was so heartbreakingly Zoe. “Now, how about you share a deep, dark secret of your own to make me feel better about the whole trout thing? One that isn’t your abominable handwriting or the fact that you always manage to dribble your food down your chin or that you can’t cook?”

And at that, the watery chuckle turned to a snort of laughter, and she emerged from behind her hands.

She smiled at him and his heart turned over. “I don’t have any deep, dark secrets to match the flailing trout.”

“I’d say you definitely have one secret at least, even if it isn’t trout-worthy,” he ventured. “Why the tears?”

To his utter amazement, she snuggled into his arms, resting the side of her face against his chest. “Because tonight I feel...lost. Like you said I was, all those years ago.”

He went perfectly still. “You’re not lost, Zoe. You’re right here, with me.”

Long, long moment. And then, tentative: “Have you been to see the tiare apetahi, Finn?”

“Yes.”

“Kupe told me the story, and I asked... I asked if I could go to Ra’iātea and see them and he said...he said...” Another sob wracked her tiny frame, and Finn had to exercise superhuman restraint not to crush her in his arms, so closely did he want to hold her because he knew: it was something she’d never be able to do.

“Zoe, the tiare apetahi is a beautiful flower with an incredible story, but truthfully? I’m sorry I ever went up Mount Temehani to see them. If I had the chance to hike up there again I wouldn’t do it. There are only about twenty plants left, and that’s because they’ve been loved almost to extinction.”

“Are you trying to make me feel better?” she asked into his shirt.

“Yes, but it’s also the truth. That flower is sacred to Polynesian people. Do the rest of us really need to traipse up to see it? We can hear the stories, we can see the photos, there are other exquisite flowers we can smell. Isn’t that enough?”

“Yes, yes, I guess that’s enough,” she said, and sighed as she burrowed closer.

He wondered if she knew that she was fiddling with the buttons of his shirt. If that was a replacement for rubbing her hands over her thighs he was all for it. He waited for what she would say. He knew in that moment he’d waited forever for her. That he’d keep waiting for as long as it took.

“When I have to attend a party,” she said haltingly, “I try to get there early so I don’t have to barge through people with my chair. But on a tour, I aim to be the last person to do things so everyone else doesn’t have to maneuver around me. I’m the last into the water because I’m not as strong as other people so I don’t have as long to swim. And I have to be the last one out so I don’t get in anyone’s way. The Gravity thing...well, you already know about that, and that’s not really a secret because the girls know about it too. But they don’t know...nobody knows...that sometimes I fall out of my chair, and when that happens, it can be so, so hard to get back into it. The last time it happened I sat on the floor and cried for an hour.” She drew in a breath, huffed it out. “I guess those are deep dark secrets. The crying thing especially. Because I don’t want anyone to know that I do cry, sometimes.”

Again, that urge to crush her in his arms, absorb her hurt, take it into his own body, his own soul. This was hard to hear, hard to bear.

“I’ve had sex, you know,” she said, into his shirt again. “Yes, I have. And it was not good. Not. Good.” A hitch in her breath, a caught-back sob. Ah, Zoe. “Just because I can’t feel my legs doesn’t mean I can’t feel everywhere else, and just because I’m small and...and skinny doesn’t mean I don’t want... I don’t know...passion instead of all the...the gentle and...vague and...and scared...blah, and...argh, I just... I can’t talk about it!”

“You don’t have to,” he said, his hand stroking into her hair, soothing, yearning, aching, wanting.

“I tried online dating once.” Nodding furiously against his chest. “And you know what I found?”

He wanted say, That it sucks? but decided to keep quiet instead.

“I found,” she said, with a laugh that managed to sound like utter despair, “that there are wheelchair devotees out there. Wheelchair devotees, like...like fetishists.”

Yep, he was glad he’d kept quiet on that one.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she went on, really tugging on his buttons now. “If both sides are getting something out of it, go team! But I’ve had enough of people fussing over me, through my entire childhood, without bothering to find out who I really am on the inside. I don’t need someone worshipping my wheelchair now. Do you know how many people tell me I’m an inspiration? How they admire my bravery? That they’re proud of me? Or conversely that they pity me? And I don’t want any of that. I just... I want to be me. But instead, I have to pretend to not mind that people see me as some kind of...of mirror to make themselves feel good, or a mission, or a little pet in need of stroking. Sometimes I want to punch them! Or just...just scream!”

One of his buttons came off, ripped from his shirt. “So go ahead,” he said.

She was looking at the button in her hand as though she had no idea how it got there. “What?”

“Punch me. I’m strong as an ox. Lay into me.”

Up came her head, her eyes blinking. “I’m not going to punch you, Finn.”

“OK, then scream.”

“No!”

“Why not? The show’s over in Mama Papa’e. The guests are all dancing and the music’s loud enough to drown out a scream or two. Kupe and Chen have gone home, and home’s on the other side of the island.”

“I’m not going to scream, Finn!”

She sounded so shocked! God, she was adorable. “OK, we’ll save the scream for tomorrow but the option to punch me still stands.”

“Wait. What. Tomorrow?”

“And Zoe,” taking her chin in a gentle hand, “for the record, you are an inspiration, and I do admire your bravery, but it’s got nothing to do with your wheelchair.”

More blinking.

“Do you remember that entry in your journal you showed me? The one about surfing with Malie at dawn? You hid Malie’s board in your parents’ boatshed because her parents wouldn’t let her surf anymore and yours would have had a fit if they’d found out what you were doing?”

“They did have a fit when I told them I was going surfing with Malie in Hawaii in February.”

“And yet you went, and that was the trip you did without Cristina.”

“Thanks to Malie cornering Mum and Dad last Christmas and promising them she’d go ‘the full Rottweiler’ to keep me safe.”

Finn laughed. “And did she go ‘the full Rottweiler’?”

“Oh, she did,” Zoe said, laughing with him.

“I’d like to have seen that!” He smiled at her, then cupped her face with one reverent hand. “But the thing is, I knew from that journal entry that surfing scared you and yet you still went to Hawaii because it wasn’t about the surfing, it was about...about you. About courage. A symbol of your friendship with Malie. And then today, I read your article on the surf school and—”

“What? How did you...? Oh.” She giggled. “Google!”

“And I knew all those things were still there, the defiance, the courage. The loyalty that’s making you wear that godawful pink vest!” Another giggle, and it made his heart swoon for her. “And I saw in that article that you conquered surfing the way you’ve conquered—the way you conquer—everything. It was in every line you wrote. I would have thought you’d feel more vulnerable than ever lying on your belly on an adapted surfboard but nothing I read suggested fear.”

“Because I wasn’t scared. I don’t know how but I lost the fear and just loved it. It’s like I’d grown into the freedom of it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m never going to be like Malie, fiercely and fearlessly catching giant waves, but hey, no one’s as good as Malie on a wave! But I can still love it.”

He trailed a thumb across her cheek. “Snorkeling in still water must seem tame by comparison.”

“Tame? When there’s every chance I could be consumed by a giant clam?”

He hooted out a laugh. “I’ll man up and save you, I promise.”

She snuggled back into his arms, and when he felt her shiver, he drew her closer against his chest. “So on the subject of Malie...”

“Hmm?”

“What was it she said?”

She looked up at him. “I don’t—what?”

“You said, Malie said you used to look at me like dot-dot-dot. And then you said she was wrong. So fill in the dots.”

She was back to fiddling with his shirt, but this time, she was sliding her finger inside the gap where the button was missing, tracing a small circle with it over and over. Unconsciously, he was sure. It felt...aaah...like heaven. If only she’d rip off a few more buttons, put her whole hand inside. Oh God, maybe not, he’d never be able to concentrate.

“Okaaay,” she said. “Malie said...” her finger stopping, “that you looked at me...” licking at her lips, “like you wanted to...” closing her eyes tight, “strip me naked and have your wicked way with me.” She opened her eyes and blinked up at him, clearly astounded that she’d said it.

He wanted to kiss her so, so badly. But this had to be finished, understood. “Well, Zoe, I have news for you.” He threaded his fingers into her hair. “Malie was not wrong. She was one hundred percent right. That’s how I used to look at you. And that’s how I was looking at you when I came into this gazebo. It’s how I’m looking at you now. And I can assure you I’m not scared of passion and I’m unlikely to be gentle—unless that’s what you want me to be in which case that’s what I’ll be, because I’ll be whatever the hell you want. I am not a wheelchair devotee or fetishist or whatever you want to call it. I just want you. Inside and out, from your hair clips to your jeweled feet and everywhere in between. So how about you let me do it? Strip you naked? I mean, come on, we both know I moved into that bungalow for a reason.”

One breathless beat of a moment.

And then she twined her arms around his neck. “Am I allowed to strip you naked too?” she whispered.

“Ah, Zoe,” he said unsteadily. “You are allowed to do whatever you want to me. Nothing is out of bounds. Absolutely nothing. Remember when we talked about vanilla? Well, choose whatever flavor you want and I will home deliver it and you can help me choose the sprinkles.”