I swallowed, his mouth closing over mine so briefly I wasn’t sure it even happened before he pulled Kalo’s food out and water out. He rubbed her head, grabbed the car keys, and looked back at me with a cocked brow one more time before he was out the door, and I had no choice but to follow.
It was like stumbling upon a secret hideaway, one no one was meant to discover, when we pulled into Esalen. A light bit of fog covered the roads and tumbled up over the wooden sign announcing our arrival, and I let my fingers hang out the window, the cool of the clouds tickling my skin as the guard let us in and pointed us to where we needed to go.
Emery held my hand as we joined the rest of the group, about twenty or so other people who were all fully clothed. I narrowed my eyes at him when we loaded up on the shuttle, but he just squeezed my hand with a mischievous smile.
Everyone was silent as we rode through the lodging areas, and even when we were dropped off at an immaculate co-ed changing area, complete with showers, it seemed no one had words to say. In fact, it was as if silence was the only way to come into Esalen. Emery told me it was a healing resort, a place to meditate and practice self-discovery, but we were just dipping our toes in for the night.
Literally, dipping our toes in. Into the hot springs, to be more precise.
When the guide dropped us off, everyone in the group stripped out of their clothes quietly, each of them taking turns stepping into the shower before heading outside to the various hot spring tubs available. We were on our own, everyone making the night their own experience, and no one seemed to be judging anyone else.
That didn’t make it any easier for me to disrobe.
“No one is watching you,” Emery assured me, untying his own robe and draping it over one of the wooden benches. He stepped forward and into me, pressing his lips to mine and keeping them there as his hands found the bow tied at the front of my robe. He pulled one end of it, and the robe fell open, only his body blocking my body from the rest of the room. “And it’s dark out there, save for the moonlight.”
A nervous breath left my lips as he pushed the fabric of my robe down my shoulders, catching it before it hit the floor and laying it next to his. “I kind of want to kill you right now.”
Emery chuckled, kissing me again before kneeling below me. “Just trust me.”
He placed my hands on his shoulder, helping me balance as he removed my prosthesis and wrapped it in our robes. Then he stood, one arm coming under the bend in my knees, the other supporting my lower back as he cradled me in his arms. He walked us to the showers, waggling his eyebrows as he ran the water over our bare bodies.
“You know what, maybe we should just go back to the room,” he mused, running a flat hand over my neck and down to cup my breast with an appreciative grown.
“Nuh-uh,” I said, smacking his hand away. “You dragged me out into the cold at one in the morning and got me naked in front of a bunch of strangers. We’re not leaving until I get the payout for this torture.”
Emery smirked. “I promise, I won’t let you go to sleep until you’re completely satisfied.”
I just rolled my eyes, but a blush crept up my neck as he carried me out of the changing area, the cold night air washing over my hot skin as we walked past the different baths.
Emery settled on one of the smaller tubs, nodding to the only other couple in it as we descended the stairs into the hot water. He let me go when we were all the way in, leading us over to the edge of the tub that hung a bit off the mountain, the water less than one-hundred feet below us. A man took a seat at the edge of our tub, above the water, his hands folding in his lap as he crossed his legs and closed his eyes, settling in for a meditation.
And for the first several minutes, we were both completely speechless.
It was an out-of-body experience, sitting in that hot spring suspended above the Pacific coast, the waves crashing against the rocks below, salt floating on the breeze all the way up to our noses. I existed both in the water with Emery and above it, too — watching as the moonlight painted our skin, listening as the ocean slept, smelling the beached kelp, feeling the hot steam from the bath as it competed with the cool breeze washing in from the west.
The moon was high and bright above us, the stars speckled all around it, almost as if they were close enough to touch. I thought I saw one dive across the sky, burning one last time before it died. Emery’s hand grazing my lower hip brought me back into my body, back to the present moment, and I turned to him just as he began to speak.
“My grandma came here in the early seventies,” he said, his eyes scanning the waves in the distance. “She said it was a staple in the ‘human potential movement.’ At the time, my grandma was in what she described to me as the worst depression of her life. It was just after she had my father, and she felt like she was failing as mother and wife both. So, she came here to find clarity.”
“She experienced depression, too,” I said, though I already knew it from reading his journal. Another confession of his robbed by my curiosity.
Emery nodded. “She did.”
He was quiet again after that, lost in his thoughts, and I rested my chin on the cool rock of the tub, watching the white caps of the waves roll under the moonlight. Something about that place, not just the setting, but the sanctuary itself, left me swimming in introspection, and I wanted to share something with Emery, too.
“When I first lost my leg, I didn’t even want to try to walk again,” I confessed. “Everything just… hurt, you know? Not just the actual wound that was healing, but the memory of my leg. It hurt to think of how I took advantage of something so precious, how I never had to think about walking before, and now if I ever wanted to do it again, I’d have to work and work and work, every single day, just to be able to do it half as good as I used to.”
Emery’s hand squeezed my hip, and I leaned into the touch.
“I’d never felt that, that kind of hopelessness. And then one night, I overheard my parents in the kitchen. They were talking about the accident, about my leg, and my mom said it would be so embarrassing to be in a wheelchair or to have a prosthetic leg. She said it was such a shame, because I was so pretty before. Before,” I repeated, the word bitter on my tongue. “And that was the first time it occurred to me that the accident had split my life in two — before, and after.”
“No offense, but your mom is a bitch.”
I laughed, the sound soft, my eyes still on the water. “None taken. But you know, it was what my dad said next that really kicked me in the chest.” I swallowed, remembering the sound of his voice as it carried from the kitchen down the hall to my bedroom where they thought I was sleeping. “He said he didn’t know how I could even live with myself. He said if he was me, he would just end it all.” I couldn’t look at Emery when I said the next sentence. “My own father said my life wasn’t worth living anymore.”
“Jesus,” he whispered.
“But you know what? Hearing him say that, it was exactly what I needed. Nothing like hearing someone say you shouldn’t live anymore to make you want to do just that to spite them. He lit the fire in me, the one I’ve had burning ever since. I didn’t just learn how to walk, I did it in record time, and then I did yoga, and got a job, and did everything they thought I never would. I lived,” I said. “And then I left, just like I promised them I would one day.”