It all came down to timing that night. You know how that is, how it can be something as random as not moving away quickly enough, not taking longer in ordering another drink, or perhaps even just walking at a slower pace. Then again, sometimes timing seems to be guided by mysterious forces - like some unseen, outside entity just simply orchestrates things in this way that lays all your best efforts to waste. What jokester of fate was out there directing my timing that night, I wonder?

Here's what I mean: In the beginning, the only reason he was able to catch me on the edge of the events and with no one nearby for cover was because my timing was off. And, in the end, a certain someone had inadvertently perfect timing in which to drop down from the heavens to save me. There is, as I have learned in the Zen view of life, a lesson in these kinds of seemingly inexplicable juxtaposing experiences.

It happened like this one night on the cruise, Diary. We were spending the night ashore on a private island and had gathered for a communal dinner. After dinner, we were all drinking. Out there on an open veranda, the stars above us, a sultry breeze playing its magic over us. Music piped in making us all sway to the beat as we talked in groups and simply relaxed together.

And I had to go to the bathroom. When I strolled slowly back to the veranda, the groups had largely become couples who were swaying to the music together. I walked over to where I'd been standing with Jack and found my glass. Looked out on the dance floor and saw Jack dancing with Uma. One of the other women was getting a dance lesson from Bud. Cort was leading another lady in the vertical rumba.

"Care to dance, love?" The voice was from my own personal hell, gliding over me from behind, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and shiver.

Quick glance over my shoulder in his direction and a non-committal smile. Unhurried look back over the groups around the edges of the dance floor. "There's an idea. And Dino's free. Think I'll ask him to dance."

"Cute. But I don't think so, Annie." Terry's hand went around my waist and he was turning me around to face him even as he picked up my hand and moved into me. Gliding me right into an easy dance step.

It was the first time he'd touched me since ... Since. I blinked and swallowed my nerves. Choked down all emotion. Let it go and stayed rigidly in control. Determined that I'd keep hiding where I was safe - behind the face that lied and said nothing was wrong. Inside the heart that never beat for him anymore. Away from the soul that was learning to accept that he was no longer allowed inside.

"You look beautiful tonight," he said to me and I felt his words as a soft breath on my neck.

"Um. Thank you. I guess."

Felt him shift his hold on me and just that quick, he'd drawn me right up tight against his body. I pulled away and he let me re-establish some space between us.

"Annie?"

"Yes?" God, but I hated hearing him say that name in that voice of his.

"I'm so glad you came back to us."

"I came back for Jack." And bit on my tongue for the hostility in my voice. For saying it in a way that was unnecessarily cutting. This was not the tone I was going to use with him. I wanted to be polite and to keep to myself. I made the adjustment to say: "It's been nice seeing everyone. And it's nice that everyone seems back where they belong. It's been a nice trip so far, I think."

"Nice." He imitated the way I'd said it. And I knew he did it on purpose to irritate me, to get me to show him he could still get to me. "Using that word a lot lately, aren't you? Nice."

Did a mental check on my attitude and dredged up my inner adult. Kept my mouth shut and ran through a list of the various kinds of fish I'd seen that morning while snorkeling.

"Right. You've made it clear enough you want nothing to do with me, Annie. I get it. Still ... I just wanted to say ..."

"You know, I need to go ... to the bathroom. We'll catch up with each other later. Okay?"

He let me walk away and I was so grateful. Went into the building and out the front. Left to the garden and down the steps. Picking my way like it was second nature in the darkness pressing in. At the beach, I walked to the rocky outcropping and climbed up. Stretched out and looked above me at stars.

I think I knew he was there long before he spoke to me.

"Just wanted to tell you I was sorry," he said, in this husky voice of his and I knew he was waiting for me to attack him.

If I had, it would have made things so much easier for him, I knew. He could have flipped back with righteous anger of his own and, even though we might have ended up arguing, at least he would have gotten me talking to him. Interacting with him again.

Which I'd sworn I'd never do. Never again.

"No need for that, Terry. You owe me no apologies," I told him and climbed down from where I was, patting his arm as I passed him, taking over the conversation's direction, something he always hated me doing. "Let's just let it go and forget it all. All we have to do is get through the awkwardness of having to see each other on this cruise and then we're home free from there."

But he wouldn't let me escape quite that easily and I was prepared for it. Don't quite know where I dredged it all up from - this ability to detach from this situation - but I was happy I could.

"Jesus, will you just not ... If you'd let me explain ..."

"No need. None at all." Backing away from him with that fake plastic smile on my face and my eyes circled somewhere in the vicinity of his face. Stuck my hand out to him and said, "Shit happens. Forget it. I have. Just move on."

His hand wouldn't let mine go. Soft voice from him and he tried to drag me to him but I dug my heels in the sand to make it harder. "You've forgiven me then?"

"Um. I ... Well ... There was ... And you know ... So ... Um." Mumbling at him and mentally kicking myself. Just lie and say 'yes,' I screamed frantically inside my brain, and then get the hell out of here.

"Annie, please just listen. I'm so ashamed of what I did to you. I manipulated you because I knew I could. I took advantage of not just how you felt about me but of ... things ... things you told me about yourself and ..."

It made my heart freeze. It made me do something decisive. Yanked my hand away from his. Backed away from him.

"Stop. Please just stop. I do not want to hear any of this, Terry. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to think about it and I don't want to remember it." Turned to leave but then turned back to say what I should have from the beginning. "None of it was your fault anyway. You don't have anything to apologize for. Only I do."

"You? What the f ..."

"I was the one who lied and manipulated. I was the one who wrote the diaries that made it seem like there was something special between us. We both know it was never love. I just wrote it that way. And so who can blame you for using me in the end? I'd used you from the beginning. And I'm sorry about that, Terry. You deserved better. I should have never let you come back into my life because I just started it up all over again and you've always been far too noble about it."

"That's bullshit."

"No, that's the truth. You were just doing your job as one of the men in this group and I took it too far. I was in love with you before I came into this world and you took pity on me. I mean, not that it didn't have its advantages for you because, after all, I was writing diaries about you and you were suddenly in the limelight where you belong. But still, it wasn't fair of me to do that to you and you were sweet, I guess, to play along as well as you did. It would have gone on forever if not for all this and ... The truth sucked for me and it hurt real bad to have to face it and to have to know that everyone else knew. But that's not your fault. Just because you're one of our men doesn't mean I should get to take advantage of you."

"My job ... as one of your men?" He advanced on me, this cold look on his face. And I didn't really understand exactly what nerve I'd just gotten on but I'd sure picked a sore one. "That's what you think this is, a job? This isn't a job. What the fuck's wrong with you, Annie? I meant everything I ever said to you. I love you. Think about what we've been to each other ... think about ... Christ. Just think, damn you."

"I have thought. Lots of things got a lot clearer when I went through my portal and back into that old life. I went through hating you for breaking my spirit and for making me feel like I was worthless. But back there, I could see what had really happened. And ..." And now, why, all of a sudden, Diary, was I crying? My voiced was choked with tears and all I could do was croak out the rest of the words. "And I ... I knew that none of it was your fault. You were just doing the best you could at a really bad time in your life. And so what if you used me? I'd used you for so long. And even then, I knew you needed me to just keep quiet and just be the old hag you could pretend meant enough to help you get over the pain of being on the outs with Uma, but even that I couldn't do for you. Even that I fucked up for you, Terry."

"That is not ..."

"So, I'm sorry. I am. I really and truly am so sorry for what happened. I am sorry for using you and I am sorry for letting you down. Now I just want to go somewhere and cry for a while, okay?"

He about tackled me. Arms around my waist and I was trying to get away where I could have this breakdown without the further humiliation of him witnessing me still unable to deal with what he had done to me.

But I finally just caved in because I was much too far along the path of being obliterated by tears and emotion. I let him pull me down in the sand with him. I let him cuddle me on his lap and rock me. And I found myself getting so tired and as my tears ebbed, I just reached my arms around his neck and held on.

Just a warm body in the night to hold me, was all, Diary.

"Why should I be surprised you'd turn this into you failing me?" His voice was hushed with his own emotion. "Why is it easier for you to believe you aren't good enough than to believe I might have loved you and still treated you badly? Truth is, Annie, you're still scared of the way you feel about me. But you're more scared by the idea that I may really love you. Every time you get close to believing it, you step back away from me."

"You don't love me, Terry. You just feel sorry for me. It's pity. That's all it ever was."

"Annie, what have I done to you? I never meant for you to feel this way." I didn't know he was crying until I felt his face moist on my cheek. "I know you'll never believe me when I say it, because everything I did pointed to something else, but I love you and I never said a single thing I did not mean. I realized too late what it would cost you to be mine and that you didn't really know what you were agreeing to. In that, I took advantage of your feelings so that I might ease my own pain."

"Oh, Terry, you're so ... You never see it, do you? I let you down and ... It shouldn't have mattered to me if you loved me or if you were telling one of the other women the truth that you only asked me to help you because you knew I would be that much of a sap. I made a commitment to you with my eyes wide open and then I let you down by not fulfilling it."

We just kind of tightened our grips on each other and tried to get a grip on our emotions.

"This is not your fault," he whispered to me, giving me this little tough shake.

"I let you down, Terry, and you were going through a bad time and ... I just didn't quite understand until I went through my own portal. I mean, I'm not saying we're the same, but back there, things ... I just remembered some of the things you told me that first night in San Francisco.  I didn't have the same reaction or ... issues as you, but things ... happened to me and I ..."

And then ... this moment that came from nowhere to rock me hard. To show me that, no matter what else was between us, he knew too many of my secrets and could still guess how things would affect me. And to make me wonder if ... after all was said and done ... maybe we really did have souls that knew each other.

"What did you try to put right?" he asked me, his voice soft and his cheek resting on mine. 

There wasn't anything else he could have ever said or asked or done that would have made me actually come out of my hiding place and consider connecting with him again. I wonder, even now, if he knew that and did it on purpose?

"My cousin," I whispered to him. "Reggie."

He used the fingers of one hand to play, almost nervously, with the hem of my sleeve. I didn't notice him doing it for so long and when I did, it felt more intimate than if he'd been inside me.

"Did it work?"

"Yes, I think I stopped it. I was there past the time ..." I hesitated and then felt it rush back over me. "I should call him. See if I changed things here."

"You haven't." Saying it to me blunt, almost brutal.

"You couldn't possibly know that, Terry. My other world was real. Yours wasn't," I retorted. As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized what I'd said and put my hands on his face to make him look at me. "Oh, shit. Terry, I'm sorry. I just cannot believe I said that. I'm so sorry."

"No, you're right. Maybe you did change things here. And even if you didn't, you did back there, right?"

It was the first time I actually looked in his eyes. On that whole trip, I'd carefully avoided getting caught in that trap. I looked ... and then realized what I was doing. Dropped my eyes and took back my hands.

Nerves loosened my tongue. "See, that's one of the questions I had. Back there. And then coming back here ... well, I just have questions. You know?"

He chuckled to me and I joined him as I remembered all his questions he'd come back with after his trip through his own portal.

Then sobered to ask him, "So, here's the thing, my big question. Was that world back there ... my old reality ... was it any more real than yours was? Yours felt real, didn't it? Mine did. But I wondered why I was so sure that mine was real and yours wasn't. I tried to ask Jack that very thing but ... well, I think it just upset him that I was troubled so I dropped it."

"I've come to a few conclusions about the portals myself, Annie. I don't think they have those magical influences we thought they did. I think we just used them as an excuse."

"Yeah, I pretty much felt the same way. At least for me, it seemed it wasn't the portal itself, it was dealing with the realization of what I'd left behind without knowing I'd left it behind because I didn't remember arriving here. And it was ... Crap. I don't want to talk about this anymore. Not with you."

"Why not with me?" Sounding almost wounded. Because I promised myself I would never let you in again, Terry. Ah, but I couldn't say that, could I, Diary? "Because Jack and I have come back with a new determination to really be the one for each other. And I think this is something I want to share with him first."

"Right. Makes sense."

And there we sat. Both awkward and I, for one, hadn't a clue as to what to do next. Here's what it was, Diary: had we actually apologized and forgiven each other our trespasses? It didn't feel like it. But say it was so ... did it matter in the grand scheme of things? Where were we with each other?

If I'd had my way, we'd not have been touching.

... because touching Terry is always dangerous for me.

If I'd had my way, we'd not have shared any emotions.

... because Terry is one big emotion for me that I have yet to figure out and that's much too dangerous.

If I'd had my way, we'd never have talked about anything of substance.

... because talking things over with Terry always means sharing something of myself and that was incredibly dangerous.

If I'd had my way, it would have been easy.

... but it's never easy with Terry. Not when my soul still seeks him and when being with him still makes my heart leap out between us, waiting on him to drop kick it over the yard irons.

"I don't care what you think of me - I deserve it, you think I don't know that? But if you could just forgive me, it would mean a lot, Ann," he whispered to me.

I edged my way off his lap and scooted a few feet away.  "You deserve better than what I've done by you, Terry. But if you'll forgive me as well, then maybe we can find a way to be friends out of this. Be a bit more realistic."

"This is you hiding again, love. I won't let you this time. First, say the words. Tell me you forgive me."

"Fine. I forgive you, Terry. And you?"

"That was too easy. Way too easy. I'm suspicious, Annie. But I'll play along. I forgive you as well, for whatever shit you think you need forgiving." Holding his hand out to me, tilting his chin, getting those soft eyes on me. "And, second ... why are you so far away if we've set things to right? Don't hide from me anymore. Come over here to me, amante."

"No," I said, shivering in the warmth of the tropics. "I don't want to go there with you anymore."

"I think you do, Annie girl." Saying it in his sex voice, instantly getting to me and as fast as I set up the barriers in my heart, he had gotten in ahead of them. "Your nipples are hard for me, Annie. What's that saying?"

I glanced down to check out my chest and when I looked back up, he was moving toward me. I got out, "You're crazy, they are not ..." before he was right there.

Crawling over me. Shushing me. Edging into me. I was nearly flat on my back and his lips were coming down over mine and I knew I was lost and it scared me to my core ...

When ...

Salvation came calling.

In the form of the redhead.

We both heard him at the same time. This loud outburst of cursing and a few thuds. 

I looked over, toward the steps leading to the beach and saw Dino sprawled out on the sand, swiping at his eyes and then cradling his ankle in his hands and moaning.

Terry said: "Oh, fuck me swinging."

I said: "Oh, poor Dino. We need to help him."

Terry said: "Fuck Dino. Where were we?"

I said: "We were going over to help Dino because he's obviously fallen down the stairs and now he's hurt."

Terry groaned but he got up. I scrambled up and raced over to Dino's side. "Thank you," I whispered in a rush before Terry got near us. "You saved my life."

He looked at me, puzzled and oblivious, then caught sight of Terry. I didn't need to look behind me; I could tell by Dino's reaction that Terry was fixing him with the look of death.

"Jesus Fucking Christ!" Dino yelled up at the stars, his voice just the least slurred and I realized he must have been a bit tipsy. Must have been the contributing cause to his uncharacteristically graceless trip down the steps. "Is there no place I can go on this damn resort without stumbling across you people out here doing the big nasty?"

"We weren't doing the big nasty. Not even the little nasty," I told him quickly.

Terry knelt down on the other side of Dino and gave me a quick glare.

"Well, we weren't. And we weren't going to, either," I said.

"Shut up, Annie," Terry said. "And you don't open your mouth, Dino."

"Just help me up and I'm outta here and then you two can do whatever you want," Dino said.

But before we could actually do anything, there were voices we could hear of a couple at the top of the stairs ... and then down the stairs came Bud. He was scowling ... I figured whoever he was with up there, and you didn't always know with Bud who that might be, but whoever it was had obviously sent him down to find out if Dino was alive or dead.

Dino, meanwhile, was moaning rather pitifully. I insisted that Bud and Terry help him back up the stairs and to the resort's infirmary.

Terry said the only thing wrong with Dino was that he was wimp with a twisted ankle and then he suggested that Bud could handle getting Dino up the stairs all by himself.

When Terry tried to pull me away, I mouthed out a desperate, 'help me!' to Bud. And my White Knight came to my rescue, yet again. Bud basically ordered Terry to help him with Dino. I trudged up the steps behind the three men.

And then Bud earned even more of my undying loyalty. Once we helped Dino into the little infirmary to have his already-swollen ankle checked out by the medic and Terry's back was turned, Bud dragged me out and away from the danger zone that was anywhere near Terry in that night.

Okay, okay. So all this hoopla gave me the perfect manner in which to escape from confronting the fact that I wasn't being very honest with Terry. Well, no, that's not right. I was being honest ... but only to a point.

Because, the thing was, Diary, that I did see my own failings in all of this. No one's ever totally to blame in anything.

But the larger truths?

It wasn't really about forgiveness. It was about healing. And I wasn't near healing yet. And his presence kept the wounds too fresh to have any chance to heal.

And ... if I'd kissed him that night? Under those circumstances? I'd have regretted it forever because I was still too weak and still too broken down by him. He knew so many of my secrets and that's why he knew exactly what it would have taken to have me under his thrall again. He knew there was a big part of me that wanted him to at least make the effort to seduce me there on that beach.

And ... this also. It was about forgiveness. And if I'd forgiven him then, it would have been a cheap forgiveness, no matter what I protested verbally. I didn't trust him enough to forgive him because I didn't think he understood what he'd done to me. How it had been for me to feel tossed aside by someone who had once made me want to be there for him, no matter what. Someone who had treated me badly after he had made me believe that I was incredibly special to him and that I had been loved.

Would he ever understand how it felt to have my secrets used against me by a man I'd trusted with my soul?