The tears stain her cheeks. Crash, whoosh, hush. The rushing, foaming, cascade of water drawing back from the pebbles has always been Jane's security. She loves the sea. In its power, its relentless ritual, its timeless flow, the ocean cries its enticing spell. She breaths deeply, tasting the salty tang of the air; smelling the acrid scent of seaweed, seagulls and sand, and sobs once again.

Jane teases the strands of the friendship bracelet in her hand. She pulls the red, blue, green threads to make a soft brush at the end. Gently, gently, gently she strokes each strand until they are individual hairs all knotted at the top. It was his, this friendship gift; given to him when first they had fallen in love. Tears roll down her face like the tracks of raindrops on a window pane. Like the salty water lapping at her feet, her tears mark the passing of something special.

Boom, roar, splash. The capricious seas beat their endless song against the rocks of the promontory. Jane watches the foam rise above the rocks in fountains, curtains, cliffs of water. She looks at the dark, mottled, splattered formation of the stone and her body is racked by sobs once more. The quiescent waters of the pools her side of the promontory gently wash against the stone, all power gone, all rage dissipated, all strength abandoned. The ocean gently laps like the chastised puppy of an angry terrier. Please, they cry, please; forgive me.

Through her broken, crazy, milling thoughts she forces herself to recall his words. "I didn't mean to hurt you." "It wasn't my fault." "It just happened." The platitudes that came so easy to his lips. Why couldn't he have accepted responsibility? Why couldn't he have taken the blame and said sorry; with sincerity, remorse, shame. He was a liar. She had known from shortly after they met that lies came to his lips easier than the truth. From his boasting about his career, to his many adventures, he thought it a great game to regale her with fantasies. Now he had paid the price.

Men. Her life had been destroyed by men. From her drunken, abusive, violent father to the boy who had raped her at sixteen, and finally her fantasist of a boyfriend. They were all broken. All useless. All rogues. She had never met a decent man. Now, as she strips from her clothes, she shakes with rage at the male species. She hates each and every one. She curses every man on the planet.

Naked, she dips her hands into the sea to wash the blood from her palms. The salt sea air creates goose pimples on her exposed flesh. The cold water laps her buttocks where the tiny waves splash over her feet and genitals as she crouches in the surf. With clean hands she clasps her shins, resting her chin on her knees. She takes one final look at the beach where they spent their first holiday. The beach they both loved; the beach where she would spend the last minutes of her life.

Now she walks towards the promontory and the booming spray. Towards the rocks where she last saw Roland; towards the rocks where she had plunged the knife into his stomach, again and again, before casting him into the sea. She will dive into the spray, the foam, the welcoming waves. She will be beaten against the rocks until her life is no more. In exactly the same place where she had watched the only man she had ever loved being battered just hours before. She would share his fate now her reason for living had gone.

Learn more about this author, Tim O'Dell.
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