The Waves

by Matayo, Amy

  My mind is traveling down a dangerous road, one that might be difficult to veer from if we’re here much longer. How much is too much? How long is too long? How rigid are the rules when your brother found her first?

  That’s still the worst reality of all. I’ve never been a disloyal brother, and I’m not about to start now.

  Still, it doesn’t make my problem any easier. Sometimes we communicate our feelings best in silence. This is one of those moments.

  I might not own Dillon.

  But it’s becoming painfully obvious that she already owns a big part of me.

  CHAPTER 15

  Day Four—afternoon

  Dillon

  It took more than three hours before we deemed it safe to exit the shack. What we found was almost more disheartening than the storm itself.

  The island is a mess.

  We lost two banana trees, and we only had five to begin with. Worse, only one coconut tree is still standing, and it only holds five or six that I can see. Maybe there are more, but I don’t have time to look now. I’ve gathered six coconuts from the ground so far, and I can’t carry anymore in my hands. We decided to set up a supply room or sorts in what’s left of the shack. Most of it is still standing, but the hole in the roof is wider and a couple slats are newly missing. It looks like a structure you might find on the side of the road in an abandoned town. A home perhaps once livable, but now likely crawling with mice and snakes and the occasional tarantula. Not a place anyone would want to live, not to mention explore.

  There aren’t any mice or snakes on this island, at least not that I’ve seen. It’s the one saving grace on a rapidly dwindling list.

  “I found these.” I dump the coconuts in a pile right inside the door. The hope is that the dark room will function like a root cellar and keep the produce viable longer. This thinking could be way off base, but Liam came up with the idea and I’m not about to argue. I don’t have a better idea anyway.

  “Okay, and so far I’ve managed to save six big bunches of bananas. A lot of them were smashed beyond edible. We would have to dig out sand and mud to eat them. Maybe if we get to the point of starving…”

  “…But not today.” I finish the sentence for him, because getting to that point is something I’m not ready to face. After three days with no sign of anything but Liam and me, I’m growing more and more concerned that day might be soon approaching. But I’m not ready to give in. Still, why hasn’t anyone found us? Worse, what if they never do? Panic tries to rise, but I chase it away with sticks. “Want me to start on the fire?”

  Liam takes a step toward me and slips the sticks from my fingers, then turns my right hand over in his. My pulse throbs in my neck at the way he examines it, then rubs a little circle over my knuckles with his thumb. “Let me do it. You still have blisters.”

  “I don’t mind, though.”

  He looks at me but doesn’t let go of my hand. “Tell you what, I’ll get the fire going if you gather up whatever isn’t too wet to burn.”

  I nod, my breath catching when he brings my hand to his lips like he’s done it many times before. He kisses my knuckles, then seems to think better of it and drops my hand, raking a hand though his hair like he doesn’t have time for silly distractions.

  “Anyway, you do that and I’ll get started trying to light this thing.”

  I nod, confused by his change in demeanor but too apprehensive to ask him about it. I walk off in search of a few dry sticks or dried palm leaves. Considering every inch of this island is soggy and underwater in places, that’s no small feat.

  I’ve just reached for my second leaf when I hear it.

  I freeze, all the muscles in my body on alert, my ears focused and intent until I know.

  That sound. It’s the unmistakable sound of—

  “Dillon!” I’m already running when I hear Liam yell my name. He screams it over and over until I burst through the trees and run toward the sand. He’s waving his arms and jumping up and down near the water. I rush to join him, trying with all my might to get the plane to see us. It’s a small propeller plane, up high and maybe a mile away, but it’s here. So close we could reach out and touch it if God would give us such a miracle. Instead, we jump.

  Jump and wave and throw water heavenward and yell. So much yelling.

  “We’re here!”

  “Come this way!”

  “Look down and you’ll see us!”

  “We’re here, we’re here!”

  It lasts twenty, maybe thirty seconds, and then the plane banks left and flies the other direction. Away from us. We stand side by side, breathing heavily and watching, stunned. Surely that isn’t it. Nothing could be so cruel as to tease us momentarily and then leave, right?

  “You think it’s coming back?” I say.

  Liam doesn’t answer.

  “Maybe they saw us and went to find help. It would probably be too hard to land a plane that small here, right? It wasn’t even equipped for water landing, so it’s probably just going back for help.”

  Liam’s silence is screaming at me, and I can’t stand it.

  “Say something, Liam!”

  He doesn’t. Instead, he turns and walks back to the small mound of brush and leaves he’s managed to gather and picks up two sticks. He begins rubbing them together, methodically…then furiously.

  “What are you doing? We need to get that plane to come back, Liam!”

  Still, only silence.

  “Stop rubbing those sticks together and help me!” He’s so eerily quiet that I want to shake him. Or punch something.

  He doesn’t respond.

  “Liam!” I kick at the pile of leaves and send them scattering. What good is the stupid fire now?

  He flings the sticks to the ground and hurdles to his feet. “Stop it, Dillon. They’re gone, and they’re not coming back. What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Something! Anything but sit there rubbing sticks together!” Of course there’s nothing he can do, but I want to be rescued, and our only shot literally just flew right by. Why would they do that? Why bother showing up if you’re not going to stop? The despair is numbing and soul crushing at the same time. What little faith I still possessed trailed off with that plane, and the overwhelming loss is more tragic than being stuck on this island in the first place.

  Without taking his eyes off me, he calmly and slowly picks up the sticks. “If it hadn’t stormed, if I had worked faster, if we had a damn fire going at all—they might have seen us. But fate keeps tossing us one blow after another, and they didn’t. They may never see us. But they definitely won’t if I don’t get this fire going again. So if you don’t mind, right now I want you to leave me alone and let me work.”

  I flinch. At first I can’t read his rigid expression. Then I see that he’s angry and disappointed and full of self-hatred all rolled together, or maybe the hatred is aimed at me. All I know is he’s never once asked me to leave him alone. I stare at him, lost for what to say. When I realize he’s serious, I do it.

  I leave.

  And just like the plane, I may never come back.

  He finds me two hours later, or attempts to. I’m tucked in a far corner of the shack, back behind a stack of smelly folding chairs and praying intently that I’m not sitting on a rotted corpse. The smell is awful, a mix of wet animal and rotten eggs apparently unique to this one spot, like an old cup of milk left under a child’s bed and forgotten. I was forced to sit here when the door opened and Liam ducked his head inside. I’d been looking for salvageable supplies for the camp I’d planned to set up on the other side of the island—girls only, no brooding boys allowed—when the telltale creak of the door caused me to crouch. I think he knows I’m here. He’s moving way too slow and making quite the slow sweep of the room, almost as if he’s made it his mission to torture me. I roll my eyes and try not to breathe. A tear rolls down my cheek, one that could either be left over from my previous cry or simply the result of this burning smell.

&n
bsp; Dear God, don’t let it be a body.

  “I know you’re in here. You might as well come out, because I’m going to find you.”

  Not if I stay very still, hold my breath for the foreseeable future, and refuse to move a single muscle even if they atrophy and I wind up dying right here beside whatever is causing this godawful smell. That’ll show him.

  I take so many shallow breaths, I’m beginning to feel lightheaded.

  “Dillon, I’m sorry I told you to leave me alone. I was mad at myself, not you. Will you please stand up so I can see you? I don’t like being out here alone.”

  This gets me, and I’m hit with a wave of guilt. Abandoning people scares me, and solitude on this island feels a bit like claustrophobia. Back home, I was afraid of confined spaces, afraid of people getting too close, afraid of being stifled and anyone becoming too familiar with me. I’m an introvert with a heart that’s scared of getting hurt. Maybe it’s been my problem with dating all along. If you allowed yourself to date an unattainable man or keep him at arm’s length, you’ll avoid the possibility of getting too close and ultimately…having your heart broken. I’ve never liked being vulnerable to another person. Vulnerability rips your heart apart, and some barely survive the wounds.

  Here though, the rules have changed. Being alone feels like being banished to solitary confinement.

  Maybe because it is.

  I’m just about to stand up when he keeps speaking.

  “I got the fire going. It’s raging pretty big now. And I caught a couple fish if you want to come eat later.”

  At this, my stomach growls. I slap a hand over it to muffle the sound.

  “Okay, well I’m going now. Come back to the beach when you’re ready, and I promise not to take my frustrations out on you again.”

  The door slams, and I’m stuck feeling like a second grader pouting in a corner because she didn’t get her way. I’m ridiculous and sad at the same time, partly because of the plane and its abandonment of us both, and partly because there’s only one other person with me in this little world we’ve created, and I don’t want to fight. Being alone is one thing, being dismissed and lonely is another.

  I don’t want to be lonely.

  I don’t want to spend my life pushing people away and never truly being known. I may have blown my chance with everyone else I’ve ever known, but I’m not going to blow my chance with Liam. What’s the worst that could happen—he might reject me? He won’t. There’s no one else here. Funny how you get bold when you’re completely out of options. Life might have been better if I’d learned this simple truth sooner. I suppose you work with what you have, and for now I have a tiny patch of beach and grass and one other human who knows I exist. I guess God will use whatever it takes to get your attention.

  With a sigh, I stand up and head for the door, thinking this time it’s all or nothing. No more hiding, no more arms-length, no more keeping the real me to myself. If this life is what I’m faced with, then I’m going to do better. Tomorrow I might lose my mind at the memory of that stupid plane, but not tonight. Tonight I’m going to make sure that fire is a raging inferno.

  I’ve just stepped into the sunlight when I hear his voice.

  “Well, well, look who’s decided to stop playing hide and seek? Are you finally over your little temper tantrum?”

  I whirl around to see him waiting for me.

  “My temper tantrum? You’re the one that—”

  The words get stuck in my throat at the look on his face. He’s leaning against a palm tree, one ankle crossed over the other, one eyebrow raised like I’m the most amusing thing he’s ever seen. Maybe I am, but his expression falters when his gaze leaves my face and does a slow perusal down the length of me. I shift in place at the scrutiny, well aware that I’m clad in a bikini and a threadbare towel tied around my waist. If I wanted vulnerability, I just got it in spades.

  He swallows and then realizes he’s been caught. He straightens, raking a hand through his hair as he takes a few steps away. I want to ask him not to leave, but I know he’s going to anyway. I want to walk closer to him, but I know in this moment it would invite more than I’m ready for.

  “Like I said,” he says over his shoulder, “I have a fire going. I’m going to get the fish ready. Want to cook them, and I’ll open a couple coconuts?”

  I nod. Fish and coconuts. The same thing day in and day out with no option for change. It’s routine at best, boring at worst. On this island, everything stays the same.

  Yet something tells me that between me and Liam, things are about to change.

  “Pizza, extra sausage,” I say. “You?”

  “Crab cakes, though my affinity for all things seafood is rapidly declining at present.” Nothing is funny about that statement, but I laugh anyway. We’re sitting by the water’s edge, each wrapped in our own beach towels that Liam found in the shack yesterday. They’ve been washed as well as we could manage. The musty smell stubbornly clings to them like a leech to a warm body, but at least I’m warmer and less self-conscious than I’ve been since we arrived here. There’s a pile of towels lying on the half-inflated life raft, ready to be used as blankets tonight, a welcome improvement over the last few nights. There isn’t anything much worse than trying to sleep while curled into a ball and shivering through your dreams.

  We’ve been playing twenty questions since the sun went down, and if I’ve counted correctly we’re on question six. Question twelve if you count the questions we asked each other while floating in the water that first night. I still don’t understand Liam’s dislike of basketball, but I do understand his reasons. To this day, I hate playing piano. Thanks to all the hours my mother had me waste taking lessons. Guitar was my real love. The chords I’m able to play now were entirely self-taught. Turns out YouTube videos aren’t a complete waste of time.

  My turn to ask a question.

  “How old were you when you had your first kiss?”

  “Eleven.”

  Okay, that question must not have been as bold as I thought because he answered extremely fast. Too fast for the courage it took me to ask it.

  “Eleven? No one has a real first kiss at eleven.”

  “You do when you’re me and Beth Adams pins you against a back wall at a high school football game. She was fourteen, and I was a stud.”

  “That’s disgusting. She should be ashamed of herself.”

  He picks up a broken sand dollar and flicks off a piece of wet sand. “I doubt she even remembers it. But I do. Her hair was in two sexy French braids and her lips tasted like strawberries. The braces were a little awkward though.”

  I bump his knee with mine. “Hers or yours?”

  “Mine. She was way too hot for braces.”

  I don’t say that I wore braces. “No one’s hot when they’re fourteen.” Even I hear the defensiveness in my tone but I can’t seem to stop it.

  “You’re only saying that because you never met Beth Adams. I bet you would have kissed her too if she’d pinned you against the wall.” He tosses the broken shell into the water. The breeze picks up, so I pull the towel tighter around my shoulders.

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  “Too late. My ten-year reunion is next month and word has it she’ll be there; she married some shmuck from my class who’s now extremely wealthy. I just made an internal bet with myself that you’ll develop your own crush the second you see her. Which means you have to come with me.”

  My heart does a little flip and fall, happy and sad at the same time. I’m pretty sure Liam just asked me on a date. I’m also more than a little certain we’ll have no way to get there, not when our one chance at being rescued already came and went.

  “You can bet all you want, but it isn’t going to happen.”

  He pauses, the air suddenly tense and uncomfortable.

  “The crush, or the reunion?” His words are so full of regret and resignation that without thinking, I reach for his hand and thread my fingers through his, bringing both
to my lap.

  “The crush, of course,” I whisper. “We’ll get to the reunion if we have to swim the whole way.”

  At this he laughs, and the mood lightens. I hadn’t intended to be funny, but inside I’m doing a little celebratory dance. Liam in a somber mood is not my favorite thing.

  “So tell me yours.”

  I blink. “My what?” I know exactly what he means.

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  Busted. Playing innocent has never been my strong suit. It didn’t work when I lost my mother’s engagement ring in high school and passed it off as her own forgetfulness, and it isn’t working now. I needed a ring for the homecoming dance, and she accidently left it at home. How was I to know she would notice it missing before I returned it? Or that I would lose it somewhere between the parking lot and the drive home and never actually return it at all? Things rarely turn out the way I plan.

  “Nineteen.”

  There’s silence, the standard response whenever anyone discovers my age during my first kiss, which is why I never tell them and instead dodge the question by claiming I need to make a phone call or find some Tylenol for an unexpected headache. I can’t do either here, so I’m stuck.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with waiting to kiss someone.” This is my standard response when forced to defend myself. It’s lame, and waiting didn’t keep me from kissing my share of frogs like Kirk the secretly engaged veterinarian. But it’s my only comeback, and honestly I’m not that embarrassed. I’m proud. I’ve experienced my share of heartbreak, but it’s a bit easier to deal with when you’re older and not as quick to believe that life begins and ends at the whim of your latest crush.