Gillian's Island

by Natalie Vivien

  I step down into the water and begin to stride toward the center of the pool. It's about twenty feet across, but at its deepest part, the water only comes up to mid-thigh. That will be enough to wash my pants; if I sit down in the water, I'll be able to wash my shirt, too...

  I pause—because, suddenly, I start to feel a sinking sensation.

  Literally.

  Beneath my feet, the sand begins to give way, to become more...well...gooey is the word that comes to mind. I guess I walked into a patch of mud or something. But as I stare down at my feet beneath the clouding water, my heart begins to rise in my throat.

  I'm pretty sure I just walked into quicksand.

  Well, best not to panic, right? I take a shallow breath; then I try to move my right foot, which is continuing to sink, absolutely irremovable. I wiggle my toes—successfully. So at least I can do that. But the water that was mid-thigh before is now up to my waist, and it's rising very slowly, by degrees. I try to lift my left foot and find that it's even more engulfed than my right one.

  I'm stuck—and sinking.

  “In a sticky situation there, Gillian Delaney?” comes a familiar, husky voice.

  I'm ashamed to admit it, but even though I'm in the middle of this harrowing, albeit ridiculous, predicament, Ivy's gorgeous voice sends a thrill through my body.

  I look up toward an overhanging rock above the stream's pool and find Ivy sitting there, her tan, bare legs swinging over the edge of the rock, a smile making her full lips turn up deliciously at the corners. The sky behind her is too blue, and Ivy's hair is too golden, her eyes brilliant green. Everything about her is vibrant, alive, and, honestly, although I'm standing in quicksand, seeing her makes me kind of feel vibrant and alive, too. My heart rises inside of me, even as I sink a little deeper into the pool.

  Ivy cocks her head, watching me with a bemused (and sexy) expression.

  Okay, focus, Gillian, I think to myself, with a shaky sigh. We're shipwrecked on an unknown island, and I'm knee-deep in quicksand. Now is no time to fantasize about a particular blonde boat captain...

  I've really got to reevaluate my priorities.

  “Yeah,” I tell Ivy, grimacing, wiggling my toes again as I drop a little lower beneath the water. “I, uh, can't seem to move,” I say sheepishly. “Quicksand on a deserted island,” I laugh softly, splashing the surface of the water with the palms of my hands as I shrug. “Who knew?”

  “Be right down,” Ivy calls out, standing smoothly on top of the rock. The rock, if I were standing on the land, would still tower about ten feet above my head. It's pretty enormous. But, as if she were only a few inches off of the ground, Ivy leaps down from the rock, landing gracefully and lightly on the balls of her feet. I nearly have a heart attack, watching her, but then Ivy is standing easily again, slanting her shoulders as she takes in my expression. “Took gymnastics when I was a kid,” she explains, with a little smile. When Ivy smiles, her eyes crinkle at the corners, and her long blonde lashes brush against her cheeks like a kiss.

  Wow. Maybe I baked my brain in the sun? I shouldn't be having these types of thoughts-that-make-you-blush right now. Kind of inconvenient...

  “Don't panic,” says Ivy then, and she wades out to me, standing calf-deep in the water. She springs up and down a little on her feet, glancing beneath the surface. “I think I'm on stable land,” she says then, reaching forward and offering me a hand. I stretch out my arm, curl my fingers around hers, and then my palm slides into her grasp.

  “Okay,” she says confidently, bracing herself. “Good. If this doesn't work, I'll try to jab a stick under your feet, do all the leverage stuff, but I don't think the quicksand is that, well, quick. Now, pull as hard as you can,” she tells me, taking a deep breath as she begins to pull from her end. I start to pull her toward me.

  It's instantaneous, the sucking, squelching sound as my feet suddenly become unstuck from the quicksand. And when my feet come free, I'm suddenly flying through the air toward Ivy. With a great splash, I land against her, forcing her backward, half in the water of the pool and half on the dry sand beside the pool.

  We're chest to chest and face to face.

  I lie on top of her, and for a second, I'm too stunned to move. But Ivy isn't stunned at all; instead, she's grinning. She glides her hand up and over the bare skin of my shoulder, over the skin of my neck, causing me to shudder, and then her fingers move behind my ear. I can feel myself blush, flushing all over... But then Ivy removes her hand and brings it between us, and on her very first finger, waving tiny pincers, is a very, very tiny crab.

  “Friend of yours?” she asks, teasing me gently.

  I laugh, surprised, and then I'm rolling off of her, sitting on the shore beside the pond as Ivy sits up, glancing down at the crab crawling in the palm of her hand. Then she tosses the creature back into the water of the stream. She wipes her wet hands off on her thighs and glances at me with a raised brow as I squeeze out the hems of my cargo pants.

  “Come on, landlubber,” she says, eyes twinkling as she rises smoothly, holding out her hand to me again.

  I lift my chin, staring at this luminous creature. My heart thuds in my throat, and I'm suddenly hyperaware of everything. Like the fact that Ivy's hair got wet when I fell on top of her, and it's now curling wetly against her skin in graceful, blonde waves. Ivy's mouth is slanted teasingly, as if she's about to tell me a secret. And her tank top has shifted a little; I can see where the tan line beneath the shirt ends...and under that edge is creamy skin...

  Dial it back, Gillian, I command myself, as I slide my hand into hers. Ivy helps me to my feet, drawing me upward in one smooth, easy motion. We stand together, looking at one another, and for a long moment, Ivy doesn't release my hand. She's so warm, and the day is sweltering, but I find that I like her heat.

  I like it a lot.

  I clear my throat, and then Ivy lets me go. We both take a step back, though perhaps I step back a bit quicker than she does. We shift our feet and our eyes, staring out at the pond, at the trees... And then I clear my throat again, voice the words I've been holding inside since I first caught sight of Ivy today:

  “Have you found Rusty?” I ask her quietly, searching her smooth face.

  For a long moment, Ivy says nothing, but her eyes flicker with a deep, dark pain. She winces, breathes out for a long moment. Then she lifts her chin, and she's searching my gaze with her own. “No,”' she says quietly. “But I'd know if he was...” She frowns, her jaw clenching as she glances away. “I'd know. He's my twin brother. We have a connection, and I'd feel it...break.” She lifts her eyes to the sky, a soft breeze ruffling the fly-away blonde hairs framing her face. “And it hasn't broken,” she says then, simply. “He's out there somewhere. He's okay.”

  I nod. I understand about connections, I think, even though I've never felt one myself. I've heard twins talk about how they can feel the other's emotions, nearly read one another's minds... And that makes a sort of sense to me. I hope, for Ivy's sake, that her gut instinct is right.

  I draw in a deep breath, then, wrapping my arms around me as I shudder, remembering the horrors of yesterday. “Ivy... I want to thank you for saving me—us. Charity and me. Last night.” I struggle to find the words as I relive those terrified moments, slipping down, down, into the inky blackness of the sea. I swallow hard, shaking the memory out of my head. “I'm alive because of you, and... I mean,” I stammer, licking my dry lips, “we would've drowned if you hadn't—”

  “Hey.” I glance up at Ivy, and I'm surprised to see the softness in her eyes as she gazes at me. “I told you I'd keep you safe,” she says simply. Her eyes begin to rove over my body; I'm grateful that my cheeks are sunburned, because that hides the blush on my face. But she only asks, “Are you hurt at all? How do you feel?”

  “Okay,” I tell her, nodding. “Tired and sore. But okay. Alive,” I finish, with a small smile.

  For a long moment, Ivy's brilliant green gaze captures and holds mine. “Good,” she says then, he
r mouth turning up, her eyes sparkling. “That's good.” And then she tilts her head to one side, smile widening. “Are you hungry?”

  As if in answer, my belly rumbles so loudly that Ivy laughs, and I chuckle, too.

  “I guess I could eat.” I smile at her.

  “Good thing I went to the grocery store, then.” She nods, brows up. When I stare at her, bewildered, she shakes her head quickly. “A joke.” She offers me a small grimace. “I dug up some clams this morning. And we can share them, if you want.”

  I duck my head, smiling. “I'm sure Charity will love that. Just like a five-star restaurant,” I say weakly, and the two of us aim for the beach, toward Charity.

  My best friend is awake, sitting up, her head cradled in her hands, her elbows propped up on her knees. Charity's sexy sailor jumpsuit is salt-stiff and torn, and her typically coiffed black hair is sticking up at odd angles. She looks drawn and haggard, and as we approach her on the sand, she hunches over and begins to throw up.

  Then, “Hello,” she says dryly, glancing at us with a wry smile. She only threw up water, but she looks exhausted as she climbs shakily to her feet. “God, I feel like I'm hung over, but without the pleasure of drinking scotch,” she mutters. “So, is this going to turn into our own private version of Cast Away? I didn't bring a volleyball, and Tom Hanks' wardrobe in that movie was criminal.” Her words are soft, halfhearted, but she forces another smile.

  “Are you okay, Chair?” I ask her quietly, reaching out and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

  “Oh, you know, I was trying to lose those last two pounds,” she jokes, though I can feel her trembling against me. “Hey, you don't happen to know where I can find some water?” she asks.

  “Right this way,” I tell her, and then the three of us aim for the quicksand pool—but I tell her about the hazard before she clambers on in and repeats my embarrassing mistake.

  “Well, I'm glad Ivy was there to save you. Again,” she says, arching an eyebrow, and when she casts a glance my way, her lips are curving up at the corners. She's staring at me with mischief in her eyes.

  Oh, my God, Charity, we nearly died. Get your mind out of the gutter, I tell her in my thoughts, glaring at her, but soon enough she's drinking down the fresh water deeply, no longer looking in my direction. She didn't seem to notice my crush on Ivy before, but now Charity is on to me, I guess... Nervously, I wonder: am I that obvious?

  “Let me go get those clams,” says Ivy, jamming her hands in her pockets, turning on her heel, and making her way back toward the shore.

  “So,” Charity begins sweetly, glancing up at me from her prostrate position beside the pool. “How are...things?”

  “Good,” I tell her, crossing my legs and sitting down next to her. “We're alive, right? That's pretty fantastic.”

  “Well, just barely alive,” winces Charity, sitting up and stretching her arms. “God, I feel as if I got run over by a tractor trailer. We really could have died. I mean, really died,” she says softly, searching my face. She bites her lip a little, shaking her head. “That's...crazy, isn't it?”

  “Yeah,” I tell her, fingering the edge of my shirt and thinking about Rusty, Brendan and Brian...who might all be dead, drowned. I hope they're all right, but I have to consider the possibility. And it's a sobering thought.

  “Here we are,” says Ivy, returning from the beach with her shirt held out in front of her, full of clams. I can see the taut muscles of her middle below the edge of the shirt, and in an effort not to stare, I drag my eyes up to Ivy's face. She's smiling triumphantly as she deposits the clams in a mound beside us, letting them slide a little toward the fresh water.

  “I don't know about you guys,” says Charity, holding up a hand, “but if I down one of those now, it's going to come right back up. Do we have anything else to eat? Buttered toast, maybe?”

  “There are some bananas down the way,” says Ivy, jerking her thumb over her shoulder and back toward the beach.

  “I can help you get them,” I tell her, springing to my feet. Ivy looks at me with a small, bemused smile, and then she nods.

  “Come on, then,” she says companionably. I glance over my shoulder at Charity, but Charity's not looking at me. She's glancing down at the pool, her expression miserable as she traces spiral patterns in the sand.

  She's in distress, but who wouldn't be? I watch as Charity lies back down, flat on her back, and together, Ivy and I walk over the shore together.

  “So,” I say, biting my lip and glancing toward Ivy. “How long do you think it's going to take before someone comes to look for us?”

  “Mm.” Ivy nods, then glances at the sky, frowning. “Don't know. It was a rough storm, and there may have been other shipwrecks out there.” She looks out to sea, draws in a deep breath, and then releases it with a sigh. “I sent out a distress signal before we capsized, but there was no time for me to receive a response, so I'm not sure if anyone picked it up. And nobody will be expecting you guys to return to Florida for five days. Could be stuck here a week, maybe longer. We'll have to build some kind of shelter.” She peers up at the sky again, squinting. She's silent for a long moment, and I'm about to ask something else when she clears her throat, says hoarsely, “Rain's coming again.”

  Perplexed, I follow her line of sight. The sky is perfectly clear and blue, and there isn't a single cloud in the sky. “Rain?” I ask her disbelievingly.

  Ivy just gives me a knowing look.

  ---

  I blink back the torrential downpour, holding my hand flat over my forehead as I peer out through the curtain of water hanging in front of us. We're huddled under the rock overhang that Ivy leaped off of this morning. The pool of water (with its sneaky quicksand) is churning with the rain splashing down into it.

  Aside from the storm that sank the Swan Song, I've never seen a worse rainstorm than this one. Actually, I take that back: I have seen a rainstorm like this one time before: when my family ignored a hurricane warning for a little too long and got trapped inside our house.

  Yeah. This storm reminds me of a hurricane storm.

  First, a shipwreck—and now a potential hurricane? Could things possibly get any worse?

  “I'm alive,” I mutter to myself, shivering a little. “I'm alive.” I repeat the words in my head like a mantra, reminding myself to be grateful, to stay calm. “I'm alive,” I whisper again.

  “What's that?” asks Ivy, casting me a sidelong glance.

  Ivy, Charity and I are crammed tightly together in the small cave beneath the rock, and every atom of my body is intensely aware of Ivy's body warm next to mine. But against the backdrop of the rainstorm, and with Charity shivering beside us—poor Charity, who threw up that banana—the setting couldn't be less romantic.

  Still...

  I can't help but appreciate Ivy's muscled length as I breathe in her oceanic scent...

  Hey, I almost died yesterday, and now I'm being rained out of a tropical paradise. I've decided to stop fighting my feelings for Ivy, because in desperate times, it's important to hold onto the nice things.

  Very nice things...like Ivy.

  “Oh, nothing,” I answer her, and she nods, glancing out into the darkness again.

  “I could be at a spa right now,” Charity mutters to herself, drawing my sopping wet cardigan tight around her shoulders. I used that threadbare black cardigan at the bottom of my camera bag to help cushion the lenses, and Charity was cold, so I offered it to her. But the gesture became kind of moot when, after a few seconds out in the rain, the cardigan got soaked through.

  Charity sighs again, spluttering water out of her mouth. “I could be at a nail salon,” she says then, almost wistfully. “I could be at Taco Bell.”

  “You don't even like Taco Bell,” I point out, wiping more water out of my eyes as I shift my position. My feet are starting to fall asleep beneath me, but by shifting my body, I accidentally move closer to Ivy. “Sorry,” I murmur to her, but she meets my gaze in the darkness, her mermaid-g
reen eyes twinkling.

  “No worries,” she says, her husky voice warming me from the inside out.

  A long moment of silence lingers among all of us—until Ivy clears her throat, lifting her chin to gaze out again into the rain.

  In that moment, I feel the shape of her, her hardness and softness, feel her ribs when she inhales deeply. “Do you ever wish you could just start over?” she asks quietly.

  “What?” I manage, lowering my voice, too. Charity just laid down next to us, and her chest is rising and falling evenly. I think she's finally fallen asleep.

  Which means it's just Ivy and me now, alone in the darkness together.

  Ivy and me.

  “I mean...” she begins, shrugging a little, “this place is like the Garden of Eden, right? It's like the beginning of time. Like...like starting over,” she murmurs, and then her eyes find mine. “If you could start your life over, would you?”

  It's such a surprising question; I'm stricken speechless for a moment, as I consider it. I think back to my failed relationships, my disappointing career path...to ending up here, shipwrecked.

  I sigh.

  “Yeah,” I answer decidedly. “I would.”

  Frankly, I'm surprised by my own emphatic response. But it's true: if I could get another shot, I would take it; I'd take it so quickly that I wouldn't even consider the ramifications.

  I'd love to start over. The ache in my heart presses against my insides as I take a deep breath, as I realize that there are tears standing in my eyes. I'm probably being overemotional because of the shipwreck, because of my near-drowning... But that brush with death has made me realize some things about myself, some hard truths.

  Yesterday changed me, deeply.

  I know that Ivy is watching me, and when I look at her, her chin is lifted, her green eyes sparkling in the darkness. “And what would your new life look like?” A whisper.

  I consider her question for a long moment, drawing my arms around my knees and shivering a little. Honestly, I feel as if I'll never be warm and dry again, and I'm trying to come to terms with that fact.