by Alice Reeds
“There’s actually something I always wondered,” he said after a while. “Something about you that I could never really figure out.”
“Besides the rainbow hair?”
“Well, it clearly violates our school rules and none of our teachers ever said anything, and that totally confused me, but that’s not it.”
“My mom made up some story about the hair being part of my brand and how my sponsors liked it because it gave me some kind of uniqueness factor. Somehow the school actually bought it. Anyway, you were saying?”
“Despite being such a strong person, someone who just went and won competitions in a sport that demands so much of you, you seemed unable to stand up to any of our teachers whenever they gave you shit, even when the thing they were giving you shit for wasn’t your fault or even about you. How can you beat your opponents black and blue, yet our teachers seem too much? I could never figure it out.”
I bit my lip, my mind a storm, as I tried to decide what to do. I’d already told him so much, would telling him this make that big of a difference? Yes, it would. It would make the biggest difference, would mean discussing something I barely even knew how to discuss with myself, tried to not think about at all if possible. I didn’t know if anyone had to deal with things like this, or if Miles would even be able to understand it. He’d mentioned not having a good relationship with his father, taking his money basically without permission, which just all seemed so strange to me. I’d always thought he must have a good relationship with him, hence the fact that he allowed him to spend all that cash and do whatever he pleased, but now I knew that wasn’t the case.
He’d opened up to me about his brother, about the loss he’d dealt with alone for so long, had mentioned his mother. So if he could be this honest, maybe I could, too. Maybe he would be the one person who’d understand me, when I didn’t even understand me, who wouldn’t just push my words aside as unimportant or trivial. Maybe he could help me figure out the very thing that I hadn’t been able to.
“My father isn’t what you’d consider a loving father by any stretch of the imagination,” I said, my voice a little shaky no matter how much I tried to keep it steady. Why was this so hard? I’d fought in state competitions; compared to that, a simple conversation shouldn’t have been this hard to do. “As I said, he’s strict when it comes to my training, but also in general. He’s controlling and demanding to a ridiculous extent. Since I was a kid, he’s always taught me how I needed to be strong, basically had to if I wanted or not, how any sign of weakness is a flaw that needs to be eradicated, how I could only win if I pulled myself together and did it without allowing myself to feel fear or worry of any kind. He never bothered to ask why I was scared, why I worried, not once across all those years. For a long time, I thought that he said and did all of that because he genuinely wanted me to be this special someone he and the people around me always claimed I had the potential to be. I thought he meant well, but then I realized that wasn’t it.”
As I spoke Miles pulled me a little closer, lightly caressed my hand in a comforting manner, the gesture so affectionate I barely knew what to make of it, so I just kept talking.
“He wasn’t demanding of me so I’d grow. No, he was demanding because he refused for me to fail, to lose any match, because he thought it would make him look bad,” I continued. “He didn’t care about me the way I always thought he did; he cared about his image and how my achievements and shortcomings reflected on him, my every win raising his status among the coaches, my every loss making him look like he hadn’t done his job well. Over the years I’ve learned not to disappoint, displease, or anger him, and learned the price of failure.”
“Are you implying what I think you are?” Miles asked, sounding hard, almost mad in a way I didn’t quite understand.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“How can it not matter?” The shock and disbelief were palpable in his voice. I’d never heard him sound that way. “He was mentally abusing you, at least it sounds that way, and that is seriously messed up. Has he ever done more than that? Did he ever physically hurt you?”
“It doesn’t fucking matter,” I said and looked at him, hoping my expression would get him to drop that particular line of questioning. I wasn’t ready to talk about that. When you fail, punishment follows, that was simply how it was, though I didn’t expect him to understand that. “Think of him as you like, but he managed to make me unafraid in ways most people aren’t, even if his methods might not have been the most conventional ones. I conquered my fear of pain, of opponents that appeared stronger than I thought I could ever be, of most things that used to scare me. But then when it comes to our teachers, for example, it’s like I just can’t. My father helped me become so strong, yet for some reason I just completely freeze around them, and I just really don’t understand why. It doesn’t make any sense. I shouldn’t be afraid of them, because why should I be?”
I watched his face, tried to decipher from his expression, his eyes, what he was thinking, but I wasn’t sure if what I saw was judgment, concern, anger, disbelief, or something completely different. Maybe he was trying to understand what I’d told him, maybe he was failing to do so, our differences too great for him to be able to as much as imagine what my life was like, the fact that it was probably nothing like he thought it was.
“Have you ever considered that it isn’t that he was unable to make you strong enough, or unafraid enough, but rather that he is the reason why you are afraid of our teachers and such in the first place?” he finally asked, his voice sounding far more cautious now.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. My father despised fear of any kind, so what use would it be for me to fear teachers, let alone that he’d be the reason why? I hated his punishments. Any person would, which was why they were punishments. But that didn’t mean I was afraid of him. He was my father after all, so I had no reason to be. Maybe I’d been wrong; this was an issue Miles wouldn’t be able to help me with and I had to solve on my own. “It’s simply a character flaw I have to get over eventually, or not.”
Miles looked torn, like he wanted to say something more, possibly argue against me. He even opened his mouth to speak but then closed it again and looked off toward the horizon. I wondered what he was thinking about, why it was so hard for him to see that I was right. But maybe he didn’t need to understand it. It didn’t matter, at least not now.
“I know it doesn’t mean much, but I hope that one day you’ll be able to see yourself as the strong and fierce girl that I see every time I look at you,” he said. “And, also, thank you.”
“For what?”
“For giving me a second chance, sharing all of these things about your father. For trusting me enough to do that, despite how I’ve acted until we ended up on the island. You’d think we’re still kids playing in the sandbox with our mothers claiming that me pulling your hair is just my way of showing you that I like you or something.”
“How lucky you are that I am not opposed to a little hair-pulling,” I teased, more than ready for this moment of talking about much too real topics and emotions to be over.
“Fiona,” he practically groaned and leaned forward, letting his head drop until it rested against my shoulder, his hair hiding his face, while I burst out laughing.
Maybe we would be okay.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Island
The first day of gloomy weather arrived a couple days after the kiss, a little later than Miles had predicted it would.
During the morning, the wind picked up, and the waves turned harsher and crashed against our cliff with more force than they normally did. The sky was white and gray, turning grayer as the day progressed.
We decided to stay in our cave just in case it started pouring and became almost impossible to get back. Now that the water was going crazy, walking across the rocks and plateaus was a very risky idea to consider.
Luckily, we had quite a pile of fruit stored in our cave so that we
wouldn’t go without food the whole day. The thing was just that there wasn’t much we could do inside, with no video or board games, no movies or shows to watch, no internet to browse. All we had was each other, not that I particularly minded right now.
“I never knew your hair was actually blond,” Miles commented while twirling a strand of it around his finger. The act alone made me smile. It wasn’t anything special, yet it still felt nice, silly. We sat on our bed—even thinking that still sounded unbelievable to me—which we’d made out of all the cushioning we’d gotten to the cave the first time, and some more that we’d managed to rip from the plane yesterday. Our backs were against the cave wall and our legs stretched out in front of us. His were much longer than mine, and his skin a few shades darker.
“Did you think my hair was naturally a rainbow?”
“As awesome as that would be, I know that it’s not a thing, yet.” I watched his lips move as he spoke, a mesmerizing view, I now realized. “But I thought black would be more your color.”
“I had it black a few years ago. Though it’s gotten darker already, it used to be almost platinum colored. Having blond hair definitely made my dyeing endeavors much easier.”
Funny enough, I was born with pitch-black hair that quickly switched to the opposite end of the hair color spectrum. As a kid, many said that I looked like an angel with my light hair and cute chubby little cheeks, but I got fed up with the look pretty early on. I wasn’t an angel, and I would never be one. Over the years, lots of people told me that, thanks to my obsession with dyeing my hair, I would end up bald by the time I was forty. I didn’t care, because I’d be damned if I wouldn’t rock that bald head, anyway.
“It suits you,” he said and put on that smile of his, a smile that was almost a smirk.
I leaned in and kissed him. It still felt surreal each time it happened, like my mind was unable to process that it was really happening, and my center of emotions was still trying to work out my feelings for him. All I knew was that I enjoyed kissing him. I loved the feeling I got when it happened, loved the way his lips felt on mine and how gentle yet passionate he was and how he didn’t push anything.
After a small lunch, I decided to take a nap.
Feeling his fingertips lightly caress my shoulders and back was comforting. It let me know that he was there, that I could fall asleep and be okay, that nothing would happen, and I was safe.
When I woke up, Miles was still leaning against the wall, though now he had a black notebook in his hands.
“I didn’t know you have a diary,” I said, and he jerked in surprise.
“I didn’t know you were awake,” he said after taking a deep breath. “And no, I’m not writing a diary. It’s just a notebook I use when I don’t want to forget something, or when I think of something I want to do, you know?”
“Sounds interesting.” I turned onto my side, watched him as he skimmed through the pages with a look of concentration. I was pretty sure I’d seen him flip through that notebook at some point earlier on after the crash that never happened, but I hadn’t asked him about it then. Finally he stopped at a page, and his face suddenly lost its color just as the rain began to fall outside.
He stared at the page in front of him intently. Immediately I was nervous and anxious as to what it might be that he found in there. I sat up without taking my eyes off of him.
“Are you okay?” I asked, cautiously.
“I’m not sure,” he said slowly. Each word almost stood on its own, a one-word sentence filled with endless silences in between.
“Miles?”
“Listen to this,” he said but stayed silent for another moment while I began to worry more than I probably should have—or at least, I hoped there was no actual need for it. The longer he stayed silent, the more I realized that maybe I should be panicking, that I should worry.
Miles cleared his throat. “We just arrived in our hotel in Berlin. The flight was all right, nothing special, slept through most of it. The hotel seems way too expensive for something rented for summer interns, but then again, I’m used to better. Anyway, turns out we got a double room with just one bed. Fiona is not amused and just stormed out of the room to go and complain at the reception desk. It’s hilarious to watch her get angry, turn into a fury. I’m just waiting for her hair to turn into snakes, blue ones. Though, that angry frown on her forehead looks kind of cute, not that I would tell her. Even if I did she wouldn’t believe me. The bed itself is quite comfy, and I’m curious whether Fiona will manage to get another room or if she’ll have to accept the fact that she has to share a bed with me. I can hear steps echoing from the hallway.” His voice came out shakier with each new sentence. “That’s it.” He looked from the pages, and our eyes met. I saw panic in them, panic mirroring my own.
“How?” I muttered. My thoughts began to race, turned into a storm similar to the one outside our cave. My mind turned into deep waters with sky-high waves building up and crashing down. I didn’t understand it; it made no sense at all.
Before Miles could say another word, I crawled over to my suitcase and started digging through it. Finally I found what I’d been looking for—my hoodie, the one I’d had with me in the plane. I pulled it out and looked through the pockets. In one of them, I felt something plastic that I was pretty sure had not been in there before, and thus definitely didn’t belong to me. Maybe I should’ve looked through those damn pockets more thoroughly the first time, but how was I supposed to know that maybe some kind of clue would be hidden in one?
“Fuck,” I said. I pulled out a slim plastic card with a hotel name on it, the word “Berlin” prominently printed in all caps below it, along with some swirly design with the Berlin bear in the middle. I moved over to Miles, sitting down next to him. Curious, he took the card from me.
“A hotel key card?” he said examining it. “How is this even possible?”
“I…don’t know.” My mind suddenly turned from storm to blank white page. It made no sense, even less than that the plane that never flew.
Thunder cracked and rumbled outside, startling me, and my heart rate rose even further. Lightning cut through the sky. Miles put his arm around my shoulders.
“Nothing can happen to us in here,” he said reassuringly. “It’s only a storm, nothing that can harm us.”
I turned the plastic key card around in my hand and tried to make sense of it, but there was nothing that could explain it. Nothing that would explain how this key card ended up in my pocket or where the entry in Miles’s notebook came from.
“The key card and your entry, they are both from Berlin,” I said. “But we’ve never been there. We fell asleep in the plane and woke up on this island. So…what’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” He looked through the entry once more. He turned to a different page. His handwriting was the same in both the Berlin entry and the older ones. “This is insane. How did I not notice this last time? When I got into the plane’s system, I remember checking the time and date, the only thing that was actually working. There is no way we could have made a detour to Berlin. There was no time for that. It just doesn’t fit.”
I glanced outside just as another bolt of lightning slashed through the sky, illuminated the clouds, and disappeared a heartbeat later. The thunder roared even louder. But then, just before I was going to say something, I noticed that another sound had joined the symphony, a sound that didn’t belong, like a single person singing off-key in a choir.
“Do you hear that?” I asked, frowning.
“What?”
“I don’t know, there’s something, like a sound that doesn’t fit.” I tried to listen to the storm and figure it out. But there were too many noises that made filtering out a single one way too difficult.
“Are you sure it’s not just the storm?”
“Yes, I’m sure it’s something else.” I got up and walked toward the entrance of our cave.
My eyes were glued to the sky, the dark clouds an
d the pouring rain. At first I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, nothing that seemed odd, until—
A blinking light, then two. At first I thought it was more lightning, but it wasn’t white, but rather something like red or orange. What the…?
There was some kind of dark, black shape with blinking lights. “Miles!” I heard Miles get up and come over to me, and I pointed toward the shape. It was definitely moving toward us. “What is that?”
“A helicopter?” Miles asked in disbelief.
He was right; it was a helicopter, a black one with two blinking red lights to either side of it. The odd sound was its rotor.
“Maybe they’re coming to save us?” Miles said with hope in his voice.
“What if it’s the people who put us here in the first place and who are now coming to kill us?” I asked.
“There’s only one way to find out.” Miles walked past me and toward our secondary path that led up and onto the cliff.
Quickly I caught up with him, grabbed his arm. “This is the opposite of being careful!” I argued. “We can’t just go up there and reveal our location, especially not if they really are the bad guys. Do you want to end up in that fucking pit?”
“No, but we can’t just hide. We have to check. I mean, what if they’re the good guys coming to save us, and they’ll just leave if they don’t find us fast enough? What would we do then?”
“And what if they aren’t?”
“Then we’ll deal with that,” he said. “One step at a time.”
Before I could argue anymore, or find another way to stop him, he slipped from my grasp and was already a good few feet away from me, climbing up our cliff.