I don’t know him anymore, but I once did. And right now, standing here with him, I think maybe I could again. Maybe I’m beginning to.
“No,” I say. “I figure if I’m stuck here with you the least you can do is provide sustenance.”
Noah shakes his head, but he’s grinning—a wide, open smile I haven’t seen on him in years.
We spend the next hour in the water, but I don’t catch a single fish, and I’m not really trying. “I think I’m pruning,” I tell Noah. My fingers are beginning to shrivel, and a cloud cover is rolling in now—it’s getting cold.
Noah runs his eyes down my arms. They’re pricked up in goose bumps. “Of course,” he says. “Let’s go.”
He helps me out of the water and knots the four fish he caught to the spear with some rope. Then he hands me his canvas shirt. His chest is still bare, and I can see the outline of his abs—hard muscles knotted in rows. I remember summers swimming with him at camp. I know he didn’t always look like this. I know there was a time he was skinny and gangly. But it’s hard to remember it now.
“You look cold,” he says. “Double up.”
I pull on his shirt. It smells like him. Like the outdoors. Wood and dirt and rain. On the plane I was wearing a sweatshirt Ed had given me, but I took it off when we started flying. It said EDDY’S on the front. It was from some fish restaurant he had been to in Hawaii and had brought back for me. I loved wearing it. I thought it was the perfect mix of cute and kitschy. And I loved the way people looked at me when I wore it. Eddy’s. I was his.
For a brief moment I imagine it, water-gorged, at the bottom of this ocean, the plastic letters peeling up from the salt.
After we get back, Noah heads out to meet the tribesmen and is gone all afternoon. Asku comes by and we practice our language skills. We cook up one of Noah’s fish for lunch and sit outside on the deck, basking in the sun. I tell him to take another one home to his wife.
“Thank you,” he says.
And then at night, after dinner, Noah and I go down to the beach. We bring a blanket, and he tries to make a campfire, but tonight it won’t start.
“It’s too damp out,” he says. “I think it’s going to rain.”
“That’s great. It will help with the vegetables.”
Noah eyes me.
“Asku told me there has been a drought.”
Something passes across Noah’s face, but then it’s wiped away with a smile. “You two are getting close.”
It’s cool tonight, cooler than it has been since we’ve been here. I wrap the blanket we brought down tight around me. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s nice to have a friend here.”
Noah sits next to me, his fingers trailing lines in the sand. I can feel last night’s embrace between us like another person. It sits upright, focused, on high alert now that the sun has set again. “Good,” he says. “I’m glad.”
“Did you learn anything new today?” I ask. It’s the same thing I’ve asked every night since we got here, always to the same answer: no. No, the chief has not told him anything else. No, there is no magical way off this island.
Noah shakes his head. “I’m getting better at some stuff, but other than that…”
I turn to face him. “What kind of stuff?”
Noah dusts his hands together. He looks at me. “Magic,” he says, smiling.
“Show me.”
He laughs. “I’m not sure I can do it on command. Usually the chief has—”
I edge closer to him. “Try.”
He looks up at me. Our eyes lock. “Okay,” he says softly. He reaches across and gently removes the blanket from my shoulder. The wind hits my bare skin, and I pull my arms around me.
He lays his palm flat on the side of my neck. I’m sure he can feel my pulse there—the beat of my heart pushing the blood rapid-fire through my veins.
I look up at him. His eyes are soft but focused. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “I won’t hurt you this time.”
I cover his hand with mine. “I know,” I say.
He begins to chant—a low, earthy hum—and I feel his hand get warm. That familiar sensation spreads out from his touch, but it’s softer than I remember from on the beach. It’s heating me up. In an instant, all my goose bumps fade.
And then he trails his hand down my arm, and as he does, my skin seems to shimmer—like he’s dusting it with gold. I suck in my breath, my eyes transfixed.
There is a birthmark on my arm. It’s about the size of a penny, and if you squint, it kind of looks like the shape of Washington. “It’s your stamp,” Ed told me once. “It’s like a little map. If you ever get lost, someone will know where to bring you.”
But now, with Noah’s fingertips hovering there, the birthmark disappears.
“It’s gone,” I whisper.
I look up at him. His chest rises and falls with his breath—uneven, shaky. “Do you want it back?” he breathes out.
I shake my head. “No.”
Instinctively, I reach up and touch his face. His eyes close. His touch has warmed me from the outside in, and I let the blanket fall even farther away as I trace the outline of his jaw, trail my fingers across his cheek.
He threads his fingers through mine. But then he pulls them away, draws them down, and holds them in the space between us. But he doesn’t let mine go. Instead, he grips them tighter. I see him swallow—his Adam’s apple moving down his throat.
“I don’t want you to think you’ll never get off this island,” he says, still looking at our hands in his lap. Then he picks his gaze up slowly and meets mine. I see it all written there before he even says it. “I don’t want you to think you’ll never see him again.”
I don’t know what is happening here. How much of what I feel for Noah is what I always have, coming to the surface and spilling over after all these years, or if it’s that I know deep down we might be here forever.
I take my hands away from his. “I don’t know what to think,” I say. And then I get brave, because why not? “But, Noah, this isn’t just about now.”
Noah laughs. It’s not what I was expecting. “Of course it is. August, we’re on a magical deserted island together, and your boyfriend might be dead.”
“Dead,” I echo. It’s the first time Noah has said that, that he’s even implied it. I haven’t let myself think it. Because if Ed is dead, it means Maggie— And I won’t. Not my sister. “But you said—”
“I know what I said.” He exhales. He looks at me. His face is so stupidly beautiful. He’s all angles and shadows under the light of the moon. “What I’m trying to say is…this isn’t about the island for me.”
My heart beats faster and faster in my chest. I feel the air between us spark, like it’s full of static electricity and I’ve just pulled a sweater out of the dryer.
“Do you…?” I can’t bring myself to finish the sentence, because what if I’m wrong? But what if I’m right? It’s just the two of us now. I think about those months before Ed. I think about how much I wanted it to be Noah.
Noah smiles slightly. He takes a hand and touches my cheek. Out of the corner of my eye I see gold sparks light up on my skin like tiny lace fireworks. “Look at you,” he says. “How could I not?”
My heart seems to burst out of my chest. I half expect to see its remains in the sand between us. “You never told me.”
He brings his hand to my neck. My eyes reflexively close. “What would I have said?” he whispers. “You love him.”
I shake my head. I try to swallow. “I do,” I say. “But…” I open my eyes. I look at him. “Noah, I’ve always—”
And just then, it begins to rain. It’s like the heavens themselves, the gods of this island, have conspired to stop whatever was going to happen next. It’s pouring, and I flip the blanket around me as Noah offers me his hand and we run up to the house.
By the time we get to the deck, I’m soaked. I drop the water-laden blanket over the wooden railing and run to the door. Noah’s hand is pushing it op
en, and our fingers collide. But he doesn’t pull back, and he doesn’t push the door open. Instead he loops his arms around my waist and lifts me up, the same way he did last night. My chest is pressed against his, and the rain falls so strong that I can barely see. But I don’t need to. My fingers find his face, his jaw, the pulse in his neck. And then his lips land on my skin. I gasp as he kisses my collarbone, and then up, up, until finally his lips meet mine.
How long have I waited to kiss him? My whole life, it seems. I need to be closer. I need to drink him in faster. I reach up and thread my fingers through his hair like I’ve wanted to do for what feels like forever.
My hands are everywhere as I wrap my legs around his waist. I’m off the ground, held up entirely by him—the circle of his arms. His hands are strong on my back as he kicks the door open. His lips don’t leave mine. Kissing him feels like I’m flying—like I’ve never been more aware of every nerve in my body.
His lips pull back, and I grope forward, but he’s buried his face in my neck. He swings my legs over into his arms and carries me through the house, down the hall, and into the bedroom.
He pauses in the doorway, and I lift my lips up to meet his in what I hope he understands is a gesture of encouragement. Yes. Yes, yes.
He sets me down on the bed gently—like I’m a glass figurine that might break.
I sit back on the cushions, and for the first time, for a split second, our bodies separate. With the microscopic distance, I can see his labored breathing. See the way his chest rises and falls, and I feel a crazy, wonderful wave of joy that it’s me making him feel this way. No one but me.
I move my hands up so my palms are on either side of his face. “It’s not because of the island,” I say. I need him to know. “I always wanted you.”
He doesn’t say anything, but I feel his chest move above me. And then we’re kissing again, and it feels ecstatic, like my whole life has been in anticipation of this one moment. His hands slip underneath my top and roam across my stomach. I feel his fingertips brush my ribs. I reach up and pull his shirt off, and then he leans his body down next to me. He kisses my neck, and I run my hands down his back—feeling the movement of his muscles. The warmth of his skin.
He leans back, just for a moment, and then he’s inching my shirt up my torso. I lift my hands above my head and let him peel it off. I want it gone. I want everything separating us gone. He tosses my shirt down, and for a moment I have the impulse to cover myself with my hands.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, and my heart leaps so far in my chest it feels like it jumps straight into my throat.
He leans down to kiss me, and when his skin meets mine, I feel it again—that particular, magical warmth. I look at my torso—it’s lit up, like there are lights inside my rib cage shining from the inside out.
“What’s happening?” I whisper.
“I don’t know,” he says. His breath is strained. “Does it hurt?”
I shake my head. “It feels amazing.”
He kisses me again. The light spreads. Now it’s in my arms and my chest. We both look at my shoulder as he trails his fingertips down it. Gold dust follows, like the tail of a shooting star.
“It’s incredible,” I say. “I can’t believe you can do this.”
He tucks some hair behind my ear. “It’s you,” he says.
And then he’s kissing me again. I pull him down closer, tighter, so that there is no space between his chest and mine. I feel his heartbeat, frantic against me. I have never felt closer to anyone, I think. Not in my whole life. But I want to be closer. I want to be as close as two people possibly can be.
And that’s when lightning strikes. Literally.
There is a sound like the clash of steel on steel—harsh, jarring, deafening. And then the roof is on fire. The canvas above us explodes into flames—so tall they look like they’re not even real.
Noah scrambles up with me in his arms. He pulls me behind him as he throws his hands upward, toward the ceiling. He calls out a chant, but nothing happens. Instead, the flames reach higher.
“It’s not working,” he shouts.
It’s raining just as hard as it was when we were on the beach, but it’s not putting the fire out. It’s not even making a dent.
Something is wrong.
Noah holds his hands up again. The chant gets louder. But still nothing happens.
I run into the kitchen. Maybe there is something—but what? Water won’t work. It’s raining. And then it hits me: the island.
I run back into the bedroom. “Noah,” I pant. His chest is drenched in sweat now; the room is heating from the top down. I run to him. “Noah, the island.” We look at each other. He drops his hands. “The island is doing this.”
He looks up, then his eyes come back to meet mine, stern, focused. He has the same look he had when he came back from meeting with the chief yesterday. “Go into the other room,” he says.
“But…”
“Go!” He shakes his head. He steps toward me, puts a hand on my cheek. “Go, and stay until I come get you.”
I nod. “Okay.”
I leave. I walk into the living room. I’m naked, and in here it’s cold—forty degrees colder than the bedroom. It’s like I stepped into a different world.
I see Noah’s blankets folded on the floor and wrap one around me. I’m shaking. I hug my knees up to my chest. I wait.
The fire isn’t spreading, but I don’t know what Noah is doing in there. What if it has hurt him? I’m about to run back—I was stupid to leave him alone—when he comes out.
He’s covered up now. His shirt is back on.
I run to him and throw my arms around his neck, bury my face in his chest, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t wrap his arms around me. He doesn’t press his lips into my ear and tell me it’s all going to be okay. Instead, he peels my hands back and holds them between us. The same way he did on the beach.
“We can’t,” he says.
I shake my head. “What are you talking about? What happened to the fire?”
“It’s gone.” He drops my hands and goes to sit on a stool by the window. I run back into the bedroom and as I stand in the doorway I see that he’s right. There is no fire. There isn’t even a trace of one. The canvas roof is whole and untarnished. It has even stopped raining.
I wander back to Noah in a daze. I sit down on the mat next to him. “What did you do?” I ask.
He looks at me. His eyes are unreadable. “I made it stop,” he says.
“How?”
He glances down at his hands. “It wasn’t right,” he says. “It wasn’t—” He looks at me again, his eyes roaming over my face. “We’re not supposed to be together.”
I open my mouth to say something, to protest, but he holds his hand up. “It’s true,” he says. “The island—” He lets his hand fall. The one motion seems to signal defeat. “This isn’t your destiny, August. However we got called, it was for me, not you. You’re not supposed to be here.”
I move toward him. “But I am here.” When he doesn’t respond, I push on. “So these were your people, so what? It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean—” But when Noah’s eyes find mine, I know I’m wrong. “Noah,” I say. I think about him denying me last night. He knew then. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Noah stands. He walks to the other side of the room, away from me. “I met with the chief today,” he says. “I didn’t tell you. I didn’t—” He stops, starts again. “The reason I can do that…” He gestures to me.
“Heal,” I say.
He nods. “Heal. Make you glow.” I blush, and Noah turns his head away. “It’s because these aren’t just my people. I’m some kind of…” He shakes his head, like even the words are ridiculous. “I’m a healer.” He looks at me. “I’m the Healer.”
“What do you mean?”
“Every tribe had a designated healer. The Healer had powers,” he says. “He could commune with nature. He could protect his people. He was
responsible for the tribe’s survival.” I see the apple from that first night turning from brown to brilliant red.
My hands feel cold, and I realize the chill in the air has come back full force. Whatever heat Noah’s body lent me is fading fast.
“I’m a part of that lineage.” He runs his hands over his face. “An important part they have been missing. The reason there have been droughts and population decline and why everyone is starving, is because I haven’t been here.”
“Your dad,” I say.
Noah swallows. “They’ve been without help for a long time.”
“You’re the only one?”
“Pretty pathetic, huh?” Noah snorts. I want to reach over and touch him, but I’m afraid he’ll push me away. “I can’t do anything,” he says.
I look at my arm. I remember the gold light there, how his fingers trailed shooting stars.
“Yes, you can,” I whisper. “You saved my life. You said yourself there are more fish now. There was rain.…”
He looks at me, and I see his eyes soften. “I almost killed you.”
“I would have died if you didn’t do what you did.”
But Noah just shakes his head. “The island…” He drops his eyes to the floor. “It doesn’t want us together.” He slumps to the floor, his elbows flopping over his knees. “The fire. You getting sick. It’s trying to keep us apart.”
I feel like laughing. This is so ridiculous, all of it. “Why?”
“Because the closer I am to you the less I want to…help them.”
I sit down in front of him. I don’t know what to say. I want to say it’s not fair, not at all, but instead what comes out is, “I’m sorry.”
In the next moment he plucks my hand from my lap and brings it to his lips. He kisses my fingertips. I feel my body start to vibrate, like his hands carry an electric current that is sending sparks straight to my heart.
“You have no idea,” he says. For a moment I think he’s going to pull me to him, that he’s going to say he doesn’t care, but he just lets go of my hand. “I have to figure out what this means. I can’t risk putting you in danger.”
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