A Map for Wrecked Girls

by Jessica Taylor

  If there was one thing that scared me more than not knowing my sister’s secret, it was something happening to Alex or Henri. They’d become two parts of me I couldn’t live without.

  I curled in close to them and waited for dawn.

  CHAPTER 14

  TWO MONTHS BEFORE

  Henri hadn’t invited me to any parties that Saturday night, and it was nearly ten o’clock. Never before had I asked if I could go with her, but that night I was worried about my sister and excited to see Jesse, so I decided to swallow my pride and just ask.

  The lights were low as I swung open the door. “Henri, can—”

  Her phone’s flash went off as she snapped a selfie. I flipped the switch by the door, and as light flooded the room, I realized Henri only wore a skimpy pair of lace turquoise panties.

  She grabbed a tank top from the floor and held it over her bare chest. “Shit, Em. I thought you were Mom.”

  “Tell me you weren’t doing what I think you were doing.”

  She tugged on her top and smiled into her phone as she typed with her thumbs. “Really, Em, don’t be such a prude.”

  As she shadowed her eyes in black and painted on enough dark gloss to make her pass for twenty-five, we both pretended I hadn’t just caught my sister sending naked pictures to a teacher.

  I sank into her bed while she jumped up and down into her tightest jeans, tied the laces of her high-heeled booties, and shrugged on her cropped leather jacket. After she filled a studded clutch with money, an ID, and a lip gloss, she turned to me and said, “Movies tomorrow?” before she headed out her door.

  Mom was downstairs on the phone, whisper-screaming at my dad, so I shut myself in my room after Henri was gone.

  Hours later, I was deep into an Internet search of Gavin Flynn and his time with the Red Hearts when Henri’s door creaked shut. Her soft sobbing bled through the thin wall separating our rooms.

  “Henri.” I twisted the knob and opened the door a crack. “Henri, can I come in?”

  She didn’t answer, so I pushed inside.

  Her computer screen cast a glow on the bed. She was curled up on her side into a smaller version of my sister, who had always seemed larger than life.

  My bare feet dodged dirty clothes and bottles of nail polish as I padded across her carpet. “Are you okay?”

  Henri would usually rather die than let anyone see her crying, so I expected her to tell me to leave her alone. She didn’t say anything at all.

  I arranged myself around her and brushed tear-soaked strands of hair off her cheeks. “What happened?”

  “It’s over.”

  I threw an arm around her waist and squeezed. She smelled like leather; she was still wearing her jacket. “What do you mean, it’s over? Were you with who I think you were?”

  “He said it would’ve been different if I’d just been a little older.”

  The weight of Henri’s relationship with Mr. Flynn hadn’t quite hit me until then, but now that it was over, I couldn’t be anything but happy my sister and Mr. Flynn came out of it whole.

  I swallowed. I didn’t want to make anything worse by agreeing or disagreeing.

  “I’m so sorry he hurt you.” Those were the truest words I could give her.

  She pulled her knees to her chest, sitting up, and rubbed black streaks of Maybelline from her cheeks.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “We were at his place.” My poker face must have failed me, because she said, “I’ve only been there a couple times.”

  I dropped myself onto the floor of her room and looked at everything but Henri—her walls, her shoes, her dirty clothes. “Um, what do you do at his place? The kind of thing you used to do with Jake Holt?”

  “No.” As soon as relief washed over me, she said, “What we do—what we did—was nothing like with Jake Holt.”

  I sighed. “Henri.”

  Out Henri’s bay window, Jesse stared in from his room. She saw me notice and said, “Ugh, creep much? I know he’s your friend, Em, but there is something seriously missing there.”

  Jesse left the window when he saw us watching, but I crossed the room and lowered the blinds anyway.

  “I don’t think I can go back to the same old bullshit now.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  Henri broke down, letting tears stream down her face and not holding back. She reached for me and let me lay beside her as she cried.

  Later, after she quieted down and we both started to drift off, I whispered, “Did you love him?”

  She didn’t speak for a long time. “I don’t think I’m capable of loving anyone but you.”

  As Henri combed her hands through my hair, I was thankful the darkness hid my smile.

  CHAPTER 15

  Dappled morning light streamed between the overhead leaves and into the open roof of the shelter, washing us in a green gloom. Beads of sweat clung to Alex’s forehead as he thrashed on the ground. I took his face in my hands—his skin was boiling hot.

  I shook Henri. “There’s something really wrong with Alex.”

  Combing her fingers through her bed-head, Henri blinked herself awake. She focused on Alex, then backed up against the tree at the edge of the shelter.

  “Henri, please. We have to cool him down.”

  I’d never seen her so uncollected, so un-Henri-like, but finally, she nodded.

  “Do you think he’s having withdrawal or a reaction or something?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” She got behind him and lifted him to a sitting position so I could strip off his shirt.

  His eyelids fluttered open. “Don’t.”

  I combed wet strands of hair from his face. Gave him some water. “We have to.” His shirt was damp as I ripped it off his shoulders. “You’re too hot.”

  He shivered like he might shake free of his skin. “I need it!”

  Over Alex’s shoulder, I looked at Henri.

  “I think he’s delirious,” she said.

  I put his shirt in his hands, but he threw it into the palm fronds. That wasn’t what he wanted. “Alex, what do you need?”

  He fisted a handful of fabric at the neckline of my shirt, tugging me close, nearly choking me. This wasn’t Alex.

  “Alex, you are hurting me.” I grabbed his wrist to break free. His grip wouldn’t let up. “Henri!”

  She pried each of his fingers loose and we both took a step back.

  Breathing hard, I kept my distance. “I don’t know what he wants.”

  She scanned the fronds. Her eyebrows lifted as she settled on his backpack.

  “It’s worth a try,” I said.

  She tossed it into his arms, and I think I expected Alex to rip into the plastic bag, scattering pills across the dirt as he shoved a few into his mouth. But he just wrapped himself around the whole backpack and relaxed onto the shelter floor.

  Henri and I took turns running back and forth to the ocean and collecting cool salt water. By afternoon my calves throbbed from running through sand.

  As I ducked inside the shelter, Henri stood over Alex, who had fallen asleep with his arm stretched above his head. “What could have made him so sick so fast?”

  “I—I don’t know. He put a wild mushroom on his tongue, but he swears he didn’t eat it. The fish had to be fine—we both ate it. He thought maybe an infection, but I checked all of his cuts, and they were fine.” I glanced to her. “Maybe I should look at you.”

  She stripped off and brushed her hair over her shoulder. She did a slow twirl as I scanned up and down her bare torso. Only her legs had a couple of cuts—but it wasn’t like she’d put in much effort on the shelter.

  “You’re fine.”

  “Good,” she said. “Let me look at you.”

  I didn’t move.

  Henri took a step closer. “It’s
only me.”

  I dropped my shorts to the ground and pulled my dolphin T-shirt over my head. Not breathing as she examined my cuts, I waited for her to speak.

  “You’re fine. All clear. Oh, thank God.”

  “We’ve got to do a better job of taking care of ourselves.” I stared up at the unfinished shelter as I yanked on my clothes. “Henri, can you help me finish this?”

  “Whatever you need.”

  And for the briefest of moments, I allowed myself to think my sister and I might be okay.

  We cut palm fronds and dragged them back to the shelter all day. With a heap of them trailing behind me, I trudged through the forest. My arms were weaker and the palm fronds thicker as we ran out of small trees. But a weight was pressing down on me that had nothing to do with what I was carrying.

  Alex had obviously been delirious, but there was something painfully real about the intensity of his attachment to that backpack.

  The branches grew heavier—they’d lodged in the underbrush. Henri stepped into sight and bent low to free them.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  I stood and gathered the branches. “Henri, what do you think the deal is with the backpack? Can it really be just about the Oxy? And if it’s not, then what is it?”

  “You should go through it. You clearly want to know.” The smile threatening to spread across her face made me nervous—it worried me for myself that Henri and I were in agreement on this.

  “I do. But—”

  “Em.” Henri grabbed my upper arms. “Don’t turn around. Don’t move.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “No. Really. It’s—it’s one of those things. A caiman. Ten feet away.”

  I felt the island tip under my feet, the world plummeting toward an endless bottom.

  The brush rustled.

  Behind Henri was a tree with branches split low.

  “The tree,” I said.

  Henri whipped around, kicked off her shoes, and hoisted herself up. All I could think as I grabbed on to the lowest branch was that I didn’t want to die without Henri’s forgiveness, and I didn’t want to leave Alex alone.

  She let out a long breath as I climbed up beside her. “There—see it? It’s leaving.”

  The underbrush rattled again and I looked down. The caiman’s tail slapped the ground before a bush completely engulfed it. I pressed my cheek against the rough bark of a branch, suddenly so tired, I barely had the energy to climb down.

  We finished the shelter early the next morning—my sister and I—while Alex slept beneath the trees. We even used our last piece of tarp to make a door so we could seal ourselves inside and everything else out. Or at least feel like it.

  Alex had hoped we’d only find the caiman near water. Maybe it was just to manage my anxiety, but I’d taken that hope for fact. Now that we knew better, we used rocks to weight the bottom of the tarp. If a caiman really wanted in, the tarp wouldn’t do much, but at least one wouldn’t just wander inside.

  The shelter wasn’t the house by the sea I’d dreamed of. But it would keep us dry.

  Henri stood back and inspected the shelter. Her hands were on her hips, but she wore a little half smile that I knew meant she approved.

  Back within my reach was the sister I’d grow old beside.

  My arms shook with fatigue as I lifted my bottle of water to my mouth and chugged. Then, with the old Henri so close, I took a chance. “It’ll get us by until we can get home. Then things can be like we always wanted—we’ll grow old together, like we said we would.”

  Her smile went flat. “Maybe we’re not supposed to grow old together, Em.” She glanced at me. “Why don’t you check on the patient. I’m going to look for another blue shell. Day twenty-two.”

  I wondered, not for the first time, if the only thing keeping Henri going was anticipating the moment she’d get to search the sand for another blue shell, find it, and thread it onto her necklace.

  Of course, I wished it was me. I wished I was the thing.

  “Henri, thank you for everything you did.”

  Over her shoulder, she waved. “Don’t mention it.”

  I watched her walk away. Henri didn’t do anything without a purpose, and if she didn’t want to go home, she certainly had a reason.

  “Alex.” I brushed my fingertips across his freckles until his eyelids fluttered open. “We finished the shelter. Why don’t you get inside?”

  He coughed and forced himself halfway up, but slumped to the ground again. “Yeah. Okay.”

  “Put your arm around me and try to stand.”

  Alex slipped and wrenched me down, but he pushed himself away so he fell against a tree and scraped his arm instead of crashing into me. He hung Casey’s backpack in the tree and lurched into the dark, cool shelter on his own.

  With a piece of the lining from Henri’s bag, I pressed the wound on Alex’s arm until it stopped bleeding. After twenty-seven days without soap and running water, Alex still didn’t smell bad to me. Even though the detergent had dissipated from his clothes, I liked his smell—a mix of salt, sawdust, and water, like the air after a first rain.

  “You did one hell of a job, Jones.” Alex shifted, groaned. “Hank helped you, right—you didn’t have to do this all on your own?”

  “She helped. A lot, actually.”

  Even though his lips were peeling and his cheeks dark red, he gave me a small smile. “Whatever I have, I’m just—I’m being a burden. You should drag me out to the middle of the jungle and let me die.”

  “And by let me die, I know you mean, Thank you for trying to save my sorry life. I’m eternally grateful, Emma.”

  His eyes were closed, but his lips twitched.

  “But you wouldn’t say that, would you? You wouldn’t call me Emma.”

  “Jones suits you better. But I’ll call you Emma if that’s what you want.”

  “I like Jones.” He grimaced and touched his head, so I said, “Tell me what you want.”

  He was quiet for a moment, but then he smiled a little. “When I was a kid, I had a tree house. It had a wood ladder and a bucket with a pulley for lowering things up and down. The roof was shingled—not like this—rain- and windproof. I kept every bit of loose change I could find in a jar up there and a couple of Playboys too—I was ten. When my dad found the Playboys, he tore it down along with the tree. I’d kinda like that treehouse back.” He opened an eye. “I’d even let you live in it with me.”

  I balled Henri’s empty backpack under his head as a pillow. “How’s your head?”

  “It hurts.”

  “I’m sorry.” I stroked his forehead until he closed his eyes. I watched him closely for a reaction as I said, “I wish I could give you a painkiller or something.”

  He just said, “Hell of a place to die, isn’t it, Jones?”

  “You’re not going to die. You’re already getting better. What do I have to do to convince you you’re just going to have to stick around?”

  “Maybe, uh, you could give me something to live for.”

  He lifted up but I pushed down on his chest. “I don’t know if I should slap you for being a horny asshole or forgive you because the fever has cooked your brain.”

  “I’m perfectly lucid, Jones.”

  “You’re clearly feeling better.”

  His grin faded and he focused on my lips. “I thought we had something going on. On the beach that day, and when we were building this thing.”

  “Alex—”

  “Come here.” His hands closed around my hips, and he pulled me toward him. Pure want, no thought, I slipped one leg over his chest and let him guide me on top of him.

  “You’re delirious.”

  “Am I?” He tangled one hand in my hair, and with the other, skimmed his thumb over my lower lip, th
e way he’d done before. “I made a mistake the other day, and now I’m making it again,” he said. “I didn’t ask if I could kiss you. I should have asked.”

  I didn’t answer. He had asked. Not with words, but he’d opened the door for me. Now he opened it wider.

  “Are you asking?” I whispered.

  “Do you want me to?”

  I remembered the taste and smell of him, remembered what it was like to stand on the edge of a world only Henri had dared enter. Remembered the thrill, the terror.

  When I didn’t say anything, he relaxed into the palm fronds. “Do you think you’ll ever want to kiss me again?”

  “I—” I pictured that backpack hanging in the tree outside, one of the many pieces of Alex that was still a mystery to me.

  “I’m in desperate need of an answer, Jones. Don’t leave a dying man hanging, not on a deserted island.”

  The tarp covering the shelter door flapped behind us.

  I leaped off Alex as Henri ducked in with a crown of flowers woven through her hair. Fashion flowed through the blood in her veins, and even here, even with Alex sick, she wouldn’t accept a less-than-stellar appearance.

  She brought three coconuts and a cacao pod for both Alex and me. Living on coconuts alone had to be unpleasant—but that only showed the strength of Henri’s will.

  We ate quietly with Henri’s clear blue eyes boring into me. She could tell a secret twisted in my mind. I thought back to when she swore she was clairvoyant. Maybe she was telepathic instead.

  Alex ate half a cacao pod before he lurched to his feet and threw up outside the shelter in the brush. Henri tossed the rest of her coconut up through the trees as I rubbed Alex’s back.

  He crawled back inside the shelter and tucked his knees to his chest, offering me a weak smile.

  Late into the night, I was awake on my mat of palm fronds.

  Alex’s breaths went from even and soft to ragged coughs that sounded like they were tearing through his lungs. Maybe he was relapsing, or maybe he’d moved on to another stage of the illness. Either way, I was terrified I’d lose him before I ever really knew him. Terrified I was making the wrong decision at every turn.