by Piper Lennox
“Can you do me a favor?” I ask, punching the Lobby button when the doors close, just the two of us in the elevator.
She sputters, her string of feel-better phrases cut short. “Yeah,” she says quickly, “what?”
“Leave me alone for a while.”
Twenty-Two
Mollie
He walks ahead of me, long, angry strides that stab at the sidewalk, and unchains our bikes in the parking lot. By the time I can mount mine and catch my balance, he’s already ten yards ahead.
“Kai,” I call out, after a car nearly clips me. “Kai, slow down and talk to me!”
He does slow down, but not enough; I still have to pedal like I’m in a cycling class at the gym, just to get beside him. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he snaps. “I told him, and he reacted exactly the way I knew he would, but that you and Mom swore he wouldn’t. I shouldn’t have listened to either of you.” He cuts his eyes at me. “Especially you.”
I fight the urge to brake. I get the feeling if I do, he still won’t stop. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s means,” he says, “you don’t know my father at all. You’ve been here four days, the only time you met him you were unconscious—”
“Just because I happened to be wrong doesn’t mean my advice was bad, okay? And besides, what does it matter if I know him or not? I know you. And what I know is that you hate that resort.” I pause, getting a much-needed breath into my lungs before we tackle a hill. “That’s why I told you to tell him now. Because of what I know about you—not him.”
Finally, at the very top of the hill, he brakes. The sunlight hits his eyes dead-on, but they still look too dark. “You can’t know me, any better than I can know you. We met less than a week ago.” He shakes his head, cursing down at the asphalt. “This whole thing is stupid.”
“You didn’t think it was stupid last night.” My voice is tight in my throat, the words barely getting out.
He looks around at the palm trees lining the road. Slowly, I see his shoulders relax. His foot engages the kick stand. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be taking any of this out on you.”
The trees sift the sunlight, dappled and soft, as he walks closer to me. It reminds me of just a few days ago, when we first admitted we liked each other. Things feel so much bigger now.
“This whole thing is stupid,” I admit, as he slips his arms around my waist, “but...in a good way.”
“Really stupid.” He kisses the skin behind my ear, making me shudder and lift my chin, offering him more and remembering last night. How completely lost I was in his touch; the way he held me against his body when I lost all balance. All control.
“But yes,” he continues, “really, really good. I don’t want to spend the next few days dwelling on the resort, and my dad being angry…” He rests his forehead against mine. “…or the fact you’ll be leaving soon. I just want to enjoy what we’ve got left.”
I nod, but the tension is still there, nebulous and stretched between us as we bike towards his house. We fly past it, noticing his mother’s car still in the driveway, and decide to go to the cabana before lunch. “If you aren’t hungry yet,” he teases, swinging his bike closer and tickling my back until I veer away, “you will be, after I get through with you.”
After that, we don’t talk much. I wonder if we’ve finally run out of things to chat about, our similarities uncovered, the potential here exhausted. Maybe this is what happens when flings are pressed to turn into more. Tanya would know much better than I do, but I dread the lecture I’d earn if I asked.
The storm left an oppressive dampness across the island, even though I can’t find any puddles. When we get to the resort, I peek into the lazy-river-in-progress. In the light, the slope of the ditch doesn’t look as steep as it did before.
The cabana paints sweat across us as soon as we step inside, after Kai makes sure it’s empty. This time, he braces a box against the door.
“Good idea,” I laugh.
While he undresses me, as gentle now as he was harsh outside the hospital, I lie back against the chair and stare at the ceiling. The exposed beams, notched in places to link together. The sloped wood of the ceiling, whitewashed and aged. The window just behind me, now covered with a towel. I wonder who put it there.
I will myself to memorize it all. If I remember nothing else after the next three days, I want it to be this cabana—the dust motes and sauna-heat, the petals of our voices unfolding into those notches and age marks.
No, my brain argues. It’s better to forget as much as you can. The more vividly you remember something, or someone, the stronger you miss them when they’re gone.
But how could I ever forget Kai—the first person to make me feel this good in my entire life? The man who literally saved me?
He works me towards my orgasm quickly, and as I put my hands against his head, drawing my fingers through his hair and freeing the sand trapped near his scalp, I know I can’t forget him, even if I want to. These memories will fade, the colors and scents and sensations dulling with time. I won’t remember Kona in picture-perfect detail forever.
But I’ll remember him.
Kai
Mollie comes hard and suddenly, still shivering when I come up and enter her. I pause once, to make sure she’s ready, but all she does is nod.
It’s strange. This is exactly the same as every other time we’ve gotten together. Physically, chemically, all the elements are there and identical.
But there’s something different now, a change I can’t name but can definitely feel, when I bring my eyes to hers.
I’m going to miss her so much more than I can bear to believe.
I finish quickly. It’s good, but almost shallow, the build-up too short. My body was willing; my head wasn’t. All I can think about is how soon she’ll be gone.
I know I should just enjoy what we have left. But when the edge of the road is in sight, a dead end watching every step you take, it suddenly feels so much harder to keep walking at all.
Mollie
I tell myself not to say it. Whether it’s insane or I’m just too afraid to hear his answer, I’m not sure, but I know letting the words out is a bad idea.
But, like so many other bad ideas I’ve had this week, I let it happen anyway. “You could come with me.”
Kai laughs, then turns when I don’t join in. “You’re not serious, are you?”
“I don’t know. Yeah.” Once again I feel too naked, too vulnerable. “I don’t mean moving in with me. That would be way too soon. Just, you know…moving closer.”
“Mollie....” I brace myself for his answer: I knew it was a longshot. Too fast, too shortsighted. Too everything.
“Maybe,” he says, and it’s so quiet, so far from what I expected, that it takes me a second to catch it.
His answer sparks hope, a silly, giddy feeling I shouldn’t even be having. But as ridiculous as the idea is, it’s also such a relief. I don’t have to worry about where this will go, or how hard it will be to say goodbye. We won’t have to say goodbye at all.
“My family, though….” He picks at his cuticle, then underneath the thumbnail, where a gritty line of sand rests.
After a long silence, he looks at me.
“Stay,” he whispers.
I lean into his chest when I feel his arms encircle me, pulling me in. “I wasn’t going anywhere.”
“No, I mean...stay here. Instead of going back to the mainland, when your vacation’s over.” His breath skates down the top of my head and makes me shiver, like that old egg-crack trick. “Stay with me.”
It’s no crazier than what I just proposed, but hits me like a truck. I don’t know what’s weirder: the thought of staying for a guy, or just the notion of not returning home from a vacation. Vacations end; you go home. That’s how they work.
Then I take the word, stay, and say it to myself. No sound, just the motion of my tongue on my teeth, the gentle little click against the roof of my mouth.
I let it swell against my lips, but I don’t say it aloud.
At first, other than not having known Kai long, or the idea being so sudden, there’s really no reason I can think of not to stay. What’s waiting for me, back home? Moving into my parents’ guesthouse? Wandering around my tiny hometown with a degree and nothing to show for it, premium gossip mill fodder?
Living in Hawaii: isn’t that everyone’s dream? To spend their days in paradise?
But now I’ve seen the other side of it. Getting to know Kai has shown me Hawaii isn’t some utopia. Living here has its problems, just like anywhere else: family drama, work stress, thunderstorms. Loss.
“Where would I live?” I ask, stalling my answer. Then I realize, when he’s silent, that maybe my question is my answer. We haven’t thought any of this through, and it shows.
He kisses the side of my head, lingering much longer than I expect. For some reason, it makes my chest hurt—as if already, I can feel the weight of his goodbye there, ready to follow me wherever I go.
Kai
“What are you thinking about?” I brush her hair back from her forehead. We’ve just been sitting here in the cabana for what feels like hours; my legs are falling asleep, the bottom of the chair pressing into my thighs and cutting circulation. On top of that, I know we’re both starving. Still, I don’t move.
She looks up from her hair, where she’s been braiding and unbraiding the same section. “I was just wondering how I’ll be able to get on that plane without you.”
“Mollie. Don’t do this.”
“You don’t have to stay. Your dad knows Luka wants the business, he’ll come around, and then you can go wherever you want.”
“I’m not so sure Dad will come around, though. You didn’t see how mad he was.”
“Well, I definitely heard it,” she says. She laughs, but I can barely force a smile. “He can’t stay mad forever.”
Now, I do laugh. It’s so sarcastic, I feel her wince. “Sure.”
“Okay, say he does stay angry—what could you do about it? Take on the business anyway, and spend the rest of your life pretending you never told him the truth?”
I don’t know why a simple chuckle or “of course not” doesn’t come out, but all I can respond with is silence.
She sits forward and looks at me. “Well?”
“What else am I supposed to do, Mollie?”
“Not that!” She gets up and starts grabbing her clothes. Guess there won’t be a Round Two. “I mean, God, you get one little setback, and you give up?”
“It wasn’t a setback,” I protest, floundering out of the chair. I pull my pants on and pat the pockets; my phone fell out. While I crouch and feel under the furniture, my palm already caked in dust after one swipe, I add, “He almost had another stroke. Excuse me for not wanting to murder my dad.”
“You haven’t even given it twenty-four hours. He’ll get over it.”
I shake my head and exhale, which kicks up another patch of dust in front of me. It makes my eyes water. “I think I know him a little better than you do.” My hand brushes my phone and knocks it back, just out of reach. I curse and flatten myself against the floor, halfway under the bed frame. Its mattress is gone, replaced with boxes of God only knows what, so heavy the slats are bowing.
“Besides,” I add, straining as I stretch my arm as far as it’ll go, feeling in the shadows, “remember when you asked where we’d live? It goes both ways. You said you’re moving into your parents’ guesthouse when you go back—so if I did come with you, where would I go?”
She starts to answer, but stops herself, blushing.
“Don’t say I could live with you.”
“I didn’t.” Her blush deepens. “That’d be insane.”
“And your parents would probably disown you.”
“They couldn’t say anything if I did have someone move in with me. I’m paying them rent.” She pauses. “I mean, when I get a job.”
“And that’s another thing.” My shoulder pops. Where is that damn phone? “We’re both jobless right now—I’ve only got one place on my resume and about a grand in savings, at best, and you don’t even know what field you want to go into.”
Finally, I feel the cool plastic of my phone case. I find the edge and tap it, hard, to send it skittering across the floor like an air hockey puck. It spins out to her foot.
“Even if we did have all the logistics figured out,” I finish, voice softening, “that doesn’t change the fact we’ve only known each other a few days.” Slowly, I look up at her. “Moving to be together, even if it isn’t moving in together, is crazy. No matter which one of us does the moving.”
Mollie sinks to her knees in front of me. When she touches the side of my face, I find myself leaning in, so eager to forget this problem. What happened to no strings? Why couldn’t this be simple, the way both of us pretended it was?
“We could do the long-distance thing,” she offers, but even as she says it, I can see that isn’t what she wants—just some consolation prize. It’s not what I want, either.
“Mollie.” I put my hand over hers, moving it to my mouth and kissing it, holding it there a minute. “It wouldn’t be fair to tie you up like that.” She pulls her hand away. I close my eyes. The bed frame groans as I lean against it. “And long-distance is really hard. There’s a reason it usually doesn’t work.”
“We wouldn’t have to do it forever. After a few months or a year, or...whatever, I could move here....”
“You’d move here? And uproot whatever career you’ll have just started?”
“Then you could move to me.”
“I told you, I’m staying here. I’m taking over the business.” I open my eyes and study my palm, coated in dust, instead of her. “I have to.”
“No, you don’t,” she snaps. “God, it’s like you’re coming up with any reason you can think of to break up with me.”
My chest tightens. I take a long, painful breath and hold it, still staring at my palm.
“Kai,” she whispers, “is that what you’re doing?”
The choked-up twist of her voice gets me. I can’t tell if mine is from the dust or not. “Like you said: it’s better to do this kind of stuff as fast as possible. Get it over with.”
“We still have three days.”
“Yeah, and why bother dragging it out and making everything that much worse when it happens? Look at us. We’ve known each other half a week, and…and look at how much this already hurts.” I swallow the dryness out of my mouth, but it doesn’t help. “We don’t make sense, Mollie.”
“If it makes sense to us, that’s all that matters.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me.” My volume picks up. “We were going to keep things simple, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. But things change.” She gets to her feet. “Why don’t you at least want to try, here? Why are you afraid to see where things go?”
“Because you,” I half-shout, grabbing the bed frame and pulling myself up, “are the one thing in this entire world that could get me off this island, Mollie. You’re the first person who’s ever made me think I should.”
I step closer to her, staring down into her face. Hating myself for putting those tears there.
“But I can’t.” Automatically, my voice changes to a whisper, knowing anything louder will break me, or her. Or both. “I have to stay here.”
Mollie stares back, swallowing. “You don’t want this. You’re only doing it because you feel guilty. But punishing yourself—taking on a job you don’t want, in a place that makes you feel trapped—isn’t going to fix things between you and your dad. It isn’t going to undo what happened with Andrea.” Her eyes flicker between mine. “And it won’t bring your brother back.”
She steps away from me, picking up her purse, already reaching for the doorknob behind her. “And pushing me away, telling yourself it’s inevitable because we don’t make sense, or because long distance doesn’t work—that isn’t going to make staying h
ere any easier.”
My heartbeat hurts, like the muscle is pressing into my ribs. I want to reach for her so badly—to pull her against me and erase all the hurt I’ve caused, take back every word. Retie every string I’ve just cut.
But I don’t.
She slips out, shutting the door so quietly, I can’t even hear it over my own breathing.
Twenty-Three
Mollie
“It isn’t your fault.” Tanya hands me my drink and sits down on the sofa to finish brushing my hair. When I got back to the suite, it was tangled and frizzy from the wind kicking up across the grass. I can smell the dust of the cabana as she works, separating sections onto my shoulders for a braid.
She goes on. “You can’t make someone see things differently when they’ve spent so long believing their version is the truth, unless they want to see it. They have to figure it out on their own to finally believe it.”
I nod and sip my way through the pain as she attacks another snarl.
“Like, look how long I tried convincing you to give up on Damian,” she says, chuckling. “I could tell he wasn’t into you. I told you he probably wasn’t. But you had to figure it out for yourself to really believe it. Because you didn’t want to let go of that idea.”
“Humans stick with what they know, even when everything tells them they shouldn’t. Even if it makes them miserable.” The ice bobs in my drink as I stab at it with my straw and remember Kai’s words from our bike ride. “That’s the problem,” I tell Tanya. She’s started braiding already; when I turn my head to speak, she pushes it forward. “Kai doesn’t want to figure anything out. If he would just try talking to his dad again, or be open to long-distance—”
“Mollie.” Tanya stops, my hair between her fingers, and peeks around my shoulder. Her voice is gentle, but serious. “You can’t change his mind.”