Wanderlove

by Kirsten Hubbard

  “Hey, Bria,” Rowan says, leaning around the passenger seat. He’s been quieter than usual all morning, and his voice comes as a surprise.

  “What’s up?”

  “I’ve been thinking.…”

  I wait patiently.

  “Do you want to stay another night in the city?”

  “Another night?” I wrinkle my nose at the window. We spent last night at a crummy guesthouse where everything was wicker and floral: wicker chairs, wicker tables, floral curtains, floral sheets on our bunk beds. This morning, we wandered around town. I expected Belize City to resemble Guatemala City, with masses of people, clogged highways, skyscrapers, Pizza Huts. But Belize City’s only a fraction of the size, which means a different kind of chaos. Everything’s damp and windblown, slanting toward the sea. Instead of stoplights, there are roundabouts, crammed with honking vans and taxis, locals on bikes. It’s fine. But the city’s not somewhere I want to spend a second night, especially with la isla bonita and the legendary Lobsterfest just a short boat ride away.

  “I’m just not in a huge hurry to get to the island,” Rowan says.

  “Why not?”

  “No real reason.” He’s trying to look breezy, I think, but it’s not working. “It’s just—there’ll just be loads of people there.”

  Our cab veers around a group of teenage boys on bikes. One of them knocks on the roof of the cab, and our driver brandishes a fat fist out the window.

  “There are loads of people here,” I tell Rowan.

  “Strangers.”

  I stare at him a moment before I figure it out.

  He’s talking about all the island’s non-strangers—people who know him. Who knew him. Maybe even people who participated in the unscrupulous crash landing Starling alluded to—like the notorious dive partner.

  All right. I get that. But here’s what I don’t get: why in the world did Rowan take the island job in the first place if going back is such a hazard? We’ve traveled all this way. And now that we’re almost there, it’s like he suddenly doesn’t trust himself.

  “Also,” he adds, “there’s a chance our boat will be grounded, if the storm’s offshore. Lightning and all that.”

  I blink at him. “Lightning? I thought you said lightning couldn’t strike a boat.”

  “That’s ridiculous. When did I say that?”

  “Yesterday morning!”

  He pauses, then looks sheepish. “You’re right. I just figured there was nothing we could do about it, since we were already on the boat, so why worry you?”

  He didn’t lie to be bossy—he lied to be sweet. I know this, because we’re talking Rowan, not Toby, but my stomach clenches anyway. I was just starting to forget all that Liat stuff, and now here he goes again. The most frustrating part is I can’t be mad.

  Because I lied too.

  The cab pulls up in front of the water taxi terminal. We pay our driver and haul our backpacks onto the sidewalk. I can hear the ocean slapping against the boats. A maritime funk hangs in the air, salt and fish and boat exhaust.

  “Are you angry?” Rowan asks.

  I hate when people ask that. Somehow, it makes your anger seem less valid.

  “I’m just sick of you guys shielding me from things,” I say. “I may not be as well traveled as you, but I can handle it. I’m not entirely dependent on you. It’s just that I don’t know a damn thing about these countries.…”

  Rowan sighs exasperatedly. “Have you even tried? You can always read a guidebook, you know. I’ve seen them at every book exchange. Or go to an Internet café and Google it! I told you, the information’s out there. There’s no excuse for ignorance when you travel.”

  A knot jerks my throat. “Thanks, Rowan. It’s great to know how you really feel about me.”

  “All I’m saying is—”

  “Don’t worry, I know what you’re saying—that traveling with me is a drag. It’s a shame you didn’t invite a street-savvy girl across the lake, but then again, a girl like that wouldn’t have fallen for your stupid prank.”

  “It’s not about you, Bria! I told you—I don’t travel with anyone.”

  “Why?”

  He shakes his head. “Not important.”

  “Of course. It’s part of the past! Can’t talk about that.”

  A car horn honks, and we have to cram ourselves up against the side of a building to let the vehicle squeeze by. Above us, there’s a rambling billboard for Dano instant milk powder: PROBABLY THE BEST MILK POWDER IN THE WORLD. I wish I could laugh. At the milk powder. At all this lunacy, made so momentous. But right now, I just can’t find the funny.

  Suddenly, Rowan grabs my backpack and takes off down the street.

  “Rowan!” I yell after him. “Come on!”

  I kick his backpack, which he left beside me. It tumbles over. Immediately, I feel guilty: after a while, backpacks seem more like travel companions than inanimate objects. Rowan knew perfectly well that stealing my backpack would force me to follow him, and that I’m too nice to leave his backpack behind. At least it’s lighter than mine.

  I dodge pedestrians, cross a small park, and stop beside him at a promontory overlooking the sea. A red-and-white lighthouse looms overhead. Below us, waves burst against a wall of rocks. Rowan sets my backpack on the ground, and I quickly swap it for his. Just in case I need to make a quick getaway.

  “You’re only trying to make us miss the water taxi,” I say.

  “Not true … I just don’t think we should go to the island angry.”

  “Why, is that some big no-no? Like going to bed angry?”

  “Maybe it should be.”

  Way out in the gloom, a cruise ship disgorges passengers into ferries. I wonder if they’re just as disappointed by Rowan’s Caribbean as I am.

  “I want you to trust me,” he says. “Don’t you?”

  I look at him. In the stormy light, his eyes look dark, almost black. Toby’s are pale blue. They couldn’t look more different. They couldn’t act more different. But there are similarities between them, too—ones I can’t ignore any longer.

  “I’ve caught you lying twice now,” I tell him. “If you have trouble being honest about little things, how can you expect me to trust you with everything else?”

  “What was my other lie?”

  “Liat.”

  Rowan squints at the non-sun. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that. Although I didn’t lie, exactly.” He cuts me off before I can object. “But I didn’t tell the truth, either, which is almost as bad. Did she tell you any … stories?”

  “Not really. I stopped her before she could.”

  He stares at me. “You did? Why?”

  “I didn’t mean anything noble by it. I was just scared of the truth.” I shrug. “But she did tell me your past was wild.… I think she called it a ‘nonstop rave.’ ” She also said diving was just a front, but I need proof before I accuse Rowan of something like that.

  “See, that’s exactly what I’m afraid of, Bria. I don’t want you to look at me differently. And if you knew what a mess I was back then, you would.”

  “I don’t know if I would,” I say quietly.

  “You would. Believe me. The Rowan you know is the good-parts version.”

  “Really? Okay, now I’m scared.”

  He smiles. “In all honesty, I thought we were doing okay. This is all new to me. I’ve never been forced into this situation before—I’ve never gotten to the point where anyone wants to know about me. Other than places to go, places I’ve been.”

  “No one’s forcing you to do anything.”

  “That came out wrong.”

  “It’s okay. After all, Starling signed you up for this. She did a great job of matchmaking, didn’t she? Look at us: we’re both screwed up.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m screwed up, you mean.”

  A massive wave bursts in front of us. Rowan grabs my waist and pulls me away, so we miss the worst of the spray. When he lets go, he seems to
do it almost reluctantly, dropping his hands into his pockets and backing away.

  “Know what the shittiest part about all this is?” he says. “It’s that I’m making everything a bigger deal by keeping it quiet.”

  I know exactly what he means.

  “If you really want to know, Bria, at some point, I’ll fill you in. On everything. Just … not right now, okay?” He sweeps his hand over the horizon. “Looks like the storm’s clearing. I guess it’s now or never, right?”

  He takes a step toward the road, but I grab his backpack to stop him.

  “Before we go … there’s something I need to tell you.” I try to smile. I probably look like a Claymation monster, pinched into existence. “And by telling you, I don’t mean it any way other than as a statement of fact. So you have to promise not to read anything into it.”

  “I’m not sure what that means, but okay. I promise.”

  “I lied,” I say.

  “You lied?”

  “Because I wasn’t over it. Lying was just another way to hang on to the past … like some kind of security blanket. But now I’m ready to put it behind me. The thing I lied about.” I look away when I say it. “I don’t have a boyfriend. Anymore. We broke up before the trip.”

  There’s a silence. A silence that carries the weight of a thousand anvils. I feel myself cringing as I anticipate the crush.

  “Oh,” Rowan says.

  He thinks I’m such a loser. I know it. What kind of girl lies about having a boyfriend? Or having broken up with one? I cross my arms over my daypack and start heading back toward the water taxi terminal, trying not to cry, because the only thing that could embarrass me worse is crying in front of Rowan.

  Then I feel the tiniest pressure behind me. I glance over my shoulder. Rowan is resting his hand on my backpack. And somehow, it makes me feel better.

  Then, right before we pass through the doorway of the terminal, he leans toward me.

  “I get it,” he says. “You’re running too.”

  Things Toby said that should have made me dump him instantly:

  “You didn’t really include that fairy drawing, did you?”

  “Maybe it was the diversity factor—Sandoval sounds Latino.”

  “I thought it was more of a professional school, is all.”

  “Isn’t that a man’s head on a woman’s body?”

  “You have so much potential.”

  Toby was sitting at his art table, leaning over an expensive pad of bristol board, when I arrived at his house. I rapped my knuckles on the doorjamb and he jumped, slamming the pad shut. Like I’d caught him cheating on me. It sure felt like it. He was supposed to be the wounded one, and yet he was having no problem drawing.

  Almost two months had passed since fast-track admissions were announced. Acceptances were overdue. But every time I’d broached the subject with Toby, he’d changed it. Usually by groping me and trying to lead me out to his car. That day I was determined we’d talk, and nothing else. Even if I had to force the sentences out of him with a piece of charcoal to the jugular.

  “I was just searching online,” I began. “About housing at the academy. We have a few choices. I thought we might want to stay in the same building.…”

  Toby opened his pad of bristol again without replying. Why was he making this so awkward? Had it really been only a couple of months earlier we were laughing together? Maybe we never did, and I’d turned the past into a fantasy. Just like our future one, which faded with every second of his silence.

  “There’s something I should tell you, Bria.”

  In moments of half clarity, I knew my relationship with Toby was a sand castle pummeled by waves. I should have been the one to kick it over—to break up with him—a million times, for a million reasons. But instead, I kept scaling the walls to higher towers, trying to avoid its inevitable collapse. Which meant I set myself up for the fall that came next.

  “I’m going to Chicago.”

  “For a trip?”

  “For college.”

  I sank onto his bed. “What are you talking about?”

  “I got into the Art Institute of Chicago. I’d be crazy not to go there—it’s a great school.”

  “So’s SCAA!”

  He exhales. “Sure it is. But it’s not Chicago. I’d be crazy if I didn’t take the chance to live somewhere like that.”

  “But … that means you applied months ago. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  There was so much condescension in his smile I wanted to pry it from his face. “You’re right,” he said. “I should have told you earlier. But you were just so excited about going to the academy together … I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

  I balled my fists so hard they cramped. He knew he was wrecking me, and I knew he knew it, and still I couldn’t make myself behave. “But I didn’t apply to other art schools!”

  “That’s your fault, Bria. You can’t blame me for your own self-sabotage.”

  And therein lay the shittiest part of all this: he was right. I gambled my future on a lopsided relationship, all because of a promise. It was the promise of a fantasy: two kindred spirits (okay, I despise that term, but you know what I mean) united by a love for art and—I thought—for each other. Exactly what my combative, incompatible parents never had. It wasn’t that Toby was faking his feelings for me. But he wanted me only as long as he could believe he was better.

  For the first time, I realized that.

  And for the first time, I was pissed off. That he’d kept all this from me. Hid the truth so that every decision I’d made in the last few months I’d fumbled at blindfolded—without the knowledge I needed to do what was best for myself. Too bad it took my fantasy castle crashing around me to make me see clearly.

  I stepped forward. Opened my mouth.

  And before I could speak, he dumped me.

  “Look,” he said. “It’s been fun, Bria, but it’s obvious we’re going our separate ways. We might as well not drag it out all summer, you know?”

  There’s nothing that can quite describe the feeling. All that power and fury boiling through my veins sealed up before I could vent it. I’m sure Toby had known what was about to happen. He’d seen the determination on my face. At long last, I’d been ready to do what I should have done ages earlier—dump the boy who’d helped take my art.

  But he took that from me too.

  I look up as the water taxi approaches the dock. It’s the biggest boat we’ve taken so far. A substantial crowd has gathered around us, lugging suitcases, backpacks, and boxes of Tang and Quaker Oats. “Ready?” Rowan asks me.

  I close my sketchbook—careful not to slam it—and tuck it inside my daypack while Rowan watches mildly. For once, I don’t care. I’m not going to hide it anymore. That doesn’t mean I’m going to show him all my drawings, but I’m not going to be ashamed, either.

  Because I’ve decided this is it. I’m finished. I am closing Toby inside these pages. On the island, and every day after, for the rest of my life, I’ll be new.

  I’m done looking back.

  “Ready.”

  Art to me is seeing. I think you have got to use your eyes, as well as your emotion, and one without the other just doesn’t work.

  ~Andrew Wyeth

  A painting doesn’t have to have a profound meaning. It doesn’t have to “say” a word. We fall in love for simpler reasons.

  ~Harley Brown

  16

  Day 10, Evening

  Laughingbird Caye

  Something about the mainland must attract clouds. Because as soon as the water taxi pulls out of the harbor and into open water, they fall away. The ocean changes from gray to blue. Then, gradually, as the setting sun spears it and the sandy floor nears the surface, it brightens to a luminous turquoise.

  “I told you!” Rowan shouts over the roar.

  When I turn to grin at him, I find his face just inches from mine. We’re sitting hip to hip with Belizeans of every variety: buff guys with tiny childr
en, teenagers in booty shorts with manicured nails, a trio of white women with beads in their hair, an enormously fat man in a yellow Lakers jersey. When the guy to my left leans over to tie his shoe, I catch a peek of his boxers: red, with cartoon hamburgers and french fries. There are almost as many travelers as there are locals. Rowan assured me Laughingbird Caye is primarily a backpacker destination, but some of the girls resemble Olivia more than Starling.

  Island after island floats by in the distance, each a squat patch of green bordered by tiny threads of white. The wind makes my eyes tear up, but I can’t stop looking.

  “That’s it,” Rowan says. “That’s Laughingbird Caye.”

  I’m a little confused, because all I see is a strip of mangroves. But as we speed alongside it, houses begin to appear: boxy structures on tall stilts, with decks, painted lemon yellow and purple and Caribbean green. Docks protrude like wooden fingers, and coconut trees tilt at precarious angles. Pelicans with tousled heads hover in the wind.

  The young guys driving the boat cut the engine and the current surges around us. I lean over the edge and gaze into the clear water as we head to shore. The sandy floor is mottled with sea grass, and I can see every blade of it. Black-and-yellow fish dart in and out.

  “They’re like bumblebees,” I say to Rowan.

  He smiles at me, but it looks more like a wince.

  “What’s on your mind?” I ask.

  “Don’t be mad.”

  I feel a little nervous. “I won’t.”

  “I was just thinking how it’s too bad you won’t see all the fish up close. You’d have to get in the water for that.”

  I don’t say anything.

  But while Rowan collects our backpacks, I kneel at the edge of the dock. I can hear two sets of waves: the tiny ones lapping at the shore and, out at sea, bigger ones surging against the reef—the second-largest barrier reef in the world. The breeze shudders in the palms. And for the first time, I finally feel the distance between me and Toby, me and my parents, me and the life I’ve left behind: hundreds, thousands of miles, even millions.