By then, our picnic table is a wasteland of paper plates and cups, kabob sticks and lobster carcasses. I shuffle through the mess as I drink and dance, and eat and dance, and throw back my head and dance.
Ariel keeps laughing in my ear. “I can’t believe it! What’s gotten into you? You’re so much fun!”
Emily has scampered off to find Rowan again. All afternoon, Emily and Ariel have alternated in their pursuit. So far, neither seems to have been successful. Don’t give up the fight, I think at him.
Which makes me realize I haven’t seen him in a long time.
The thought tugs at my middle. I should go find him before I drink too much. But the problem is the drinks keep coming.
Before I left for Central America, Reese emailed me articles about date-rape drugs in foreign countries. (And guerrilla warfare. And unanticipated volcano eruptions. And botfly larvae, which you really shouldn’t look up. Really.) As a result, I won’t drink anything I don’t order myself. But that doesn’t stop guys from sticking bills in front of my face to pay.
I dance with Ariel the most. But the guys are everywhere. They creep up from behind and accost me, sneak dance attack. They hold out burnt offerings of lobster, chicken, shrimp in exchange for just one song. When I let the Belizean guy with the double cornrow buns buy me a drink in exchange for a dance, I sort of feel like a hooker.
And then there’s Jack. As scarce as Rowan seems to be, every time I turn around, the Swedish Lumberjack is pulling me into a dance. After everything Rowan’s told me, I don’t know why I’m even giving this guy a second of my time. He was the instigator, the force behind Rowan’s fall, and yet there’s something appealing about his attention, made so obvious, especially after traveling so long with someone who’s made it perfectly clear I’m not his type.
Or maybe it was Starling who said that.
Suddenly, it’s hard to remember who said what, and why. I’m starting to regret my last drink. When Jack grabs my hand for the thousandth time, I turn my face, trying to find an opening in the crowd where I can breathe. Past the chain-link fence and the palms and buildings, the sky smolders mandarin orange. It’s magical. But I can’t deny it—I’m starting to feel sick. And throwing up twice in one day, for different reasons, is a travel badge I’m not exactly seeking.
“Do you know where I can get a bottle of water?” I ask Jack. My mouth tastes like coconut, sickeningly strong.
He shakes his head. “How about another beer?”
I duck under his arms and head for a clearing, holding on to a palm until the ground stops mimicking Devon’s dive boat. The final scraps of island fantasy drift away. And it’s like I’ve woken up inside a painting of the underworld by Hieronymus Bosch. In the sunset, everyone’s faces are colored red. The lobster smoke reeks like Hades. My feet hurt. My throat feels raw.
Ariel crashes into me. She’s reapplied lip gloss, and even that seems ominous, her mouth a glistening pink gash. “I’ve got shots of Malibu!” she shrieks.
I push past her. I don’t know where I’m going, if I’m planning on leaving, and if I leave, whether I’ll come back, but I halt in my tracks when I see Rowan.
He’s standing against the chain-link fence looking desperately uncomfortable, like a chaperone at a high school dance, someone’s beatnik big brother, with one hand in the pocket of his ragged shorts, the other holding a nearly full beer against his knees.
“Rowan,” I call.
He lifts his beer in greeting but doesn’t budge from his spot. He just stands there, watching me. And then, slowly but deliberately, he shakes his head.
What the hell’s that supposed to mean?
He can’t be serious. I feel his eyes on my skin and I want to cover up. How long has he been watching me? Has he been counting my cocktails? Have I been laughing too loud? I’ve always felt like Rowan was judging me, but never in this way. I wonder if he’s embarrassed for me, behaving like such a silly girl, so obviously overcompensating for the things I told him last night.
And then I begin to feel resentful.
Just because Rowan’s wild years are over doesn’t mean he has to tread all over my night like a ponytailed Godzilla. I’m almost two years younger than him. For all those months I wasted with Toby, I deserve this. How dare he judge me? I’ve never judged him. Not really. Okay, maybe sort of, but still.
When Jack’s arm snakes around my middle yet again, I feel both sick and glad. “I come bearing meat,” he says, holding out a lobster kabob.
Aware of Rowan’s gaze, I tear off a hunk of the smoky shellfish and eat it with my fingers. I try to turn that feeble gladness into something more gratifying. But when Jack’s sticky hand reaches for mine, the gladness seeps away and I just feel sicker than before.
Who am I trying to fool?
I shove Jack’s hand away. “Sorry,” I tell him. “But I’m just not interested.”
Like a pinball, I ricochet through the crowd until I’m standing in front of Rowan. I give him a push in the center of his chest. “So whatever happened to joining in?”
He just looks at me.
“Rowan, come on. Liven up!” I put my hands on his hips, trying to make him dance. When I feel him respond, I put my arms over his shoulders and press up against him. I’m startled by how good it feels. He cups the back of my head in his hand, leans in.
“Don’t do this,” he says in my ear.
I pull back, forcing a laugh. It sounds like I’m hacking. “Do what?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Oh, give me a break. I’ve had, like, three drinks!”
Rowan stares at me, unblinkingly, until I want to cover his eyes.
“You need to stop parenting me, Rowan. Just let me go.”
He doesn’t argue; he just leans back into the fence. The party continues all around us, more jovial and boisterous than ever. But the night has officially lost its thrill, thanks to him.
“I think I need a walk,” I announce.
Rowan just stands there, his beer against his knees.
24
Day 17, Evening
Jump In
I stride along the seaweed-clotted shoreline until the sounds of the party fade. Once I’m sure I’m alone, I grab my skirt and run.
When I stumble over a Coke bottle trapped in a tangle of sea grass, I kick off my sandals. I leave them where they land and keep running, dodging palm trees, slopping through milky puddles. I run until I’ve almost reached the tangle of mangrove forest, and then I let myself fall, first onto my knees, then onto my back.
I lie there until the ground stops swaying.
Then I sit up. Beyond my bare toes, the water flickers with lights. Spirit orbs. The horizon’s so dark it blends in with the sky. Above, night clouds obscure the stars in patches silvered by the moon. All I hear is the lapping of tiny waves. The entire island has shifted to the other end.
And here I am, alone.
I feel so sorry for myself I want to cry. I want to. I find myself searching for that familiar knot, that parcel of emotion tucked inside my chest the moment art began to break my heart. But for the first time, I catch myself trying. And as soon as I uncover it, remove it like a manhole cover and roll it away, the real emotion’s exposed.
Anger.
Not just anger, but outrage. The kind that glows orange at the edges and steams and stinks like when you flatiron your hair too long. Outrage. Outrageous outrage. I am so damned outraged I could scream. I do scream.
The waves lap-lap back.
I mash my fingers into my eyes until all I see are Kandinsky splotches. Then I reach into the sand and scoop massive fistfuls, squeezing it, letting it bleed between my fingers as I savor my anger.
There’s anger for Toby, of course. And my parents—for being too preoccupied to question me when I gave up art school and art. There’s some for Starling, because what the hell was she thinking, asking me to look out for Rowan? She knew I was vulnerable. She’s got no right to be irritated after I ma
de an honest mistake. And there’s even some anger left for Reese and Olivia, for backing out on our trip. In hindsight, I’m glad they did, because otherwise I wouldn’t be here. And maybe I wasn’t the best friend to them when I was with Toby. But our friendship should have been stronger than that.
Most of all, I’m angry at myself.
Because I’m the one who gave it up. Of course I’m talking about my art, but not just my art. That’s not all I lost. I gave up who I was when I was an artist—a version of myself so happy it scared me. Not the invented party girl I tried to become tonight. I didn’t like her at all, actually. I like Bria who drew. Bria who was happy.
I’ve spent so much time blaming everybody around me for what happened in the last few months. But in the end, I was the one who let myself go.
And it pisses me off.
A rim of gold glows along the reef. I walk a long time before I have any idea where I am. I must have run half a mile. I wonder where I left my sandals.
I stub my bare toe on something, and I glance down. A stick of driftwood. I almost kick it away, but then I pick it up, turning it over in my hands.
Once upon a time, whatever troubled me could be scratched away by my pencil, smudged out with the side of my palm. But then Toby came along, and art seemed to become what created my problems. Letting it go meant I had no outlet. Maybe that’s one reason I stockpiled my anger until it colored my world black and red.
I twirl the driftwood stick between my fingers.
Then I crouch in the moon-bright sand. And I begin to draw.
First I draw a nautilus shell. Nothing momentous. But my relief is instant as I mimic its cavities and whorls, endlessly swirling, my broken chunk of stick waltzing across the sand. I draw a leaping dolphin and then scratch it out and draw a killer whale in its place. On impulse, I add fangs.
I kneel and draw a goggle-eyed lobster, its antennae trailing like seaweed. A conch shell. A whale shark with leopard spots and an open mouth, swallowing a scuba diver, because damn it, I told him I didn’t want to dive. I toss the stick aside in favor of my fingers, carving out clumps of wet sand. I start to draw a mermaid, then scratch her out and draw a sea serpent in her place. A Pegasus with butterfly wings. I’m like a crazy person. It’s as if all these fantastic creatures have been caged in my brain since the day Toby first flipped through my sketchbook, and now they’re all stampeding out.
I’m finishing the talons on a dragon when Rowan comes up beside me. “Caught you.”
I jerk in surprise. My knee skids across the poor dragon’s face. Stricken, Rowan yanks me back by my waist.
“I’ve ruined it!” he exclaims.
“It’s not—”
“I thought if I didn’t surprise you, you’d stop drawing. And now I’ve gone and wrecked it.”
“Are you kidding? The wind’s going to wreck them all anyway. But it doesn’t matter.…” I lean down and pick up my stick. With a few strokes, I fix the dragon.
Rowan just shakes his head.
I watch him examine each of my drawings, carefully stepping between the creatures. He smiles at the lobster, the vampirish killer whale. When he sees the sea serpent, he grins.
“I drew sea lice, too,” I tell him, “but they’re too small to see.”
“Bria, you never stop amazing me.” With exaggerated caution, he hops over the nautilus shell and comes to stand beside me. “And you’re a mess.”
I look down at my skirt. It’s practically tie-dyed with tar and smears of seaweed. My arms are coated up to the elbows in pale, sugary sand. I make claws at Rowan. He catches one of my arms and brushes the sand from it, sending a million tiny shivers through my skin.
“Are you angry?” he asks softly, still holding my arm.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” I pause. “Are you angry?”
“Not at you.”
“Who, then?”
He takes my other arm. “I hated seeing Jack touch you,” Rowan says. “Hated it.”
I try to reply, but I can’t breathe deeply enough. My heart’s getting in the way of my lungs.
“And I know it was my fault,” he goes on. “I mean, it kind of sucked, because you know about our history, but it’s not like I asked you to stay away from him. Not that I can tell you what to do. It’s just … I should have …” He sounds as nervous as I feel. “I’ve given you so much grief about hanging back, about not jumping in, when I’ve been just as afraid myself—”
I pull away. Because if I let him hold me for one second longer, I am going to spontaneously combust, and although it would be impressive, that’s not how I want this night to end.
“Then let’s go.”
Rowan looks mystified. “Where?”
“If you’re not ready, I’ll have to go alone.”
“Go where?” he shouts after me as I jog away.
When I reach the shoreline, I hurl my stick into the sea. It skips once. Not bad for a stick. Rowan catches up with me at the end of the dock.
“So …” My toes curl over the edge. “Do you think I’m ready?”
“I think you might be drunk.”
“I think,” I say, and then I step into the water.
There’s no shock of cold, like I expect. Only a sudden, soothing warmth. The tickle of sea grass, the gentle suck of sand. I push off the bottom and try to shoot forward, but the current nudges me in another direction. It’s almost like the waves are playing with me. Bria! You’re back!
Each summer until this one, I swam at my favorite beach almost every day. I went with Reese or my parents at first, but once I got my license, I preferred to go alone. It wasn’t the biggest beach, or the closest, or even the most scenic. Definitely not the best place to scope out guys. Olivia always wanted to drive to Santa Monica, or to giggle at the crazies in Venice. But when I was by myself, the isolation was what I loved. Knowing that I could sit and not be hassled when I pulled out my sketchbook. And that my sketchbook would still be there when I came back from a long, slow swim in the water, which was always freezing. Nothing like this.
Belizean water feels like a hug.
Something shimmies by my ankle. I squeal, but I feel no fear. Even if I’m chewed to pieces … In the ocean? What a way to go.
Okay, maybe I’m a little drunk, but it’s far better than death by Guatemala City sinkhole sludge.
There’s a splash, and Rowan surfaces beside me. He’s shed his shirt. I feel my breath catch, and this time, I let it. Let myself notice the way the moon highlights his skin like white charcoal. The shape of his collarbone, with his Mayan necklace right in the center. His chest. His shoulders.
“Trapezius,” I tell him.
He flexes his arm.
“Wrong muscle.”
“I knew I’d get you in the water one of these days.”
“Or nights,” I say with a grin.
“Race you?”
Without warning, I lunge for the horizon. He grabs my calf and yanks me back. “Cheater!” I scream as he charges ahead.
I catch his foot just in time, and I pounce and push him under. I try to swim away, but my legs tangle in my godforsaken skirt. He wraps his arms around my hips and lifts me in the air. I manage only one short scream before he tosses me over his shoulder and I’m underwater.
When I burst up, laughing and spitting, he grabs me around the waist. I bite him in the trapezius. He tries to escape, but neither of us can swim, we’re both laughing so hard.
And suddenly, we stop. And we’re just looking at each other, panting.
We come together in a series of motions. He catches my hands. I wind my fingers through his. He brings my arms behind his waist.
The water shifts endlessly, knocking us together, pulling us apart.
Then my back hits something. When I turn to look, Rowan grips me under my arms and lifts me out of the water, until I’m sitting on the dock. He climbs out after me, trapping the sopping layers of my skirt with his knees. I fall back and pull him with me, my hands running ove
r his chest and back, his skin wet and smooth, all the vital muscles just waiting to be named.
He reaches for my hands, pulls them over my head, and holds them. And then my heart turns over, because his mouth has found mine.
25
Day 17, Night
How It Ends
Here’s what’s supposed to happen.
Everything’s supposed to culminate that night on the dock. Okay, maybe not on the dock, because that would be splintery. But the arc that began with a glance in the Guatemala City airport brought to its inevitable conclusion in a hostel bed, with the music from the beach party filtering through the window, the wind gone wild right outside.
But in reality, we don’t even make it to the hostel.
And unfortunately, I don’t mean it like that.
Here’s how it really ends.
I’m lying on the dock, and Rowan’s on top of me, and we’ve been kissing for so long my whole face feels numb—but the good kind of numb, which I swear exists. The world could screech to a halt on its axis and the dock could be swept out to sea in an apocalyptic current, and we wouldn’t notice. Our universes have condensed into each other.
At long last, Rowan rolls to the side and tugs me up. We stumble down the dock, then through the sand, playfully, him half carrying me, but we don’t get very far, because we keep stopping to kiss. At one point, I trip over the root of a coconut palm and fall, and it’s funny, but it also kind of hurts.
Rowan’s kneeling next to me, holding me, kissing me. And I want to go on, I want to continue, but something inside me has started to pull back.
It’s the most intense moment of my life, and suddenly, that scares me. I know this was the whole point of my trip. I’m finally living out my promise to Olivia. To find somebody to make me forget. But this isn’t just somebody.
It’s Rowan.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I shake my head. He takes that to mean everything’s okay, and he weaves both his hands through my hair and kisses me again. Mentally, I fight to keep myself here, on this island, on this beach, in this moment, but it’s too late. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
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