by Matayo, Amy
I continued to refuse.
On tryout day, I froze onstage and wound up with a part in the chorus. The disappointment I felt that day stayed with me for a long time afterward.
This feels like a second chance. I’m performing for my dad now, jumping on the sand and screaming like this is my final audition, my one and only shot to be seen. Except this time, I have a co-star.
Liam and I give it our best performance.
A few seconds later when the boat turns left and heads toward us, I know we’ve both won a starring role.
CHAPTER 19
Onboard the Ship
“And you think it might be them?”
“We see something up ahead,” the man says into the radio. “We’re heading that way to see. Want to stay on the line or call us back? It’ll be a couple minutes before we can reach the island.”
“I’ll stay on the phone. You can set it down and I’ll just listen.”
“Got it, Captain. Give us just a few minutes.”
The captain sat back in his chair, still on board and refusing to depart the ship until this latest development was cleared up. Yesterday the news broke—how the cruise ship had left two passengers behind and how rescue efforts were now underway, mostly with no success. He wasn’t sure if the family had leaked the information or if it had come from any number of the passengers who might have overheard the chatter, but the news was out. There was talk about the cruise line and the captain being slapped with a lawsuit; rules and regulations don’t hold up in the court of public opinion. He could lose his job; in the end, he could quite literally and figuratively go down with the ship. But negative press wasn’t what had him troubled.
What if these weren’t his missing passengers? He didn’t know if he could bear to tell the parents their hope had run out. He’d been on the receiving end of that news himself. In life, there’s pain and there’s pain that involves a child. The two can’t be compared where devastation is concerned. Pain, you get over. Pain with a child…you are stuck with for years, if not forever.
There was a commotion on the other end of the phone.
He heard voices; screams, to be exact. Muffled, but unmistakable.
The captain sat forward, the phone pressed to his ear. He couldn’t decipher whether the screams were signs of elation or danger. There was a crash. A yell from the man he’d just been talking to. Water…the familiar sound of water.
The line went dead, and he added his own bit of yelling. He tapped the line, tried to get a signal out. No matter how many times he attempted to reconnect, he got nothing but a No Service message. The two most frustrating words in the cell phone era, and nothing could be done to fix it.
There was nothing he could do but wait.
CHAPTER 20
The Rescue
Liam
They see us. After four long days and nights, someone finally sees us.
I stand mute next to Dillon, both of us having abandoned the jumping and yelling the moment the boat turned and headed our direction. It’s surreal, the reality of being found after so many days of being lost. It’s joy and relief, elation and exhaustion, happiness…definitely happiness.
But it’s the sadness that surprises me most.
We’re leaving this little cocoon we’ve built around ourselves, and we won’t be back. Our circumstances have been both frightening and dire, but we’ve survived it by leaning on each other. Even in this godforsaken place at the end of the world where nothing has been certain—not even a drink of water or our next meal—I’ve liked being with Dillon.
Soon…I won’t be.
I reach for her hand and link my fingers through hers, overwhelmed with the need to possess and protect. The boat is getting closer, and we are getting farther—at least the we that existed here on this island. I wrap my free arm around her, and she tucks herself into my side; for all the emotions I’m feeling, that’s when I know she’s experiencing the same ones. I want to see my family and friends, but I don’t want to leave. How can one person wrestle with so many conflicting emotions at once? We adapt to our own surroundings, I suppose, and my surroundings have been small and isolated while at the same time filled with Dillon.
The boat is still fifty yards off shore, but the white and red letters that spell U.S. Coast Guard are clearly visible on the side. I assumed we were in foreign waters, but it must have been an incorrect assumption on my part. Two men sit at the helm, guiding the boat as close as it can go. One man lowers a small raft into the water and disembarks. It only takes a few moments to paddle toward us. He shields his eyes as he makes it to shore and walks toward us up the sand.
“Are you Dillon Hayes?” the man shouts. It’s odd to hear someone else say her name, to be suddenly familiar with the outside world when so much has been unfamiliar as of late. She nods and steps away from me. I immediately feel the loss.
“Yes,” she says. “And this is Liam. We’ve been here for five days.” She tugs at the towel wrapped around her waist as if she’s suddenly self-conscious.
The man smiles. “Glad to finally meet you both. Now how about we get you home?”
Dillon nods twice, seemingly flustered. I can relate; It’s a lot to take in.
“Your disappearance has caused quite the stir,” he says, pulling the boat onto the sand. “It’s been on the news and everything. If your ship’s captain hadn’t been so persistent, we might not have ever found you. I guess you have your parents to thank for that, since they kept pressuring him to look.” He laughs. Dillon doesn’t.
“I’m sure they’ve been worried sick about us,” she says.
“Everyone has. Thank God the captain remembered this island. The Majesty used it decades ago for an excursion but abandoned it sometime in the fifties, I think.” He looks around. “It’s so small, I’m surprised they ever used it at all.”
Since we never made it past that first port on this cruise, I have nothing to compare it to.
The fifties makes sense. That explains the run-down shack and the abundance of dust and cobwebs. I feel a little rush of victory that my hunch was correct, but it slides away quickly. We’re leaving. Why in the world am I hesitant about it?
“Well, are you ready to go? We should have you back to New Orleans in just a few hours if we leave now. There’s food and drinks below deck. I would venture to guess you’re both starving and thirsty. There’s also a shower and some changes of clothes if you’d like to put them to good use, and a bed if you would like to sleep for a bit.”
Dillon nods, strangely quiet. I move to help her onto the boat, but she stops and turns around before stepping on. She scans the island, then seems to remember something and runs back to the sand. I watch as she searches the shore, then reaches down to pick something up. As she walks back to me, it takes me a minute to make out the object in her hand. Once I see it, I smile.
It’s a hollowed-out coconut, the one from the first day. As happy as she must feel to leave, there’s a part of her that also wants to remember. It seems we’re the same, Dillon and me.
He made the call over an hour ago; now everyone knows we’ve been found and we should be back in the States in a little under four hours. I took a shower first at Dillon’s insistence; she claimed an aversion to my filth and practically pushed me into the water. In turn, I pulled at the ends of her hair and shoved her out the bathroom door. Now I’m clad in a regulation Coast Guard tee and sweatpants and lying on my back on the narrow bed, eating chocolate covered raisins by the fistful and downing my second cold Diet Coke. I’ve always hated diet drinks. Now all of a sudden, I’m a fan. Dirty rainwater and warm coconut milk can help you develop an affinity for anything that isn’t either one of those. The crew members have left us alone down here. To say I’m thankful is an understatement. I need the time to adjust.
Dillon opens the bathroom door and joins me on the bed. Her hair is wet and dripping slightly at the ends, leaving a trail of water down the front of her white tee. It’s sexy. I don’t keep the informat
ion to myself.
“Whatever, Liam. I look like I’m a dude with long hair in these clothes.”
Actually, the oversized tee and pants make her look even hotter than the bikini did, and let me be the be the first to admit I’m surprised by that phenomenon. I scoot over to give her some room.
“Trust me when I say you do not look like a dude.” I make a slow perusal of her body—starting at her face and making my way down to her toes—and taking my sweet time about it. “Want some raisins?” I hold out the box and she makes a face.
“Gross, no. But I will eat these.” She reaches for a box of Milk Duds and cracks them open. “You can stop ogling me, though. I’m wearing sweatpants. What can you possibly see that you haven’t already seen a million times on the island?”
I give her a lazy grin. “It’s not what I see right now that matters. It’s what I’m imagining.” I’m rewarded with a smack on the gut, and I laugh.
“Boys are so dumb. Scoot over. You’re taking up the whole bed.” She nudges me with her hip and stretches her body out to fit the length of mine, resting her head on the arm I’ve tucked behind her head. We’ve slept like this each of the last three nights, but somehow this feels more intimate. Where those nights came shrouded in a desperation not to be left alone, this is a choice. I’m with you despite the two men upstairs and the crowd getting ready to descend on us. I set the box of raisins behind my head and wrap both arms around her.
“How are you feeling?”
For a long moment she doesn’t speak. I listen to the way she sucks on the candy in contemplation, then sighs long and slow. “I’m not sure. Happy of course, and glad to be found. But also a little sad about it. I took off on my own because my family can be overwhelming a lot of the time, and now I’m going back to that. I’m not looking forward to that part.” She grows quiet, then swallows. “It will be weird not seeing you all the time. I’m not looking forward to that part either.”
I tighten my hold. “I’m not looking forward to it either.” Maybe I shouldn’t, but I plant a kiss on the top of her head, leaving my hand in her hair. It’s honest, as honest as I can be right now. I can’t imagine not seeing her every minute of every day, and I would ask her for the privilege…if it weren’t for my brother. On the island, it was getting easier by the minute to convince myself his feelings didn’t matter. I kissed her—I did more than kiss her—just last night because it had become that easy not to think of him. But now his presence is looming right in front of me. One look at me, and he’ll know how I feel about her. Still, he’s my brother. He deserves more than my indifference.
Dillon deserves more too. The problem is, with her I am anything but indifferent.
Which is why I kiss her again on the forehead.
On the nose.
On the lips. The moment I press my mouth to hers and feel her respond, I know I could kiss her for the rest of my life.
The thought paralyzes me, because I have no idea where it came from.
With my heart pounding in my throat, I pull back a little.
“You want to try and get some sleep?”
She nods, then turns her body toward me, laying her head against my chest. Locking my hands together around her waist, I pull her to me and hold her close.
As her body relaxes with the pull of sleep, I lay awake for a while and wonder how in the world I can make this work.
By the time the boat slows in the harbor, I still don’t have an answer.
CHAPTER 21
Dillon
It isn’t until I see my mother burst into tears that I realize the full extent of what my missing status has done to her. She’s frail and broken, so full of grief, despair, and relief it makes me feel awful. I suppose it should. After all, I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving on the excursion, and I still have no idea how she found out or how hard she had to work to get anyone to listen. My entire family is here at the New Orleans port, but so far my parents are the only people I’ve spoken to. Partly because I’m overwhelmed with all the activity, but mostly because my mother grabbed onto me a couple minutes ago and hasn’t let go. My shoulder is wet with her tears. I’ve cried a little too. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed her until this moment.
“I was so worried about you,” she says again. It’s a mantra of sorts, something she says more to convince herself I’m real than anything else.
“I know you were. If it makes you feel better, I was worried about me too. If Liam hadn’t jumped on the boat at the last second and gone with me, I have no idea where I would be right now.” Alone at sea, probably at the bottom of the ocean at this point. I shudder.
She pulls back to look at me, then gives a watery smile. “Thank God for him then, I suppose. Though if it wasn’t for his brother, we might not have found you at all.”
Chad. All roads seem to lead back to him, don’t they?
I turn to scan the crowd. “I guess I should thank him for speaking up.”
“You should. He’s such a nice man, by the way. Very helpful. And very concerned about you. It was nice to see someone who cared so much. It’s the kind of thing every mother wants for her child.”
Here five minutes, and I can already hear the implication in my mother’s tone. I’m exhausted, so keeping an eye roll in check takes work. I pull away to give a perfunctory look around the room. The sooner I get the thank yous over with, the sooner my mother can reign in her matchmaking thoughts and take me to a hotel.
I spot Chad talking to Liam and slowly approach them, stopping at Liam’s side. “I hear we have you to thank for being rescued. Thank you for alerting everyone.” I barely get the last words out before Chad crushes me in a hug.
“Thank God you’re okay. I was so worried; you have no idea. If I’d lost you…”
I swallow dread. How do you lose someone you never had? He pulls back to look at me, an overly concerned expression filling his face before he yanks me back to him. I try to see over his shoulder, a plea for Liam to help. But he’s looking at the ground, raking a hand through his hair. He’s uncomfortable, out of place. That makes two of us.
After an excruciatingly long moment, I untangle myself from Chad’s hug and take a step back.
“Well, you didn’t lose either one of us. Turns out your brother is quite the survivalist.” I smile a little, but in truth all I want to do is brag about him. Liam really did save me in more ways than one.
Chad raises an eyebrow. “Liam? No offense, but I have a hard time believing that. Lawyers aren’t exactly known for their prowess.”
I’m offended on Liam’s behalf, but I keep a smile intact. People see us how they want to see us, which leaves them blinded to what’s really in front of them. It’s a sad way to live; I’ve only just begun to overcome it myself. I glance at my mom and smile when she uncrosses her arms to give me a little wave. I’ve always seen her as overbearing. Now I can see quite clearly that what I thought of as controlling was just the way she loves. We all disguise it in some way.
I can’t resist setting Chad straight, just a little.
“I’m just glad Liam had the foresight to join me on the boat. Who knows where I would be if he hadn’t. How was the dolphin cruise, by the way? I hope you saw some. Lord knows we saw several while we were floating alone in the ocean.”
Liam clears his throat, barely covering a smile with his hand. As for Chad, he squares his shoulders in an effort to save face. “We saw a lot, actually. Probably not as many as you, but I took some great photos. I’d love to show you sometime…” I suppose I should appreciate his persistence considering the way I must look, even though I have no interest in seeing his pictures. Or in seeing him.
“I’m sure she would love to see them,” Liam says. “You know, in case she’s already forgotten what they look like. That’s one of the things we were upset about, that we didn’t have our iPhones to take pictures.”
I press my lips together and take it as my cue to leave, then slowly pivot toward my mother.
“I�
�ll see you around, Dillon.”
“I’ll call you soon, Dillon.”
They both say it at the same time, but there’s only one person I hope to hear from. When I hear Chad’s next words, though, something tells me I won’t.
“What is your problem?” his razor sharp words are directed at Liam.
“I’ve been lost at sea for five days, that’s my problem.”
“Yeah, with her.”
“I remember asking you to go instead, but you had more pressing plans. And for your information, being lost on an island and wondering if you’re ever going to be found isn’t great fun no matter who you’re with.”
Chad sighs. “I know, you’re right. I was worried about you…”
I breathe a little sigh of relief and keep walking. Boys will always compare the size of their proverbial fish for the rest of time, now is no exception. At least they don’t seem too severely at odds anymore. I can’t hear the rest of their conversation, but I do watch it while pretending to listen to the questions of everyone around me.
They look pretty intense, but Liam’s the only one who keeps glancing in my direction.
I don’t hear from either one of them the following week.
CHAPTER 22
Liam
It’s been a week, and I still can’t sleep. The pillow is too soft and the room is too quiet and the bed is too big. Five days. Five days and nights was all it took to wipe me of the ability to sleep alone. I’ve been home for more days than I spent on that island, but I can’t get Dillon off my mind. Or the wish for her to be here out of my head. She can’t be here. She can never be here. My brother would never forgive me for it. Things have been tense since he walked in on my conversation with Teddy two days ago and overheard me say that I kissed her. Teddy thought it was great; Chad has delivered one-word responses to everything I’ve said since. Better than the silent treatment, I suppose, but only marginally.
