“I'll join you later!” I call out after her, and then I turn to Ivy, linking my hands, suddenly self-conscious. If Ivy was nearby, she might have heard our conversation. I hope she didn't. I hope she didn't hear us talking about her, didn't hear me say that I want to kiss her.
I gaze at her sly smile, at her narrowed sea-green eyes, and a wave of heat consumes me. I really, really want to kiss her... I mean, she just saved my best friend from a potentially lethal snake bite—with a slingshot. That's not only heroic but also really sexy.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” I say softly, my lips twitching upwards into a smile. Ivy doesn't say anything, just cocks her head and gazes at me inquisitively, and my smile deepens. “I mean, you keep saving us,” I explain, then spread my hands and shake my head. “Not that I'm complaining, but it'd be nice to get through a day without nearly drowning or dying by venomous snakebite. I'd really like to have...” I draw in a deep breath and feel my heart skip a beat inside of me. “I'd like to have a perfectly normal day,” I exhale.
Ivy slides her hands into her pockets and bends her shoulders forward a little as she smiles at me. “Well...we can start having one now. I don't see any snakes around. And if you only wade into the shallow end of that lake, you could probably avoid a near-drowning,” she tells me, her mouth slanting up.
“Good advice,” I smile back. And then I lean over to pick up all of the bananas that I let fall to the ground, but Ivy bends down at the same moment, with the same idea, so we end up bonking our heads together. We topple to the ground, laughing. Ivy reaches up and rubs the top of her head.
“You know, Gillian, you seem to attract danger wherever you go,” Ivy observes, still smiling. She shrugs her shoulders, picks up a banana and begins to peel it. “But I kind of like that about you,” she tells me, taking a bite of the banana. “Keeps me on my toes,” she says around the mouthful.
I smile shyly before giving in to my rumbling stomach and peeling a banana for myself. We sit together and eat our fruit in companionable silence—until Ivy brushes her fingertips off on her cutoff shorts, leaning back onto her hands with a happy sigh. I notice the compass hanging on the chain from her neck, its metal glinting in the sunlight. Ivy follows my gaze and picks up the pendant, cradling it in her palm.
“You've got your camera,” Ivy says softly, “and I've got my compass. My prized possession. Thank God I didn't lose it to the sea.”
“Your dad gave it to you, you said?”
She ducks her head, gazing down at the shiny glass surface. “Yeah. He put it on this chain for me, so that I could always keep it close...” Squinting up at the sun, Ivy sighs. “God, he would've loved it here. You know,” she tells me, gazing out toward the lake, “I think I could stay here forever.”
I groan and shake my head. “Please don't say that...” But then I consider her words, growing still for a long moment as I study her thoughtfully. Ivy has her eyes closed, her head tilted back toward the sunshine streaming down through the palm trees and shining on us here. She looks so perfectly content. So peaceful.
So beautiful.
Finally, I clear my throat. “Don't you have any reason to go back?” I ask her softly.
She doesn't open her eyes, but her soft smile gradually straightens into a thin line. Slowly, she shakes her head. “Do you?” she asks me, voice low.
I'm taken aback by the question. My first instinct is to say, Of course. Of course I have reasons to go back home. Lots of them, in fact. There are a million-and-one reasons to return to civilization.
But the deepest truth is that, aside from Charity and Kodak, my dog (who my neighbor Amy is dog-sitting for me), I don't have close bonds with anyone...
Not anyone at all.
“Okay,” I say, leaning forward a little and fingering the hem of my pants as I curl my legs beneath me. “I'd miss my dog,” I admit quietly. “But I wouldn't miss working in an office. Or commuting. Or fighting the soccer moms for parking spaces.” I tilt my head and chuckle a little. “I certainly wouldn't miss listening to right-wing nuts on the news.”
Ivy nods sagely and opens her eyes, holding my gaze. “See? The more you think about it, the more sense it starts to make.”
“Yeah, but...” I begin.
Ivy cocks her head at me. “But what?”
I shrug. “I mean, I couldn't live in a tepee forever. What if there were a big storm, like the one that crashed our boat? What if there are wild animals here? We don't have any tools or weapons or...” I smile weakly and chuckle. “Toilet paper.”
Ivy laughs at that and nods. “TP is pretty important. As is Ibuprofen. And, God, I really miss coffee.” Ivy stands up smoothly, dusting off her bottom, then glances down at me with a small, secret smile. She offers me her hand, and I take it, my fingers curling in her palm. She pulls me upright easily, and when I rise, we're standing only inches apart. Ivy's scent, a mixture of salt and water and good ocean breezes, a mermaid scent, overwhelms me, makes me dizzy.
“I'm just saying,” Ivy whispers then, her sweet breath hot on my face as she leans closer to me, “that it could be nice...running away from the real world to become, I don't know, a wild jungle woman.”
“A wild jungle woman?” I repeat, my head angled to one side as I realize, stunned, that I'm actively trying to flirt with her...
Well...why not?
Why not take the leap?
Why not?
I can go after the girl, I think, remembering Charity's wise words—delivered right before that whole snake episode.
I can go after the girl here.
“I like the sound of that,” I tell Ivy warmly.
Her smile deepens, and then she tilts back her blonde head, glancing up, up at the trees around us, and she opens her mouth. And she yells. The sound is shocking, strange but familiar. For a moment, I can't remember where I've heard it before...
And then it hits me. It's the Xena yell.
I laugh quietly when Ivy glances down at me again, and as our eyes meet, my smile softens. We remain like that—close enough to touch, to embrace, to kiss...
She still hasn't let go of my hand, and I haven't let go of hers.
“I have to admit,” I whisper, heart hammering, “those peaches could almost tempt me to stay...”
Ivy parts her lips, as if she's going say something in response—but she doesn't. My nerves tingle with electricity... I can't read her, though. I can't tell what she's thinking, or how she feels about me.
Her eyes darken, and she licks her lips, and she's gazing down at me with what I hope is attraction, but we've never spoken about this; she hasn't indicated anything to me to suggest that—
Stop, Gillian.
I can go after the girl, I remind myself, over and over again.
And then, very tentatively, I reach across the space between us. I wet my lips, my heart a drumbeat inside of me, and I place my hands softly, gently, at the curve of Ivy's waist.
Her eyes widen a little in surprise, and I resist the urge to snatch my hands away, to make an excuse, to run—because then she smiles. It's a small, sly smile as she reaches up slowly and brushes a strand of loose hair off of my cheek.
And then, at the same time, we lean towards one another, like two magnets, drawn into one another's arms.
And we kiss.
She tastes sweet, delicious...a little like banana, and I probably do, too. Ivy is hot and soft against my mouth, and this huge wall of need that's been building inside of me reaches a fever-pitch crescendo; suddenly I'm no longer kissing her gently. I have my arms wrapped around her shoulders as I draw her down to me, as I press my body against her own. And Ivy reacts to this as I drink her deeper. She wraps her arms tightly around my waist and holds me to her with the same want.
The exact same want.
My wonderings and worries evaporate as she responds to me just as I'm responding to her. But there are still small doubts warring within me. Ivy told me once that she didn't “do relationships.” And Charity tol
d me that this—whatever this is—doesn't have to be a “romance.” It just could be an island fling.
But is that what I want? I wonder, as I kiss Ivy deeply and try to push my concerns to the back of my mind. Still, there's that small amount of uncertainty in my heart, even as I urge myself to ignore it.
I keep kissing her. I keep kissing her, because I nearly drowned from not knowing how to swim, because I was too afraid to learn. And I'm tired of being afraid. I'm tired of not taking chances because of the potential consequences. Nothing is perfect—there's danger everywhere, and the possibility of being hurt lingers at every turn.
I've been living such a small, sad life because I was afraid of getting hurt—physically, mentally, emotionally.
And I almost died because of it.
Besides, all of that fear has prevented me from really living at all.
I'm not sure where Rusty is, but I hope he went to the lake, too. Brendan and Brian and Charity are at the lake, so hopefully no one will interrupt us now. No part of me feels self-conscious as I wrap my arms even more tightly around Ivy's shoulders, as I press my chest against hers. I feel her breasts soft against mine, I feel her hips move against my own, and there's a fire burning within me, a flame that flares, rushing through every vein, pounding in my blood with every heartbeat.
What are you doing, Gillian? I think to myself, as my mouth begins to trail kisses from her lips, down to her chin, her neck. She tastes a little of peach, a little of salt, delicious...
I'm doing what I want to do, what—judging by Ivy's panting against me—she wants, too. I'm so tired of all of the rules and roles I constructed for myself. I just want to, for once, follow what feels good.
But it's not as easy as that, not even when I kiss the soft, hot skin of Ivy's neck, digging my fingers into her shoulders, even as she digs hers into my hips, curling her palms over the swell of my curves, learning my lines, my body. Because it's here, here where the want is strongest, as I kiss her deeply, licking her skin so that she shivers...
It's here where I stop.
Ivy stiffens against me, the muscles in her arm tensing as she swallows. “Gillian?” she asks quietly, her low voice a growl.
I breathe in the scent of her skin one last time before taking a step back.
My insides churn with want and need; I am so frustrated, so angry at myself that I can hardly breathe. I curl my hands into fists at my sides.
“I'm sorry,” I murmur, and then there are tears in my eyes. I don't want her to see me like that, so I simply turn on my heel, and I head back toward the campsite. I let her go, and I walk away, and I don't know what I wanted, but there's an ache inside of me as I leave Ivy standing alone. I don't turn, don't look back, only race for the shore.
It was...too much. I was too far beyond my comfort zone, claiming what I wanted—even when she wanted it, too. It took too much courage for me to do that, to dare. I ran out of everything, ran short of my supply.
When I get to the beach, to the little pool from the stream, the one with the quicksand, I collapse on the edge of the water and just sit, staring, stunned.
I left her. I just left her in the woods, and I gave her no explanation, and now it's all over and ruined because this is what I always do. I have patterns, as Charity helpfully reminded me, that make every relationship doomed for failure.
And this wouldn't have even been a relationship. We probably would have made love a few times, at least until we got off the island, and then we never would have seen each other again. As tempting as it sounds, being able to do something that uninhibited with Ivy—with Ivy, who is so attractive to me that my body bends toward hers effortlessly—it's not what I want, not really.
I want Ivy.
I want a relationship with Ivy.
And that goes against her personal philosophy. Can't happen.
God, I'm such a mess. I push my hair back from my face in exasperation, and that's when the first tears leak out of the corners of my eyes and streak down my cheeks.
Other people have sex for the hell of it, especially when they're single and unattached. But no. Not me. I have to be a stick in the mud. That's just how I operate. Maybe, just maybe, if I were back in Florida (or, at the very least, on the mainland), and I were in one of my favorite lesbian bars, and I was drunk enough, I could take a woman home and have no-strings-attached sex. Maybe. I've never done it, but at my drunkest, it might be something that I could do.
But not here and now. Not on this island.
Not, most specifically, with Ivy.
Ivy, the sea captain who makes my heart flutter. The first woman I've been attracted to...in, well, a good, long while.
This isn't about romance, Charity said.
But I guess it is to me.
I know what I want. I want the inside jokes; I want to laugh with her. I want to feel my heart flutter for so much more than her looks or her sense of humor. I want to know the deepest parts of her. I want to know what she fears, what she longs for. I want to know what she wants out of life, what she thinks of when she's just about to fall asleep. I want to know if she loves animals, or if she believes in a higher power, or if she likes Coke or Pepsi (or, you know, neither). All of these things could be learned over time, but all of these things happen when you form a relationship with someone else. That's when you begin to learn the heart of a person.
I want to know Ivy's heart. And I don't think I'm going to get that chance.
I dry my eyes, and I console myself with the realization that at least I know what I want now. Almost-dying helped me clarify the important things, made me confront the fact that life is really short. Too short. And that having a relationship with someone would make me happy.
And having unattached sex with someone isn't what my heart needs. Not even when it's easy. Not even when it's the perfect time and place for a fling. It's not what I want. I want something more, deeper.
I trudge back to the campsite, hands jammed into my pants pockets. There's no one else around, so I heap wood into the center of the makeshift hole we dug for the fire. Then I sit on a fallen palm tree, and I wait, my heart a thunderstorm inside of me.
Eventually, Ivy appears, her arms laden with bananas, her eyes dark...but not with desire. She won't look at me as she places the bananas in a neat pile on the edge of the campsite, and she won't look at me as she heads toward the fire pit and begins to build up the tepee of logs so that she can light the fire.
I nearly say something a hundred times. I want to apologize again. But I can't bring myself to say sorry; the word sticks in my throat. I am sorry, but if I start a conversation, I'll have to explain...and things are already so awkward between us. My talking would probably only make things worse.
Rusty shows up soon after Ivy. He must have been fishing along the shore, because he's brandishing three snappers proudly. Ivy smiles when she sees him, takes the fish from his hands and immediately starts to gut and descale them with expert precision. She still hasn't cast a glance in my direction, and Rusty regards me with an odd look, as if he's confused by the silence between us.
When Ivy begins to spear the fish on sticks, I hear Brendan, Brian, and Charity heading back from the lake, their voices loud, animated.
And I suddenly feel very tired.
Now. Now would be the perfect time to tell Ivy that I'm sorry, that I want something that can't happen, that I shouldn't have kissed her to begin with. That I'm sorry for...well, everything. But, again, the words catch in my throat, and pain twists my heart into knots. I ruined our friendship. We could have had sex. It would have been wonderful. And, at the end of this adventure, we could have gone home with great memories as souvenirs.
Now, we'll have nothing.
I've never felt sorrier for myself in my life. I mumble an excuse to Rusty, and then I crawl into the stick tepee that Ivy and I share. I hear Ivy announce that she'll watch the fire tonight, building it big so that it can send up smoke that someone might see and investigate.
I q
uietly curse myself for making such a stupid mistake, and I fall asleep with tears stinging my eyes.
Chapter Five
A couple of days pass, and island life begins to fall into a rhythm.
Ivy and I speak to each other, are cordial with one another, but our conversations are stilted, nothing like they were before. She no longer flirts with me (because it was flirting, I realize now), and I don't flirt with her.
This is the most difficult thing I've ever done; it's not like I've been able to make my attraction for Ivy vanish...
If anything, it's grown even stronger.
And that's what scares me most, these feelings for Ivy. Originally, they seemed like an innocent crush. An intense crush, granted, but, still—a crush. Now, though, especially after that kiss, I find myself dreaming about Ivy. Every night. She slept beside me in the tepee after the first, awkward night, and sometimes I wake to see her face next to mine, and I can hardly breathe, I ache for her so much. I want to reach across the space between us, trace her cheek with my fingertip.
I want to taste her again, taste her skin. I want to touch and kiss her, all of her, and then, afterward, glowing from that connection, I want to talk with her long into the night, learning everything she chooses to share with me about herself.
I want her to want what I want. I want her to look at me, and I want her eyes to darken with desire. I want her to laugh at my jokes, and I want her to joke with me again, tease me again...
But she's quiet and reserved when she's around me. Not so with Charity or Rusty. She was joking with Rusty about something yesterday, and I'm pretty sure they were talking about another woman, a woman waiting for her back at home...
She didn't know I was there, that I heard, but my heart broke a little, coming to terms with what I've done, what I've lost.
And that's the thing.
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