by Elle East
“Go on,” he said, and I walked into his room.
In addition to the candles, there were bouquets of pine branches spread around. They made the room smell amazing, like a forest. He shut the door behind us, and I gazed around in wonder at the beautiful scene.
“Why did you do this?” I asked in awe.
He didn’t answer right away, and I turned around to find him holding a chocolate chip muffin in his hand with one of the candles in the other.
“Happy Birthday, Maddy.” He smiled, and I felt my heart melt at the sight. “Come blow out your birthday cake. Sorry, I know it’s not much, but the closest thing they had to cake at dinner today was muffins, and I couldn’t find a proper candle so—”
“It’s perfect.” I stopped him. And it really was.
I walked over and he held the tall candle over the muffin so we could pretend it was sticking out of it.
I saw the electric wick and laughed. “How am I supposed to blo—”
“Trust me. Just blow.”
And I suddenly realized that I did. We’d gotten so close in these last few weeks that I knew I could trust him. So I leaned down and blew gently. At the same time, Dean flicked the switch on the bottom of the candle, and the light went out. I laughed and looked up into his warm amber eyes. They were sparkling in the candlelight.
“Did you make a wish?” he asked softly.
“Yes.”
I wished for you.
I also wished I wasn’t wearing pajamas. This occasion deserved a dress or a skirt, something much nicer than a huge band t-shirt. Meanwhile, he looked so good in his uniform it made my heart ache.
“How did you do all this?” I asked.
“It was the best I could do last minute. I wandered around the school and the pine branches were the only living things out there. The candles were pure luck. I happened to see them when I walked passed a supply closet and someone had left the door open.”
I laughed and suddenly realized I recognized the candles from last Halloween when the custodians had decorated the school with thousands of them.
“You stole the candles!” I said in mock outrage.
“I’m going to return them!” he protested with a wicked smile, then added, “Sorry I couldn’t get you a real present.”
“Are you serious? This is an amazing gift. Honestly. Thank you so much, Dean. You made this birthday not so horrible.”
Something indefinable passed between the two of us as we stared at each other in the glow of the fake candles. He’d done something so incredible for me, and I was overwhelmed by it.
The soft music had continued to play in the background. When a new song came on, he held out his hand to me. I took it without hesitation, and he led me into the middle of the room.
Without a word, he took my crutches from me and placed them off to the side. He then swept me into his strong arms. I reached up to grab his broad shoulders, and we started to slow dance to the music.
Pressed against his hard body, I was hyperaware I was dressed only in panties that were barely covered by my thin t-shirt.
I was not a natural dancer, but it didn’t matter. He just held me and swayed with the gentle music. It was some soft, instrumental jazz, and it wasn’t something I normally listened to, but at that moment it was my favorite music ever.
His hands were on my back, supporting me because I couldn’t put any weight on my leg. He made me feel safe for the first time in a long while, and I leaned my head against his chest with a contented sigh. I closed my eyes so I could just savor the moment. I wanted it to last as long as possible.
We didn’t speak but just continued to sway together in the glowing light of the candles, surrounded by the scent of pine trees, as the bells far above our heads rung out curfew. It was a perfect birthday.
Chapter 11
The winter progressed into early February, and the biting cold and snow didn’t let up, if anything, it got worse. This was the time the school administration decided was perfect for an outing—on a boat.
One freezing cold February morning, the seniors made their way down the hill from the school to the harbor. We formed a long, dark line that from far away looked like ants marching down a path. We were all bundled up in our matching coats and scarves, which seemed woefully inadequate to protect us from the weather.
Dean and I shuffled down the path with the rest of the students. We kept our faces buried in our scarves to keep our cheeks from freezing, which made talking difficult, so we walked in comfortable silence. It was a beautiful, clear day, despite the cold. The snow covering the ground was sparkling in the sun, and we got lucky in that the ocean was calm and smooth as glass for the first time in two weeks.
When we reached the harbor, I could barely feel my legs. Wearing a cast made it impossible to put on the thick leggings they gave us to wear in the winter, and I wasn’t about to cut one up so I could slip it over my cast. They were expensive and there was no way I could afford to buy more. I had to wear nothing under my skirt but underwear and a thin thigh-high stocking on the leg not in a cast—and I was freezing. Luckily, the usually extremely strict teachers had given me a break about not being able to meet the dress code.
I hurried onto the boat with Dean close behind. The school had hired a boat from the mainland for the trip. The ferry was too small to fit everyone, and I assumed people would think it wasn’t much of an outing if we were just going on the regular ferry.
The boat had two stories. The main floor had a large enclosed area with windows all the way around it. The second floor was a viewing deck completely open to the elements. On the first floor, outside the enclosed space, was a walkway that ran around the entire perimeter of the boat.
Everyone hurried straight inside, not bothering to walk around the fancy deck or go upstairs for a better view. I didn’t think it was the best time of year to do this, but I guessed the administration was trying to give us something to do to give us a break from the relentless schoolwork. And there wasn’t much else to do during these cold months when there was a blanket of snow up to our shins covering the entire island.
Dean and I found a secluded corner and sat down together on a bench. I didn’t want to be here. Being trapped on a boat for the next couple of hours with a bunch of people who didn’t like me, seemed like an unappealing way to spend my day. Despite what the teachers were trying to do by giving us a break, I would have much preferred to be given the day off to stay in my room and study—but the trip was mandatory.
But at least I had good company.
Dean looked at my bare legs, which were red from the cold, and winced. He reached over and tried to warm them with his hands. Despite how frozen my legs were, his touch made them feel like they were on fire—or maybe that was just the feeling of them defrosting.
“You’re freezing. You need to find something warmer to cover these up. Can’t you use leggings or something?” he asked as he massaged the feeling back into my legs.
I was distracted by the feeling of his hands on my body and I asked, “Hm?” Before realizing what he just said.
“I’d have to cut them up to get them around the cast, and I can’t afford to ruin a pair of my tights. Do you know how expensive those are? These stupid Crestmoore clothes are way overpriced—and I don’t think your dad’s department would be too happy about paying for extra ones. I’m on thin ice with them as it is. One more screwup and I’m gone.”
“Yeah, they were pretty mad about last year,” Dean said without looking up.
The two of us hadn’t talked much about what had happened. It sat like an elephant in the room whenever we were together. I’d told Dean all the pertinent information I knew that I felt could help him with his mission, but when I tried to talk about what had happened between me and the Kings, he’d always found an excuse to cut me off and leave. I got the sense he didn’t want to know, and I was ok with that because I didn’t really want to tell him. But the more time we spent with each other, the more I felt like all
that was going unsaid between us was like a dark cloud which loomed over us and kept us both in shadow, unable to fully be open with one another.
I wanted us to get it out in the open and have a fresh start. I felt like maybe we had the chance at something great, but we’d never know until we got through this difficult topic. But I also didn’t want to push him. I was leaving it up to him to bring it up when he was ready—but I just hoped it would be sooner rather than later when we’d missed our chance completely.
About twenty minutes later, everyone was on board and we started off. The boat swung out of the small harbor and into open water. The beautiful weather was slowly shifting, and the clear sky was darkening to a depressing gray. The wind was starting to pick up, and it rippled across the ocean water, creating small waves on the surface that was smooth as glass only an hour before.
All the students were inside the warm cabin, sitting at tables with their friends and joking around loudly. The teachers had given up on pretending this trip was in any way educational and were instead sitting together and chatting in one corner, leaving the students to do pretty much whatever they wanted.
Of course the Royalty were sitting together at one table. They were acting like they were gods. Their sycophants were gathered around them, trying their best to interact with them in any way they could. Archer and Grayson were both chatting with girls over their shoulders. Brett was talking with Victoria. She was clearly flirting with him, and he looked very receptive. She reached up and put her delicate hand on his large arm. The sight made me feel sick, so I looked away.
I had more important things to worry about than what the Royalty were doing. I was with Dean, and he was the most important person to me on the entire boat. I turned back to him to continue the conversation we were having.
“We have to watch what the Royalty are doing,” he said.
My mouth twisted in disappointment. That was the one thing I didn’t want to do.
“We’ve been here for almost a month and haven’t gotten anything on them. It’s so frustrating. I thought this would be way easier than it is.”
“Glad I could make it look easy by failing,” I mumbled sarcastically.
Yeah, I’d screwed up last year, but I thought I’d done an ok job… until I fell for the Kings’ lies and messed everything up. What we’d been sent to Crestmoore to do was really hard. I didn’t like that no one seemed to appreciate that. Dean had previously talked about how difficult he thought the mission was going to be, but was he just lying before to make me feel better about failing? Did he really think I was so useless that he could do way better than me?
“You need to take this seriously,” he suddenly said sternly. “I haven’t seen you make any effort to work towards our goal. You haven’t tried to come up with a plan or work with me to develop a strategy. To me, all it looks like you’re doing is working on getting good grades—which is not what we sent you here to do. Do you even care about getting your mom out of jail anymore?”
What the hell?
“Of course I do,” I said indignantly. “I am taking this seriously.”
I was taken aback. We’d been having a nice time together until just then. And I thought we’d been working well together so far. Yeah, we hadn’t made much progress, but we’d done what we could. I thought he had been enjoying hanging out together. I hadn’t realized that the whole time he’d actually been frustrated with how I was acting but just not saying anything about it to me.
“Are you really?” he asked skeptically.
I stood up abruptly. His accusations came out of the blue and took me by surprise. I was hurt and angry and needed to be anywhere but next to him at that moment.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said.
I started to walk away, and I cursed my cast. I was no longer using my crutches, but I still had the cast on, and it was hard to storm away with any dignity when you had a big piece of plaster around your leg causing you to hobble.
“I’ll come with you. It’s not safe for either of us to be alone right now,” he said and stood up to follow me.
Pain caused my heart to ache when I realized the reason he was spending so much time with me was because he was just doing his job. Maybe he liked me, maybe he didn’t, but he saw us as a team and you didn’t leave your partner when you were on a mission. I thought we’d been growing close these last few weeks because we valued each other as friends, but now I realized his reasons were more professional.
“I’ll be fine. I just need a moment and a breath of fresh air. Please don’t follow me.”
I walked away with as much grace as I could manage. I didn’t feel his presence or hear his footsteps, so I knew he didn’t follow me—and I was both grateful and sad at the same time.
When I passed by the Royalty table, Grayson called out, “Trouble in paradise?”
They all snickered. My cheeks reddened in anger, but I pointedly ignored them and kept walking.
The whole cabin was packed with students, and as I walked around, I couldn’t find anywhere to be alone. The place started to feel closed in and stuffy. I felt claustrophobic and needed to get away from everyone. I slipped out a side door onto the walkway.
The bitter cold greeted me like a slap. The wind had picked up even more, and the dark gray water surrounding the boat was choppy. We were pretty far out to sea. I could see Crestmoore Island in the distance, but the mainland was out of sight.
I took in deep breaths of air to calm myself down. The wind stung my skin, but it felt good on my overheated face. I wouldn’t stay out for long, but I needed a moment away from Dean. He’d really hurt my feelings and made me feel like I completely misinterpreted the time we’d spent together. Kind of like it was all a lie I’d unwittingly told myself.
I walked over to the railing and leaned on it. I looked out at the endless horizon where the dark gray ocean met the flat gray sky. It was so big. It made me feel small and insignificant. My problems may be huge to me, but the ocean and the sky didn’t care. Nature was indifferent. They would continue to go on for billions of years, long after my problems were over and I was dead.
Maybe Dean was right. Maybe I was avoiding our mission—just a bit—because of how much pain it had caused me last year. I still wanted desperately to get my mother out of jail, and I desperately wanted my revenge, but I didn’t see any way to do it yet.
I thought once I got back to Crestmoore an opportunity would present itself and a plan would just spring into my mind, but that hadn’t happened yet. I thought both Dean and I realized we were buying time until that opportunity came, but maybe I was just stalling and didn’t realize it.
I moved away from the railing and started walking around the deck. I figured I’d take a quick walk and then head back inside. The brisk air helped me clear my mind and think objectively, and I didn’t want to go back inside to Dean until I’d sorted through my feelings.
I hobbled along, lost in my own thoughts, when suddenly I felt a hard shove. My feet slipped out from under me. I didn’t have time to think or grab a railing before I was falling over the side of the boat.
Chapter 12
The water slammed into me like a truck and knocked the wind out of me. A second later, my body registered the pain, and the cold felt like a thousand little knives stabbing me all over. The world around me was all dark gray and blurry. I didn’t know which way was up and which was down. I was completely disoriented and in shock.
I couldn’t think, but luckily my instinct for self preservation took over and my legs started to kick. I started moving my arms, but it felt like I was trying to swim through pudding. My arms and legs were so numb they could barely move.
Somehow I managed to make it to the surface, and I gasped in deep breaths of air. My lungs barely filled because the pressure from the cold was keeping my chest tight. I didn’t know how long I’d been under the water because I was so disoriented that time had lost its meaning.
I looked back up at the boat. It was still close
, and I could see the place I was walking right before I was pushed, so I realized that I had only just fallen in. The walkway was completely empty. Whoever had done it hadn’t even bothered to watch me fall into the water before they’d taken off.
I opened my mouth to call out for help, but nothing came out. Salt water slipped in instead, and I spat it out and started coughing.
I opened my mouth to try again, but then my head sunk underneath the surface of the water. My cast sat like a lead weight on my leg, trying to drag me down to the depths of the ocean. I kicked and thrashed my arms, but they were so numb from the cold they barely obeyed me.
I fought with all my might and finally made it back to the surface. I tried to take deep breaths with my constricted lungs but just ended up panting for tiny gasps of air instead.
As I struggled, the reality of the situation finally dawned on me. No one saw me fall over the side, except the person who pushed me, and there was no way they were going to help me or tell anyone about it. The boat was steadily moving away and would soon be too far to help me. I could barely move my limbs to keep myself from sinking, let alone try to swim to the boat myself. And I was in freezing-cold water. If I didn’t get out in a couple of short minutes then I would get hypothermia and die—if I didn’t end up drowning first from my cast dragging me down.
My head slipped under the water again. This time I was down for longer, and it was harder to fight my way back up to the surface. I was just going to keep going under for longer and longer until I finally failed to come back up at all. I was terrified.
With all the strength I had left, I called out, “Help!” But it came out as a tiny squeak that no one could possibly hear over the wind.
I was running out of options. I tried to move my frozen limbs and start swimming towards the boat, but I wasn’t making any progress because it continued to slowly move away from me.
“Help!” I called out again, but water rushed into my mouth and I sank beneath the surface.
