Stranded in Paradise

by Unknown

  I just have to fake it for a few more days. After that, I won’t be alive to have to worry about it… And death doesn’t seem as scary as it did a month ago. Maybe it’s because I’m looking it right in the face. Or maybe it’s because I think I will get to see my mom again. That wouldn’t be so bad. Spending eternity with her in bliss. But I would miss the rest of my family. Maybe I could still check in on them from time to time.

  What am I saying?

  I’m not going to die.

  I’m going to fight.

  That stalker is going down.

  I smile at Gabe, and this time it’s not forced. I am determined. Gabe might not be able to look, but I can.

  1pm

  Take over the world.

  We are sitting by the pool. Victoria has gone back to her room to change her bathing suit and take a shower. I “accidentally” spilled my Dr. Pepper on her so that Gabe and I could show Toby the note. Dad and Jack are currently taking naps in their pool chairs… If only they didn’t wake up so early, they wouldn’t need to nap.

  Toby reads the note and looks up at us confused.

  “Roses?” he asks.

  Gabe tells him about the roses left on my nightstand a few nights ago. I still get chills when I think about what the note said — when the last petal falls, you will die.

  “I didn’t think it was going to get to that,” Toby says. “I thought this person wanted you alive. I thought it was all a sick game and they were just playing you.”

  “Maybe they are,” Gabe says.

  “No,” I cut them off. “Everything the stalker has threatened me with has been true so far. I have to assume that this is true too.”

  “But you can’t just give up,” Toby says.

  I put my hands on my hips and smile at him. “Who says I am giving up. That idiot is going to get the fight of their life. I’m not going down easy.”

  “I think they know that. They aren’t expecting it to be an easy fight, and it will be when you least expect it,” Gabe says. “This person is smart. A lot smarter than I am. I still can’t figure out how to get past their computer coding. Too bad I can’t look anymore.”

  I shake my head. “No, you need to continue looking. I don’t care what they throw my way. I am pissed, and I am ready to fight. I need everybody to be all in on this. I can’t do it alone. In return, I’ll make sure that if I go down, you two stay safe.” Because that is all that really matters to me in the end — that everybody I care about is safe.

  “If you go down, I’m going too,” Toby says. “Nobody messes with my family and gets away with it.”

  “Same for me. Three against one, I like our odds,” Gabe says.

  It’s not what I want to hear, but I can’t help it — I smile. When it’s us three against the world, I feel like we can do anything.

  When I look over at where Dad is lying, he is awake. For a moment I’m worried that he heard what we were talking about, but he’s smiling. I’m pretty sure if he knew what was going on, smiling would be the last thing he would do.

  No. He’d definitely call the FBI. And he’d hire a body guard for me. He doesn’t know what’s going on and he’s already threatened me with that.

  “You look like you just came up with a genius idea to take over the world,” he says. “And whatever it is, I’m in.”

  The thought of my dad working with us scares me. “Sorry, Dad. We’ve already worked out all the details. A fourth man would slow us down… Maybe next time?”

  “Deal,” he says.

  3pm

  He just fit.

  After swimming, Libby decides she wants to do my toenails. She says you can’t have ugly toes in Hawaii, which sounds like something Veronica would say. I don’t argue. Toby and Gabe are going to try to hack into my stalker’s computer, which means I have to distract Victoria for a few hours.

  “What color do you want?” Libby asks.

  I pick up a bright green and hand it to her. She makes a face.

  “Honey, this won’t match anything. You need to do something neutral.”

  “Gabe doesn’t care if I match. I don’t care if I match. And if I’m being honest, I kind of like not matching,” I tell her. “But if it bothers you that much, I could put it on myself.”

  Wow. Did I just stand up for myself against Gabriel’s mom? That is so not like me… But if Gabe is right, she’s going to be my mother-in-law someday. I should stand up to her now before it gets worse.

  She opens the polish. “Fine, Kihanna. If you want un-matching toe nails then you will have un-matching toe nails.”

  I smile in victory, and she frowns.

  “Veronica wasn’t kidding when she said you were a stubborn child.”

  “Child?”

  “Teenager,” she clarifies.

  “Is being stubborn a bad thing?” I ask.

  “Sometimes it is,” she answers. “But sometimes, it’s a very good thing. And you should always remember to stand up for yourself. If you don’t, people will think they can walk all over you forever.”

  “Then I’m glad I’m stubborn.”

  “Me too,” she says. “I also love how different you are. While most girls in Mountain View are wearing makeup, dying their hair, and constantly obsessing over their clothes, you aren’t. You are unique. And that is what makes you so great. Don’t ever lose your spark.”

  It’s hard not to lose your spark when somebody is trying so desperately hard to stomp it out, but I refuse to lose myself. Since moving here I feel like I’ve already lost too much of me.

  Which reminds me… Video. After this, I am going to go record the sunset. That is the perfect setting for my first YouTube upload in almost five months. I’m sure Kasbian will be excited.

  “I think that’s why everybody at school likes you so much,” Victoria tells me. “You’re so different. That first day when you showed up in a cheap pair of skinny jeans, a hot pink tank top, and matching shoes I knew that you were going to be different. There was something about you that literally glowed.”

  I blush at the compliment. “I thought that you, Courtney, and Ariana were crazy when you wanted to be my friends. I felt like I had nothing to offer you guys, and you had everything to offer me.”

  “It seems so silly now, doesn’t it?” she says. “We wanted to be your friends because we thought you could bring down the mean girl.”

  The mean girl. Meaning Jacqueline Hoff.

  “It doesn’t seem fair,” I tell her. “Jacqueline may have been mean to everybody, but she didn’t deserve that. No seventeen year old girl does.”

  “When I was in high school, the mean girl died too,” Libby tells us. “It was the night of prom. You hear so many tragic stories about people dying on prom night, but she actually never made it to prom. They called her name to come get her crown and she never came. I didn’t find out until the next day that she committed suicide. Her ten-year-old brother found her in the bathroom surrounded by a sea of blood.”

  I cringe at the image, but then I suddenly feel mad… Mad that this girl killed herself. She had a perfectly good life and she threw it away, and my mom, who didn’t want to die had her life stolen way too early. I will never understand life and death, but suicide is so cowardly.

  “That’s awful,” Victoria finally says. “Do you know why she did it?”

  “Her boyfriend broke up with her earlier that day. Some people say she was so heartbroken she couldn’t go on, but she didn’t seem like the kind of girl who would be so faint-hearted,” she answers. “I guess we will never know the real reason.”

  “It’s such a tragedy when a young person dies,” Victoria says.

  “Any loss of life is a tragedy,” Libby says. “But it’s the cycle. You live, you die. That’s just how it is.”

  “But it seems so morbid… What’s the point of life?” Victoria blows on her freshly-painted fingernails.

  “That is a good question, and the answer is different for everybody. I am quite content with my life. I have
found the love of my life, and I have a wonderful son. Someday I will have grandchildren to spoil,” she looks at me as she says it. “I have an amazing life. Love has been my key to happiness.”

  “I wonder if I will ever find somebody to love,” Victoria says.

  I have had a lot of love in my life so far. My mom loved me unconditionally — so much that she sent me away so I didn’t have to watch her die. And my dad loved me instantly, no strings attached. Veronica and Toby’s love for me has grown over time. I feel truly blessed.

  “You will find somebody to love,” Libby tells her. “Maybe it will even be Toby.”

  Victoria laughs. “I am too easy for Toby. Whenever he falls in love, it will be with a girl he has to chase… Somebody who won’t fall in to bed with him when he winks at them. His charm won’t work, so he will have to take it slow with her. And I hope I’m around to watch.”

  For some reason, I think she is right. Toby likes a girl that he has to work for. But I also think she’s selling herself short too — like she doesn’t think she’s good enough for him. It’s weird, because I’ve always thought of Victoria as this over-confident girl. I can see that it’s just a front.

  “Someday a guy is going to fall deeply and madly in love with you,” Libby says. “He’s going to make you laugh when you’re sad. When you see him, he is going to make your heart race… even after twenty years of being together. And he is going to make you so frustrated sometimes, but at the end of it all you will make up, because you love each other so much the thought of not being with him physically hurts.”

  “That sounds so magical.” Victoria lets out a girly sigh, and I’m wondering what she’s thinking.

  Girls have unrealistic ideas of love. My mom taught me that. Cinderella is a nice story, but the truth is that you’ve got to rescue yourself. You have to make your own way in the world. Only then can you truly be happy with a guy. And I get it now, I do. Before I can truly be happy with somebody, I have to fix things in my own life. The sooner I do that, the better.

  9pm

  Real people suck.

  I filmed the sunset. It was magical. And then I told my viewers a little bit of what’s been going on in my life, leaving out the stalker of course. I told them about moving to California to live with my dad, I told them about my new family and friends, and I told them about Gabriel. I quickly edited the video and uploaded it. When I got on YouTube I had hundreds of messages from subscribers asking me how I’ve been. I reply to a few of them, but I figure the video says it all.

  About nine that night, Gabe comes into my room. He looks frustrated, which disappoints me.

  “No leads?” I ask.

  “We had leads,” he answers. “Just nothing helpful. I don’t know how the stalker is doing it, but they are a freaking genius. The cameras were shut off from your computer, which isn’t possible. It is sitting on your nightstand in plain view of the camera the whole time. When I got that far a message popped up on the screen.”

  Gabe hands me his phone, which has a picture of his computer screen.

  Gabriel Johnson — You just couldn’t stay out of it. I told you to turn back, but now it’s too late. I guess you want to go down with Kihanna. Fair warning — your death is going to be painful. I wouldn’t blame you if you ended it all now. It would save me the trouble of cleaning up the mess.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “No. They can’t come after you too.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Gabe tells me. “I’m already in it, but it doesn’t matter. I was in it long before this.”

  I sit down on the edge of my bed, and put my head in my hands. I can’t help but wonder what I did to deserve this. I have always been a good girl. I listened to my mom, I always did my homework, I never cheated on tests, I even did my summer reading. Even once I came to California I was good. The worst thing I’ve done was have sex with my ex-boyfriend’s best friend the same night we broke up, but we were broken up. I never cheated on him. And I even forgave him for cheating on me. He didn’t deserve my forgiveness either.

  My mind always goes back to the night Nicholas, our butler, died. I shot the intruder and I killed him, but if the stalker hadn’t set it up I wouldn’t have had to do it. I did it to protect myself and Toby and I can’t regret that. I know that I would do it again if I had to.

  So why is this happening to me?

  Gabe takes a seat beside me, and puts his arm around my waist. Part of me wants to push his hand away. I am selfish because I did this to him. The second I told him about my stalker was when he became doomed. I should have pushed him away when I had the chance.

  “I feel like we keep going around in circles,” he says. “But I feel like the answer is right under our noses.”

  “I just don’t understand how my stalker is doing everything. How are they hiding in plain sight right on the cruise without us seeing?” I ask.

  Gabe looks at me, and his eyes widen. “Victoria.”

  I shake my head. “No way. She wouldn’t do this.”

  “She doesn’t seem like the type, but it makes sense. She was there the night of the fire,” he says.

  I think about what he’s saying, and he’s right. But I just don’t believe it. I already suspected my friends, and once I thought about it I knew it wasn’t true. “I still don’t think it’s her. I think that there has got to be some other kind of explanation.”

  “Who else could do it right under our faces? The only other possibilities are you, me, and Toby. I’m pretty sure you’re not stalking yourself. Toby would never do that, and neither would I. Besides, we have no motive.”

  “Well, what is Victoria’s motive?” I ask. I need him to see that it’s not her.

  “I don’t know,” he answers. “I can’t begin to understand the mind of a female. Maybe she’s jealous because you’re prettier than her.”

  This makes me laugh. “Are you kidding? Victoria is gorgeous and has the body of a Victoria’s Secret model. If anybody should be jealous, it’s me.”

  “Whatever, Kihanna.” Gabe rolls his eyes. “You’re way hotter than her. But looks aside, you have this addicting personality. Everybody around you wants to be your friend. You’re down to earth, and you’re nice to everybody — even that weird kid, Kasbian.”

  “Kasbian isn’t weird,” I tell him. “He’s a scholarship kid, and he’s completely normal.”

  “He’s weird.”

  “You just think he’s weird because you think he has a crush on me.”

  “He does have a crush on you,” he says. “But anyway, my point is there is a lot of reasons for Victoria to be jealous of you.”

  “Right — my stunning personality and my extreme good looks.” I hope he can hear the sarcasm in my voice. “Gabe, I don’t have an addicting personality. I’m a loner. I prefer solitude. Heck, I prefer to talk to a camera on YouTube. Real people suck.”

  “Maybe that is who you were before, but not now. You don’t even have to try to get people to like you,” he says.

  I really haven’t tried to make friends here. He’s right about that. Toby and I sort of just clicked one day. Courtney, Ariana, and Victoria came up to me and asked me to be their friend. Ty was the one who pushed our friendship. Gabe just sort of… happened.

  “I still don’t think Victoria is jealous,” I say. “She and I have the same friends. We are both on the same trip. She has no competition with me. I don’t want Toby, she can have him.”

  “No, Kihanna. She doesn’t have him. You have him.”

  I crinkle my nose. “I do not.”

  “I don’t mean in the boyfriend-girlfriend kind of way. I mean in a brother-sister kind of way. Right now, Toby is putting you before Victoria. That’s why he spent hours with me in front of a computer,” he says.

  “But she didn’t know you were doing it for me.”

  “Not unless she’s your stalker. If she is, then she did know.”

  I try to consider what he’s saying, but I just can’t. My mind rejects the thought.
“It couldn’t have been her. The day when you got the text from my phone — Victoria was with me. We were on the waterslide all day. There is no way she could have done it.”

  “She didn’t go to the bathroom all day?”

  “Gabe, we’re girls. We go to the bathroom together,” I say. “Besides, I know it wasn’t her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s just a feeling I have.”

  “Do you have a feeling about who it is?” he asks.

  “Not yet. But I know I will figure it out.”

  “Fine, but I’m not completely dropping this. I’m going to watch her closely.”

  “Okay,” I say. “After you find out she’s not my stalker, I expect an apology.”

  “Deal.”

  Tuesday, December 21

  5am

  All the wrong questions.

  Today is the first day of winter, and the high in Maui is 85… I now understand why they call this place Paradise.

  When I wake up, I don’t feel an impending sense of doom. I just feel excited.

  Super early this morning, we docked in Hawaii. We just slept on the ship, but now we are all up and getting off. The first thing we are doing is checking into our hotel room. I am half asleep when we are getting off the ship. There are two limos waiting for us. Libby, Jack, Veronica and Dad take one. Toby, Victoria, Gabe and I take the other. As we start driving to our cabin, I am immediately awakened by the pure beauty of the landscape.

  The sun hasn’t risen yet, so it’s still dark. I can see the moon reflecting off the ocean. I’ve never seen bluer water. Off in the distance there are rolling mountains.

  “We are going to be staying on the other side of that mountain,” Gabe says, pointing ahead. “Hana, Maui is very secluded.”

  “There is also this amazing spot where we always go cliff diving,” Toby says, bragging.

  “He was scared to jump,” Gabe tells us. “Finally last year I got sick of him chickening out, so I pushed him. That day we jumped like five times. I have been doing it for years.”