by Wicks, Becky
Bizzy.
I almost throw up. I make it to the door in less than a second, push through it into the furnace. She's nowhere. She's gone. I spin around. I can't see the blue dress. I can't see anything 'cause there are tears in my eyes. I swipe them away, start moving down the street. The other morning she was here at the same time. She went to the coffee guy.
I start running. I'm running so hard the sweat is pouring from my temples under my hair and soaking my shirt in less than a minute. 'Bizzy!' I still can't see her.
Wait. Yes I can.
I stop on the other side of the street outside Burger King, my heart drumming against my ribs. The traffic is already a moving wall between us. I watch her give her order as a million thoughts collide and make me want to vomit again. I suck in deep, hot breaths of pollution and smog and when the traffic clears I bolt. 'Bizzy!'
I'm on the sidewalk now, heading for the vendor. She spins around, a whirlwind of blue dress and brown hair. Her eyes widen. I'd know them anywhere. I stop a meter away, say her name again under my breath, hold her gaze like we're both at opposite ends of a rope and at any moment she might let go and disappear. 'It's me, it's Ben.'
She throws a hand over her mouth. I step towards her and the iced coffee she's holding drops from her other hand and spills on the street, the plastic cup splintering up the side. 'I thought I was going crazy,' I start, but I choke on the words.
She can't speak either. I watch tears fill her eyes as I step over the ice cubes, close the gap between us and pull her into my arms. I can sense the coffee guy watching us in bemusement, and the others too, all setting up their stalls, but my eyes are closed and all I can feel is Bizzy; alive, hot, breathing and shaking up against me now as her arms find my waist and she holds on.
'I thought you were dead,' she says into my shirt after a moment. 'I couldn't find you, I looked everywhere...'
I can feel her scrunching up my damp shirt, feel her sharp breaths as she sobs into my chest.
'They had you on the list.' My own voice comes out as a croak. I pull away, take her face in my hands. She blinks and I can't help it, I kiss her forehead, then her nose. She's beautiful; the same, only older and crying and splattered in iced latte. 'They found you, they found Isabella from the UK, on the list...'
'My name's not Isabella!'
'What?'
She's clutching at my shirt at the front, like I might drift off somewhere. 'It's Isla,' she says. 'Izzy's short for Isla.'
'You never told me that!'
'I never got the chance!'
I'm laughing suddenly and so is she. I can tell people must think we've lost our minds. I take her hands now, look down at them, see the scars on her pale, bare arms. My breath catches in my throat. What the hell did she go through? Was it anything like what I went through, looking for her, looking for Toby and Charlie? I swallow, forcing the fog to clear in my brain. In a flash I think of Sonthi.
Shit. The flight.
'I have a flight to Phuket,' I say, moving back towards the road, leading her back the way I ran. I'm not letting go of her hand. She follows quickly, matching my steps, gripping my fingers and I register our palms together, clammy and tight, just like they were that night.
'I can't believe this is happening,' she says, breathless beside me. 'Ben, you're leaving, now?'
We stop just outside the hotel. I'm still holding onto her in every sense of the word. This is insane. She swipes at her red cheeks with one hand as my soul splinters. The words come out of my mouth without me even thinking. 'Come with me.'
ISLA
'Come with you?'
'To Phuket,' he says, dropping my fingers and raking his hands through his hair. It's long, to his ears, not as crazy as I remember it was with the sea salt in it, but the same color, falling the same way into his eyes. I shake my head. I still can't actually comprehend what's happening, that Ben's alive and standing here. He pushes open the door, motions for me to step back in and the blast of air-conditioning feels good on my sweaty skin.
'Where you been, man? We're late,' a Thai guy says, walking across the lobby towards us, looking annoyed. He's wearing Ray Bans. He takes one look at our faces and his expression changes instantly. 'What happened?'
'This is Bizzy,' Ben says.
'Bizzy?'
Ben nods and I watch the penny drop on the Thai guy's face. 'The Bizzy?' He lifts the sunglasses from his face, looks me up and down in disbelief. I notice in a second a giant white scar running from his left ankle up to his knee.
'This is Sonthi.' Ben turns to me again, puts his hands on my shoulders. They're big and they cover me and I don't want him to go. I'm still trembling with shock and I'm covered in coffee. 'We can get you a ticket at the airport, just go get your stuff,' he says.
For a second I'm lost in his mad sea-blue eyes; exactly the same, only not laughing, not teasing. He doesn't want to go without me. I consider it... racing upstairs, throwing my stuff in my suitcase and leaving right now, with Ben. I was going to check out in a couple of hours anyway. I changed my ticket to Denpasar for tonight. Technically I could miss it, go anywhere. But I wouldn't be able to pack things properly if I did that and it would haunt me... and more disturbingly, the beach. The thought of it twists my insides.
'I can't,' I tell him, wrapping my arms around myself. I clock Chinda watching us.
'Man, we have to go, like now,' Sonthi says. He's dragging a sack of something bulky across the floor, kicking a huge box at the same time with his foot. When I look back at Ben he's still searching my face.
'Izzy, have you been back there?'
'Where?'
'To Khao Lak?'
'No. I can't...'
'I want you to. I live there, I run the dive shop now. I have a foundation, we built a school. Come see it. Come see it all...'
'Ben, I can't.'
Disappointment is etched on his features. He lets go of my shoulders. 'Ben! We have to go!' Sonthi looks hot and frustrated now. He's kicked the box and the sack onto the street and he's leaning back through the door. 'Is she coming?'
Ben walks quickly to the reception desks, asks Chinda for a pen and paper. I notice the confusion on her face as she hands them over. He walks back to me, scribbling something down. He's so tall, and big...
'This is my number and my email, and you know the beach, Isla. We built the dive shop in the same place.'
My head's as crowded as a tube carriage. I take the piece of paper he's ripped off the pad. He said my real name. It sounds strange coming from his mouth; he never said it before. He didn't know it. The tears are clouding my eyes again. I want to go with him, but I can't pack that fast and I can't go back to that beach. I can't go there, can I? I can't see it and relive it all. It's bad enough being here.
'I'm supposed to be going to Bali,' I say. 'I made plans for the mountains, the coffee region, my flight's all booked.'
'Coffee and mountains? Wow, you really do like to be high, huh?' He's smiling now and I laugh, partly at the American accent I used to take the mickey out of and party because with that one quip I'm blasted back to how we were; always laughing. Panic floods me. He can't leave me, not now I only just found him. I fight the urge to cling to him, or ask him to stay here with me. Why can't he just stay here? I'm a teenager again.
Ben takes my hand, brushes the hair out of my eyes as I look up at him. He's at least six foot tall. I don't remember him being this tall. 'Listen,' he says. 'You can book a flight from here, go book it on Khao San. Or get the bus, it takes twelve hours. Leave tonight, you'll be there by the morning.'
'Ben...'
'Forget Bali. You've come this far, Bizzy. Isla.'
I scan his eyes, his angular jaw, the way it's pulsing. 'No one else calls me Bizzy.'
'I thought Bizzy died,' he says and when his voice croaks something inside me crumbles like he's poked a hole in a wall I didn't know I built; one that was just for him. 'You're Isla now,' he says. 'You need to come back to Khao Lak.'
Sonthi sho
uts for him. There's a pink cab pulled up outside and the driver is lifting the sack into the back with difficulty. It's bigger than him. 'Ben!'
'OK, OK!' Ben puts the pad and pen on the table, picks up a backpack from the floor, throws it over his shoulder. I notice his biceps in his T-shirt straining as he holds it, but no scars. What happened to him? I have so many questions.
'I have to go,' he says, reaching a hand to my face now. He strokes my cheek with one thumb and I suck in a breath at the same time as I'm pulled back into his eyes. They're rooms of blue that trapped me the minute we met. 'Don't make me lose you again,' he says, leaning down to kiss my cheek. My palms splay against him as he pulls my head to his chest. He scrunches up my hair and lets out a long sigh that I can feel from the top of my head right through to my stomach, where it stirs something up inside that almost makes me throw my arms around him again. Then he releases me and hurries out the door.
I turn around, clutching the piece of paper in my hand. My heart's a drum. I'm sweating even in the air conditioning and I need to get out of this dress. But I'm sinking now, onto a red chair and I'm crying so hard my chest hurts. He's alive! Ben's alive. And I let him go.
Chinda's hand is on my shoulder. What did I just do? Why didn't I just go with him? I could have just ridden with him to the airport or something.
'He could have come for my dinner, then you have more time together!' Chinda says.
I swipe my hands over my face and through my hair, force myself to stand up before anyone walks in and sees me. I'm a mess. 'You invited Ben last night for dinner?' I manage. 'Is that who you were looking for?'
Chinda beams at me. 'Yes.' She frowns in an instant. 'But he no come. He no make good husband, no reliable.'
I can't help it now, I'm laughing. Crying and laughing at the same time. 'He wants me to go to Khao Lak,' I tell her, breathlessly.
'Khao Lak very nice,' Chinda says, walking with me to the stairwell. She's realized I hardly ever take the lift. 'Very romantic.'
I start to climb the stairs without her. I haven't seen the ocean since I left there the last time. I saw the damage it caused; the serrated landscapes and decimated streets. I remember when I could finally move without screaming in pain, seeing it glistening, flat and calm. It was smiling in curves of tranquil blue from the horizon, rippling with laughter like nothing had ever happened. I hated it.
I throw myself on my bed, press my palms over my eyes. I don't know what to think or feel. I picture Ben, the way he was and the way he is now; an older, taller version of the boy I lost. We had no mobile phones back then, no Facebook accounts. We didn't even swap last names. He didn't know I was Isla, not Isabella, because he only ever called me Izzy, or Bizzy.
I thought Bizzy died.
His words ring in my head like a bell. I want to know everything now. I want to know where he's been all this time, how long he's run the dive shop, whether they ever found Charlie or his little brother. I looked for their names on the lists... all the lists I could find, at every hospital, but I couldn't find them. There were so many names and no way of identifying the rest.
Ben and Toby were scuba diving with their uncle when the tsunami reared up with the power of what the reports all said was over a thousand Hiroshima bombs. I was sitting outside the dive shop, waiting for their boat to come back. I didn't know what I was seeing when the ocean disappeared from underneath the struggling fish, or what I would never see again.
I sit up, squeezing my eyes shut, pushing the thoughts from my head. I have his number now - I can call him. I reach for the photo on the dresser, hold it to my heart. As the waves of doubt and confusion roll over me I sigh up at the ceiling. 'I can't go back, can I, mom? Dad?' I say.
I can almost hear their reply in the silence. Maybe it'll help.
BEN
You back yet? I miss u. Kalaya's voice is loud, even in her iMessage. I've only been back thirty minutes. Word travels fast in these parts. Mind you, she probably saw Sonthi dragging the scuba stuff from the cab into the dive shop after I left him there and hopped on my scooter. Her cabin is right next door.
I'm home but I have some stuff to do. See u tmrw, I type back and within seconds I've been sent a line of crying face emojis. I feel like a giant asshole as I turn my cell to silent and put it face down on the wooden table, but my head is all over the place right now and I'm not exactly in the mood to make small talk.
There's a clear blue afternoon sky right now, some people snorkeling in the distance. I can see the sun glinting off their masks. When the rains come next month it won't be like this. I light a cigarette and lie back in the hammock, tune in to the crickets and birds behind me, the faint hum of scooters back on the road and the lapping of the waves. I don't usually smoke straight and the nicotine burns my throat. I crush it out in the ashtray on the railing. I can't breathe any calm into myself anyway; I'm a wreck.
I stand up, pace up and down, step off the deck onto the path and onto the beach. Why the hell didn't I get her number, or her email address? What if she doesn't get in touch? It's been a decade, more than that now, but seeing her... it feels like the whole thing happened yesterday. What if I found Izzy only to lose her all over again? I couldn't stand it.
I walk to the edge of the shore, dig my bare toes into the warm, wet sand. I can't get that look in her eyes out of my head though; the one she pulled when I suggested she come back here. It's obvious she's terrified. What the hell was she doing in Bangkok, anyway? Was she there with someone else; some guy or girlfriend up in that hotel room, ready to fly out to Indonesia with her? My head was reeling too much to ask.
I turn my face to the sun. I should have just stayed, got on a later flight. But Sonthi was freaking out at me, I had no choice. I wasn't thinking straight anyway. How often does a dead person come back to life before your eyes?
Dammit.
I drop to my ass, dig my hands into the wet grit and coral, let the water roll up and wash over my legs. I don't know what happened to Bizzy that day. Remembering hurts. I close my eyes, inhale a lungful of air. I remember the night before.
*
'You're taking Toby scuba diving?' she asked me, swinging her legs over the side of the longtail boat we'd climbed up onto. We'd just been watching the Thai guy twirling fire, but we'd walked away from the gawping crowd with our fingers still entwined.
I was expecting Bizzy to let go of my hand the whole way, but she didn't let go and neither did I. I wanted to kiss her the whole walk up the beach. I'd gone through the way I'd do it in my head; how I'd stop and spin her round and press my lips to hers in a show of romance with the twirling flames as a backdrop. I was planning it out, living it in my head so clearly I was only half listening to her chatter as we walked.
She was talking about some friend of her mom's who was moving to London - some woman who worked at a magazine, I think, called Maria. Bizzy wanted to be a writer. She carried a notebook in her beach bag and was always scribbling in it.
'Isn't Toby too young to go scuba diving?' she said then, looking at me. Her big brown eyes were twinkling in the faint light from a nearby restaurant shack, like they were trapping fireflies. So beautiful.
'He's ten, it's a good age to start. He's almost qualified,' I told her. Our legs brushed on the side of the boat. Toby was a natural in the water. He never showed a speck of fear, even during the tests when he had to take his mask off and put it back on again underwater. 'He's done all the pool stuff now. Tomorrow's his first real fun dive - then there's two more and he'll have his PADI.'
'When did you get your certificate?' she asked me. 'Does your whole family dive?'
'My mom and step dad won't,' I answered, looking out over the blackening ocean. I didn't know Glenn too well - they'd only been married a year - but I couldn't imagine my mom in a snorkel, never mind on the ocean floor with a tank strapped to her back. I loved my mom but her idea of an underwater adventure was driving the Prius through the carwash. We all knew it.
'Uncle Charlie's been
diving his whole life,' I told her. 'He's mom's brother. He got me qualified when I was Toby's age.'
'Where?'
'California. This is the first time I've come diving here, though. Toby wasn't old enough to come away without her really, till now.'
'You're so lucky your uncle lives here,' she said then, all starry-eyed. 'It's like heaven.'
'I know, but he's lived everywhere. He ran a shack on Little Corn Island before this - have you heard of it?'
'Nope.'
'Nicaragua,' I told her, proud of my knowledge of exotic places, all from my uncle of course. 'On the Caribbean side. He said he could walk into the ocean from the beach, pick a lobster up in his bare hands, walk back and cook it for dinner!'
'That's amazing!'
'Yes, but it was boring, there were hardly any tourists. Not like here.'
'Little Corn,' Bizzy said dreamily, twirling her long hair round a finger against her collarbone. 'That sounds amazing, too. Makes you wonder why anyone lives in big cities, really, doesn't it?'
I smiled, nudging her shoulder, still holding tight to her other hand. 'You can't work on a big glossy magazine if you live on an island,' I said and she stuck her tongue out, making me want to kiss her even more.
*
I don't know why I didn't. To this day I have no clue why I chickened out, every single time. I'd kissed a couple girls before; more than a couple actually but something about British Izzy had me weak at the knees and chicken shit terrified all at once. Maybe it was the setting, so perfect and pristine, I didn't want to risk ruining it. Maybe it was the proximity of her parents, always watching me like hawks.
