by Alice Reeds
“Not everybody feels the need to show off how much money they have.”
Especially if they didn’t have any.
“Maybe not, but you can’t deny that driving an expensive car is kind of amazing. Feeling the speed. The roar of the engine. The power.” A shade of passion colored his voice.
Maybe he was right, but I’d never even sat in an expensive car.
“Wait,” Miles suddenly said and grabbed my arm, his touch feeling much too welcome, a fact I refused to think about, especially at that moment. We both came to an immediate halt. “I think I heard something,” he whispered almost inaudibly. I looked around while my heart picked up speed, and I held my breath. “Okay, no, it’s nothing, must have been my imagination.”
“You sure?”
He nodded, and we started walking again. My steps turned more cautious, softer and planned. I tried not to step on every breaking twig that was in my way, tried to avoid crunching leaves, though it wasn’t always possible.
“Word, city, height, book, and band,” Miles said. The game, I already forgot all about it.
“Illusive, New York City, five eight, Fight Club, and Kaleo.”
Their concert had been incredible. My mom had bought me the tickets for my last birthday. One of those rare times when my dad was out of town on business. I’d gone wild with ten thousand strangers. The lights had flown all around us, sweeping over the crowd, and the adrenaline pumping through our veins had turned us into one collective body.
I wouldn’t let that be the last birthday I spent with my mom.
“Illusive? Sounds like a word you’d like,” he said.
“And you think you’re competent enough to judge that?”
“Yes, I think so.” He looked pretty sure of himself. Even his half smirk, half smile made its way back onto his face. Although I would never admit it to him, barely even to myself, I actually liked that smile of his.
“You have my tentative interest,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows a couple of times, as if he couldn’t wait. “Ever heard of solipsism?”
That stopped me in my tracks. “How do you know about that?”
He stopped and smiled at me. “You’re not the only one who reads.”
I started walking again, and so did he.
“I’m waiting for the point,” I said.
“Solipsism says we can’t know anything beyond ourselves. Everything we experience could be an illusion. All we really know for sure is that we”—he tapped his forehead—“exist. Somehow. Somewhere. But the world outside of us?”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“I think you’re an illusion yourself. I’m not in there.” He pointed at my head. “All I see is what you show me. And I think that’s not the real you. It’s merely what you want everybody to see.”
I knew the concept. But that bit about me? “I’m not that complicated. What you see is what you get.”
He shrugged. “Not buying it.”
“I don’t care. Your turn to answer the questions, Miles.”
He did that thing where you point two fingers at your own eyes and then at the other person, me in this case, as if to remind me that he was watching me. I felt the strong urge to flip him off. “Fine. Extraordinary, Honolulu, six three, Perfume, and Kaleo.”
“You’re kidding,” I said, and turned to look at him—
My foot caught on a root sticking out of the ground. I lost my balance and started falling, but Miles grabbed my arm and helped me steady myself.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
He let go of my arm slowly, as though he was uncertain about something. “Which part am I supposed to be kidding about?”
“Kaleo being your favorite band. Who’d believe that?”
“If you don’t want to believe me, fine, no problem,” he said, and raised his hands in mock defeat, which made me chuckle. “Ha, you laughed. That means you can’t hate me.”
“Says who?”
“Me.”
“Still hate you,” I said, and tried to look as serious as I could.
The problem was just that, as much as I hated it, he wasn’t quite as wrong as I wished he were. I didn’t hate him. I just really disliked him, though my brain tried to make me like him, which surely had something to do with the fact that I liked his looks, as shallow as that was.
Get a grip! What was I thinking? This was still Miles. The same guy who from our very first proper interaction had let me know just what he thought of me. Called me pathetic.
I picked up the pace to get in front of him. He must have gotten the message because we passed the next hour mostly in silence, except for the few words we exchanged when we came across another banana tree. If that was everything we found for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I already didn’t look forward to it.
Finally, we saw the end of the jungle.
“That’s not quite what I hoped we’d find,” I said once we stepped into the sun.
We stood on rock formations, the edge of a cliff a couple feet away from us. Beyond that, there was only water as far as we could see. And down the coastline we found only more cliffs and the rumbling, gushing of waves crashing against stone.
My shoulders sagged. This was supposed to be different. We were supposed to find something to give us hope, not wash it away like a dead goldfish in the toilet.
“Maybe there’s still something, someone, but somewhere else? On the other side, to the right or left, we can’t know for sure,” Miles said, like he was trying not to lose his own hope, speaking almost more to himself than to me.
I took off my shoes and felt the warm stone beneath my feet; let it seep through my body and into my disappointed bones. Even though I was glad we’d managed to avoid the beast so far, walking for hours without even hearing it anywhere in the distance, we’d still failed in the grand scheme of things. We hadn’t found anything but the other end of the island and a punch to the gut.
Crossing the few feet toward the edge, the ocean breeze caressing my face and body, I could almost taste the salt and tiny drops of water it carried. The water was quite a good distance below us. If you jumped into it, I was kind of sure you’d die, get carried and thrown against the stone wall by the waves, which weren’t miles high but high enough to crack open your skull, and then your lifeless body would float atop the water while your mind and personality would cease to exist. I saw a maze of rocks sticking out of the water farther away from the island. Some were big and bulky, other slender, sharp and tall. Didn’t look like a ship could easily navigate through there. It was as though everything on and around the island was designed to rip away any shards of hope we could cling to and leave behind nothing but despair and hopelessness.
“Hey,” Miles said, his fingers curling around my left wrist. I looked back at him and thought I could see worry in his eyes, like he thought I might actually jump.
“I’m not suicidal, don’t worry,” I assured him, but he didn’t let go. “But, do you know what l’appel du vide means?”
“The call of the void.”
“Yes,” I said and looked out at the ocean. So, he spoke French. What else? German? I was surprised, but at this point, I’d been surprised often enough that I was beginning to realize I didn’t know Miles as well as I thought. “It’s also used to describe that feeling you get when you stand atop a high building or a cliff like this and consider jumping down because it’s the strongest choice you could make in that situation.”
“Thanks for the lesson in psychology, but I’d still prefer it if you didn’t stand so close to that edge,” he said, and pulled me back.
I opened my mouth to argue, but his expression looked strained, and something flashed in his eyes. Something painful.
“We should probably head back,” I said.
“I’m pretty sure, once we make it off this island, I’ll never want to see a tropical place like this again.”
“Not to be a downer, but didn’t you say your favorite place was Honolu
lu? Definitely counts as place similar to this.”
“I’d gladly give up ever going to Hawaii again if it’d mean getting off this island,” he said, and shook his head. “There are enough pretty places in the world that don’t have jungles and beasts.”
There were a lot of things and places I wanted to see one day, many of which I was convinced I’d never actually get to experience other than through stories, movies, or pictures. The world had so much to offer, and I’d worked so hard to be where and who I was, I wasn’t ready to even consider the possibility of my life ending this soon, and in a God-forsaken place like this.
We slipped back into the jungle. The air seemed to only turn warmer as we went, the sound of the wind moving through the leaves overhead turning a little louder, as well as the singing birds. Or maybe I was just listening to it more now. We deviated a little from the route we’d taken before—not much, but just enough to explore some more, to be sure.
“Name one thing that’s on your bucket list,” I said to end the silence that had temporarily taken over. It wasn’t the game Miles had made us play, rather pure curiosity and maybe also just me wanting to actually get to know the person I was stranded with, at least a little.
“Good question,” Miles said and thought about it for a moment. “I want to see Machu Picchu.”
“Really? Doesn’t seem like your thing.” I tried to imagine Miles at Machu Picchu, an Inca city from the fifteenth century, a fascinating historical site high up in the mountains in Peru, but somehow it seemed too strange for my brain to make it happen.
“How did you say it? ‘And you think you’re competent enough to judge that’?” A smug smile appeared on his face. Well played.
“Throwing my own words back at me, classy,” I said, and shook my head. “You always play this spoiled rich-boy type.” I raised my eyebrows. “But I see through you.”
“And what do you see?”
I thought about that. How he’d watched over me while I slept. Made breakfast. “Someone who cares more than he lets on.”
“Of course I care.” He looked straight at me as he said it and frowned, as though he didn’t quite understand my confusion.
“Somehow I have a really hard time imagining that.”
“Your turn,” he said, shrugging off my comment.
“I’d love to experience hanami.” Amused, I watched him try to figure out what that might be.
“Hanami?”
“It’s a Japanese tradition consisting of enjoying the blooming of cherry trees during spring,” I explained. “Thousands of people gather to celebrate where cherry trees bloom, during the day and night. I’ve heard it’s beautiful. I’d love to travel to the Nakijin Castle on the island of Okinawa during hanami.”
There was a certain shade of surprise in Miles’s eyes, like he was astonished by my answer, maybe able to see a part of me he’d never noticed before. I wondered if what he saw was positive or negative, if he was about to change his opinion of me, and if I should be thinking about any of this at all.
Just as Miles opened his mouth to say something, comment on what I’d said, the beast decided that it wasn’t anything important and roared in the distance, loud and rolling like thunder, dark and sharp around the edges, sending a shiver down my spine. I groaned, even though it sounded more like a yelp or scream, or possibly a mix of all of them. The day had been going so well. We’d tried so hard to keep away from it, from the cockpit and the land around it, yet it had found us. I almost wanted to blame Miles for it, for making us talk, but this time it’d been me who started it. He only meant well, thought that it would help, and it had. We’d relaxed, or at least I had, my state of high alert going down to a more manageable and bearable level than before, thanks to him distracting me from my fears.
But that didn’t matter anymore. Now the only thing that mattered was to run, fast and far, away from the beast. I looked toward Miles, quickly asked if he thought the sound had come from somewhere to the right as well. He nodded. We took off in the opposite direction while I hoped that we hadn’t misheard it and that we wouldn’t run into it instead. A tired part of me, probably the same one that stood on the cliff and contemplated jumping, wondered what exactly would happen if I just stopped running when it appeared.
Immediately I pushed that thought aside. I wouldn’t give up that easily, even if there were moments where it almost seemed like a desirable option. It was an easy out, like admitting to failure, and I couldn’t do that, had been conditioned into doing anything and everything I could to not fail. My father didn’t tolerate failure.
“We won’t be able to run all the way back to the beach,” I said, my words breathless. “We need a place to hide.”
“Easier said than done,” Miles said, but nodded in agreement nonetheless. “Over there.” He pointed toward something far in front of us, surrounded by bushes and shrubs. It was as good an option as any, better than trying to run a good couple of hours’ worth of distance at this pace. Neither of us would be able to do that, at least, not after merely a few packets of crackers, some bananas, and not nearly enough water and sleep.
Without really knowing what it was, and if it would be a good enough place to hide in, we raced toward it and then jumped. It was a dip in the ground, a pit just deep enough that we could disappear into it, hopefully far down enough for the beast not to see us. I hit the ground a little harder than anticipated, knocking the air out of my lungs, the dirt cool against my skin.
I turned to check on Miles, to see if he was okay, but instead my eyes landed on a dead body.
Chapter Fourteen
The Island
Before I could even scream or curse, Miles’s hand covered my mouth and his other arm wrapped around my middle, pulling me closer to him, away from the bodies. My mind was caught between worrying about the beast, wondering why there were fucking dead people in that pit with us, and Miles’s surprise move.
“Quiet,” he whispered close to my ear, the velvety texture of his voice sending a shiver down my spine. All I could do was nod, though it seemed like he didn’t trust me enough to take his hand away. His chest was against my back, his heart beating hard. Could he feel mine beat just as hard?
We moved our heads almost simultaneously at the sound of the beast approaching and then breaking out of the tree line not too far away from us. Lying in the pit, we could look out over the edge just enough that maybe the beast wouldn’t even spot us, think we disappeared somehow, and maybe it would just go away, leave us be.
It was the first time we’d ever seen it up close, and it certainly wasn’t what I expected. I didn’t quite know what I thought it would be, but a gigantic brown bear certainly wasn’t it. How did a bear like that end up in a jungle on a damn tropical island? Didn’t they live farther north?
I tried to turn my head just enough to look at Miles from the corner of my eye, wanting to ask if he saw it, too. His expression made my question unnecessary. His eyes were wide open, his lips parted in shock, and his face definitely a shade or two paler than it should be.
The bear looked right at us with such intensity and focus, it almost seemed impossible, considering we were like sixty feet or something away from it. Its eyes were big and round and awfully dark, nearly black. It seemed to create the illusion of two holes leading into the abyss of nothingness, yet somehow there was a wild type of fury in them as well, a bear on a mission I didn’t want to be part of. And then it raised its giant head and roared once again. Miles flinched, his arm pulling me closer, even if just a fraction. My mind raced, wondering where we could go to escape it, where we could run, but to my surprise, the bear didn’t come closer. I frowned and continued to stare at it, waited for the moment it would suddenly start moving again, ready to attack, but it didn’t. It just stood there and stared right back at us.
The air practically vibrated with tension. My breathing was shallow, my heart hammering in my chest as though it wanted to rip right through my flesh and bones to run away and hide.
As slowly as I could, so it wouldn’t notice, even though I was pretty sure it couldn’t see us, I moved my hand and grabbed Miles’s to pull it off my face. He seemed still too stunned by the bear to resist, his hand slack. “Why is it just standing there?” I finally asked, my voice barely a whisper. I wasn’t even sure Miles heard.
But then he said, “It looks wary, or almost scared, no?”
“Why?”
He just barely shook his head. Fair enough. I had no idea, either, so I couldn’t expect him to have an answer.
The bear started to move. It took a step or two to the right, then back to the left, raised its head and then lowered it back down like it was trying to see something. But it didn’t move toward us, stayed at the same distance as though there was some invisible barrier between us that it couldn’t cross.
And then, to my utter bafflement, the bear retreated. Slowly it turned around and disappeared into the jungle, leaving us behind in that hole. It had a perfect chance to catch and kill us, yet it hadn’t even tried. I couldn’t understand it at all. It didn’t make sense.
But I didn’t even care. We were still alive. And now we knew what it was. Sort of.
For a few more minutes we remained in the exact same position, waited to see if it would come back, change its mind, but it didn’t. Everything around us was quiet again, as quiet as it ever got inside the jungle, and slowly the tension left my body.
Miles let go of me, and I moved away just enough, turned so my back was against the wall of the pit, putting as much distance between those bodies and me, tried my best to ignore them somehow. I just needed a moment to breathe, which wasn’t easy considering the bodies smelled awful, even worse than the pilot had.
“A damn bear?” I whispered, worried that maybe it was still around, close enough to hear us, and that if it were to hear us, it would come back. And this time, it would kill us after all.
“I think it’s safe to say that this is not good,” Miles said, his tone dry, ignoring my question. I ripped my eyes away from the sky and instead looked at him, realizing that he was staring at the bodies lying in the pit along with us.
