At the hottest part of the day, with most of the rubble cleared away, there it was, silver flame guard twinkling in the sun. I found the lighter.
The muscles in my arms shook as I held it out to Henri.
She was coated in mud from the bottoms of her canvas slip-ons to the crown of her head.
“No fucking way.” Henri threw her arms around my neck. Pulling back, she caught my hands. “We are disgusting,” she said, lacing her fingers with mine. “Come on.”
She tugged me out of the clearing, running past the line of trees and through the winding path our travel had made through the jungle. We ran to the beach, so fast, I ran out of my shoes. The heels of my feet burned the second they hit the hot sand. Alex was a blur on the beach as Henri picked up speed.
She wasn’t slowing as we neared the ocean, and the feel of her hand in mine was too good to break.
“Aren’t we going to take off our clothes?”
“Nope.” Henri sucked in a chest full of air and, clothes and all, crashed us into the waves. Some of my breath came loose and bubbles drifted above my head.
Mud swirled around me as I came up to the sound of my sister laughing through the saltwater sting of our cuts.
She held our hands above water, still linked together. There was a sadness in her smile, maybe for the months we’d lost, maybe something else. I couldn’t think about it then. Having Henri back wasn’t everything I thought it would be. It was more. Because I’d found a way out that didn’t involve winning or losing—I’d stopped playing the game at all.
CHAPTER 28
TWO WEEKS BEFORE
On our first day back at Baird, I stopped by my locker after first period to switch out my books. Up the staircase, no light shone through the window of the music room, keeping the landing dark.
At first, I was too busy looking up the stairs to notice what was happening around me. Or maybe I had too much faith in my parents, that they could keep this contained and get rid of Mr. Flynn in a way that wouldn’t break open Henri’s world.
People stood alongside their lockers, mouths open, eyes bright with concern or confusion, or glee. Sareena faced her locker, like she didn’t want to watch whatever was happening, but occasionally she’d glance into the hall. Ari clutched her books against her chest and kept her gaze on me as she giggled something into Jake Holt’s ear. I put my back to my locker and followed everyone’s stares.
Jesse and Henri were down the hall. Something about them had caught everyone’s attention.
Now he slammed his locker shut and turned to her, saying words I couldn’t make out. Henri closed the gap between them and whispered close to him, her mouth pointed down to his chest. She reached up and caught his face between her hands, her finger stroking a circle under his ear. He grabbed her wrists and straightened his arms, forcing her to take a step back. His words were loud now. “You can destroy yourself, but you’re not taking me with you. I can’t do it anymore.”
Her mouth formed his name. She reached out. For a second her face was different, raw, and her next words were clear. “You have to try to understand.”
“Understand?” he shouted. “Understand? You were fucking a teacher!”
He hurled his binder at the bank of lockers. It exploded on impact and sent a shower of rule-lined papers into the air. He left her standing alone in the hall with paper slowly falling down around her.
They were over. But I wasn’t filled with relief. Only an ache I felt all the way to my bones.
A dark look came over Henri. She saw me standing there and was beside me in an instant, sinking her grip into the soft part of my upper arm. I stumbled as she dragged me into an empty classroom.
The door shut behind us and I felt along the wall for the lights, not finding them. “Henri—”
She pulled back and slapped me across the face.
My fingers went to my cheek.
Getting slapped always seemed glamorous in the movies. What they didn’t show was how your teeth throbbed and your cheek felt like someone had set it on fire. And nobody talked about the shame of it, of being hit by someone you love more than anyone on this earth.
The worst part was knowing I deserved it.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
Desperate, I said the thing people always say when they’re caught. “What are you talking about?” Henri was a shadow in the darkness. I couldn’t see her face.
“Oh, come on! Mom and Dad went to Ari’s mom with this. Of course she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Ari knows everything and now so does everyone at Baird. Including Jesse.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. “I’m—”
“Don’t you dare say one fucking word, Emma. You didn’t just blow up my whole life, but you ruined Gavin’s too. The school called the police.”
“What?”
None of this was what I wanted.
My sister didn’t deserve it.
Neither did Mr. Flynn.
“Oh, I’m going to lie like hell, but if the investigators don’t believe me, he’s going to spend his life registering as a sex offender.”
My tears leaked out. I didn’t bother wiping them away. “It was one mistake. One mistake and—”
Henri laughed. “One mistake. Do you know what Jesse told me? He said you and I are both toxic—he said you threw yourself at him at our party.”
I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe.
“Henri, please. I did the worst thing imaginable to you, and I’m so sorry. If there was a word bigger than sorry, I’d say it.”
Her silence slowly ate away at my heart as we stood there in the dark.
She licked her lips and hoisted her book bag onto her shoulder. She felt around inside it until she hooked her sunglasses and, turning toward the bright window of the door, pushed them onto her mascara-streaked face before pushing past me.
In the doorway, I caught her wrist. “Where are you going?”
Henri snatched her hand away. “Home.” Keeping her eyes on the door, she said in a low voice, “Out of everyone I’ve ever known, you were the only person I thought I’d have forever.”
“You still have me.”
She took off her sunglasses, and I thought I might have a chance at making things right.
But my sister ran her eyes down my whole body and shook her head. “Why didn’t I see you for what you were?”
The door slammed and I stood in darkness.
CHAPTER 29
By the light of the blazing signal fire, the three of us feasted on Alex’s fish. My hands were cut, my limbs sore and bruised from digging through the boulders, but I was also clean and full and warm.
Henri craned her neck as Alex moved down the beach to get rid of the fish skins. After he disappeared, she turned to me, eyebrows raised. “So, Alex, huh? Talk to me.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything, obviously,” she said. “You could do better. But he does have good teeth and hey”—she nodded to the backpack hanging from the trees—“he’s even got money.”
“That’s not funny.”
“But you know it is.” Her smile faded. “Is it real?”
“The money?” I joked.
She elbowed me in the ribs. “Yes or no?”
I didn’t know if she meant real-real or more real than my feelings for Jesse. Not that my answer would have been different. “Yes.”
“I’m happy for you, Em.”
Something about it struck me as sad, that she still wanted happiness for me after I’d ruined her relationship with the only boy she’d ever loved. “When we get home, are you going to try to fix things with Jesse?”
She took a deep breath, cradling her bruised arms in her lap. “I’d rather not think about home until I see it.” She slipped on her sweatshirt and walked toward the edge of the bamboo.
“I think I should stay in my own shelter.”
“Henri, why?”
She turned back.
The firelight filtering through the palm fronds highlighted her hands as she removed her shell necklace—the one with the rarest blue shells on our island—and draped it around my neck.
She kissed me on the cheek. “Good night, Em.”
Raindrops splattered against our rooftop as Alex and I lay awake in our darkened shelter. The wind whistling through caught the straps of the backpack hanging from the ceiling.
Alex leaned over the edge of the hammock with his chin in his hand. “You two are really okay now?”
“Yes. I mean, I think so. It feels like before.”
“But she’s sleeping under the canoe? In the rain.”
I didn’t say anything. I’d lived to have her back, the Henri from before. A Henri who would drag me into the ocean, clothes and all, joke about boys, drape handmade jewelry around my neck. Something was off still—maybe just from the strain of being lost—but she was her again.
Alex yawned into his hands. “Hey, Jones?” He draped his arm down over the side and brushed his fingertips over my right ankle. “You might as well sleep up here with me. It’s a lot more comfortable in the hammock.”
“If Henri came in, she would feel totally alienated if I was up there with you.”
“Wow.” He grinned down at me. “I thought all the weirdness you and your sister had, I thought it was because of this fight.” He tilted his head. “But that’s over. This attachment you two have, it’s intense.”
If someone had said that to me months before, I might have taken it as a compliment, proof that my sister and I were obviously close. Now it was kind of unsettling.
He kissed the back of my hand. “Good night, Jones.”
The hammock’s supports creaked until Alex nodded off.
Half of Emma and Henri—it’s what I’d always been. After months apart, she was finally the same as before. Was I, though?
The hammock jarred as I rested my hips into it and pulled my legs up beside Alex.
He righted himself in the dark, breathing hard. “What are you doing? Are you okay?”
I dropped my shoulders down to the hammock, careful to avoid his broken hand, and stretched out on my back. “I just don’t feel like sleeping alone.”
“You’re feeling okay, aren’t you?” He pressed his hand to my forehead, then each of my cheeks. “You’re not getting what I had?”
“No, I’m fine. I just changed my mind. I want to be up here with you.”
He pushed off the branch behind us and sent the hammock swaying. Into my hair, he whispered, “Good. I like you here.”
He smiled down at me, and I took his face in my hands. I traced each eyebrow, the bridge of his nose—following that small bump, the freckles I knew well enough to name.
My fingers reached his lips and he took my wrist, kissed each fingertip.
I’d been so afraid that giving into my feelings for Alex would destroy me, the way boys led to tragedy for Henri, the way Dad led to tragedy for Mom. But Alex—after everything that happened on our island—I knew him. He wasn’t the kind of boy who would break me. And after all Henri had put me through, I knew me, and I wasn’t a girl who could be broken.
My dolphin T-shirt and bikini top were still soaked from the ocean, so I hadn’t bothered to put them back on under my jacket. I bit my lip to stifle my smile as I held eye contact, took a deep breath, and very slowly lowered the zipper.
Alex looked at me, my face and all of me, and ran the back of his hand from my throat to my navel.
“Alex, you still have that condom, right?”
“What?” He moved back and almost fell out of the hammock.
I caught his shoulders and laughed as I pulled him close. He kissed me, then broke a few inches away. “We really don’t have to.”
“No, but I want to. With you.” I shivered, feeling his fingers move against my skin. “Do you?”
“You have no idea.”
Alex’s lips brushed the tip of my nose, then each cheek. His mouth found the hollow of my throat, and as he reached my belly, a warm tingling spread all the way to my fingertips and toes and settled deep in the very center of me. My toes curled. I shuddered.
The fibers of the hammock were rough against my back as I tossed my jacket to the floor, but I barely felt them. The only sensations now were the warmth of Alex’s mouth, the skimming of his hair as he trailed kisses across my stomach, my skin humming.
He paused to reach across me to the backpack hanging from the ceiling.
I unbuttoned my shorts, and as Alex slipped down beside me holding the condom, I lifted up while he slid them down my legs. Then I unbuttoned his and did the same, feeling his skin against mine.
His palm glided down my ribs and his finger curled under the hip of my bikini bottoms. His cheek brushed against mine—he was trembling.
“Alex?”
That little edge of hesitation in my voice made him freeze. “You want to stop?”
“No. Do you? You seem nervous.”
“It’s just a lot of pressure, Jones. One chance to do this right.” He held up the single condom and hovered over me. “Ask me what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“My bed. Near Luquillo Beach. And you in it. It’s nothing fancy—no nice sheets, not even a headboard—but there’s a white mosquito net that hangs from the ceiling and drapes around it. When I open the windows, the ocean air comes through. I wish we could be there. Right now. I could make this really good for you.”
I hooked my hands together behind his neck and pulled him down to me. “It’s already good for me.”
Our clothing came off a piece at a time until it all mingled together on the shelter floor. He took his time and let me take mine.
I lost things that night, fear and doubt and the worst parts of myself—they vanished in ragged breaths and hungry kisses and skin that slid together like it was never supposed to be apart.
CHAPTER 30
The night before we left for Puerto Rico, I sat on my bed, beside my suitcase overflowing with bright swimsuits, comfortable jeans shorts, and rubber flip-flops, and I cried. I cried for what Henri and I had, for what I’d ruined, and for what I knew I’d never have back.
Someone knocked at my door. I wanted it to be Henri so badly, my throat closed up.
I pushed up on my elbows and wiped my cheeks. “Come in.”
“It’s me.” My mom stood in the doorway with a set of luggage tags in her hand. She wore a pair of yoga pants and an oversized cardigan that almost reached her knees. I hadn’t seen her wear anything but business clothes or a nightgown since the day my father walked out the front door. “Are you all packed?”
“I think so. I have to put my blow dryer in after I use it in the morning.”
“They’ll probably have one at the hotel. It’s a five-star resort.”
Our parents hatched a plan one night after they’d argued until their throats were sore.
Henri blamed me for their relationship reaching an all-time most volatile. They couldn’t agree on anything at all, except this one thing: They thought time out of the city, away from Baird, outside the halls Mr. Flynn had walked, would do Henri some good.
We’d travel with Mom on her trip to Puerto Rico. Five days of sun and sand on Luquillo Beach. They thought it was the perfect opportunity for Henri and me to make our peace.
Mom sat on my bed beside my luggage. “About your birthday, I’m so sorry, Em, that it wasn’t anything special. We’ll do something fun in Puerto Rico.”
My sixteenth birthday. Henri’d lived for hers since she was thirteen. My parents filled our house with everyone who was anyone on the big day. Mom and Dad ordered a pizza and a bakery
cake for mine and sent me to the family room to eat while they whispered in the kitchen about splitting the cost of Henri’s therapy.
Dad gave Henri a pair of sapphire earrings for hers. Me, I got a check.
I didn’t care. I didn’t deserve the pizza, the cake, or the check. All I’d wished for when I blew out my candles was Henri’s forgiveness.
Mom forced a smile as she refolded a pair of shorts. “Are you at all excited?”
“Sure.”
“What about Henri?”
The wall separating our rooms was vibrating with Henri’s angriest music.
“We haven’t been talking much.”
She’d only spoken to me once about the trip since our parents told us we were going. She came in my room after her first therapy session and made fun of the clothes I’d set out. Every little flaw in me was game for ridicule.
If I thought Henri’s silence was bad, her pure, unadulterated hatred was the worst thing imaginable.
“You’ll get past this,” Mom said. “Maybe it’s better, even. If she didn’t know, everything would be fine between the two of you, but would that have been real?”
Mom didn’t know she was wrong. That if everything really had been fine between us, I wouldn’t have had a reason to ruin Henri’s life in the first place.
She crossed the room and wrapped her arms under mine. She gave me one tight squeeze before pulling back. “Emma, no matter what, know you did the right thing.”
The adult world drew lines in the sand. Perpetrator and victim. Teacher and student. Wrong and right. Those lines had blurred for me. I was no longer sure I agreed. About one thing I was certain: What I’d done to Henri and Mr. Flynn had been horribly wrong.
Mom clutched the doorframe on her way into the hall. “Listen. You were best friends—that can’t be lost forever. I know it’s horrible now. She’ll forgive you, Em. But Henri, she won’t make it easy.”
As I lay in bed in the dark, I decided I’d reach Henri in any way I could. This trip would fix everything. I made that promise to myself.
A Map for Wrecked Girls Page 23
