by McCall Hoyle
He leaves his flashlight on the counter, then backs out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him. I exhale slowly then look in the medicine cabinet, but it’s empty. No pain reliever. When I swing its door closed, my reflection in the mirror looks like something out of a horror film. The beam of the flashlight illuminates the bottom half of my pale face. The top half is camouflaged by shadows. My normally light brown hair hangs like dark curtains down either side of my pale face. My eyes sink into my skull zombie style.
Holding my breath, I attempt to wiggle free of my shirt. A wave of pain washes over me as the tight space closes in even further. Despite the discomfort, I refuse to cut this shirt before I know there’s a replacement somewhere in this house. I wait for the room to stop spinning before I grit my teeth and yank the sleeve away from my injured shoulder. My fingers snag in the armhole, stopping the momentum of my arm, causing my shoulder to jam. I wince and watch as the floor rises to swallow my face. There’s nothing I can do but wait for the impact and pray I don’t further injure myself.
Snagging the edge of the counter on my descent, I lessen the severity of my collision with the floor, but probably not enough to completely hide the sound from Finn. Sure enough, seconds later, he’s lifting me and cradling me against his chest. I unsuccessfully will myself to shake off the wooziness, but the thumping of his heart hypnotizes me.
At some point, the mental fog lifts, and I peer at my surroundings through one slitted eye. The fire to my right flickers and cracks, the wavering light casting ghostly fingers on the stone hearth. I’m back on the couch. It takes all my strength to glance around the room in search of Finn. He’s nowhere to be found, but a smile tugs at the corners of my mouth when I spy Mere’s compass propped up on the mantel.
How in the world? He found it, which means he’s been outside.
Then I notice something else. I’m not wearing a T-shirt. I’m wearing a man’s flannel shirt. Squeezing my eyes shut, I shiver. Sweet Jesus, he . . . he . . . changed my shirt. Maybe I should just close my eyes and die right now.
I try.
It doesn’t work.
“Finn?” I call for him, but the house is eerily silent. I have no idea how long I was asleep, but I’m pretty certain not long enough to have skirted the hurricane. We must be in the eye of the storm. But where’s Finn? Why would he leave me now?
If he’s outside, he could get hurt. If he gets hurt, I’m alone. So much for his whole we’re in this together motto. I steel myself for an inevitable stab of pain as I push, pull, and wiggle my way to a seated position in the corner of the couch. There is pain, but instead of the ripping and stabbing I expect, it’s more pressure and bruising.
His home remedy might not be a modern-day miracle or prescription pain meds, but it’s something. I definitely feel less achy, and the pain in my shoulder has lessened a bit.
Finn is taking good care of me. I could almost do more than tolerate him. I could almost . . . like him again. But that’s ridiculous. I mean, maybe we could be friends here, in the isolated world of this storm, where it’s just the two of us. But in the outside world, we have nothing in common, and my life is too complicated now for anything resembling romance.
This storm has thrown us together, that’s all. And that’s how I want it to stay. I certainly don’t want to be stranded on my own. “Finn,” I call, louder this time.
There’s still no answer, so I drag myself to the front door. The shutters have protected us, but they also keep me blind to the rest of the world. As I pull open the door, a gust of air whips my hair. The wind may have weakened in the eye of the storm, but it’s still blowing. Thankfully, it seems to have given up on the whistling and screaming. I squint into the night, pleased my eyes work better than I would have expected in the murky darkness. If nothing else, this stupid storm is teaching me to appreciate the wonders of the human body—of my human body. I had no idea I could see this well at night.
The full moon helps a bit. It’s not shining like it normally would on a clear fall night, but it seems to be trying to break through a layer of clouds stretched like thin cotton balls. Movement in front of the other, larger building catches my eye. I blink, positive my eyes are playing tricks on me.
First, a pointed spire tops what I thought was the main house to our guest cottage. I blink again, and my fuzzy brain clears. It’s not a spire. It’s a steeple, a white church steeple rising toward the outline of a golden moon.
I thought I knew this part of the beach so well, but I had no idea this little church was tucked behind the tangled trees near the road. Something flaps in front of the church, distracting me from my surprise. No bird with an ounce of avian intelligence would be out in this hurricane, unless it were sick or injured. Plus, it’s way too large for a bird. It’s some sort of black material flapping in the wind—a flag maybe. No. I zero in on the movement at the front of the church.
Beyond the wide double doors of the main building is a weathered deck. The building and deck perch on a rise of sand. What appears to be some sort of railing made from twisted pickets of driftwood and maritime forest separate the deck from what must be a steep drop-off in front. From there, you would probably have a bird’s-eye view of the Atlantic.
It’s an eerily beautiful scene, like something out of one of the gothic romances Mom used to read before she quit romance—before Dad bolted. The black flapping draws my attention again, distracting me from the ironic loveliness of the white church outlined against the backdrop of the storm-swept barrier islands.
The wind spreads the material. My chest tightens. It’s not a flag. It has arms. Strong, straight, graceful surfer’s arms. It’s Finn in a black windbreaker, arms stretched wide, head thrown back. He’s standing atop a rickety railing in the eye of a hurricane doing his thing. What was it he said back at the first cottage? Something about sucking every last drop of life out of life.
A corner of the moon peeks through a slit in the clouds, like some prophetic spotlight shining on his face—his smiling face. He doesn’t just smile. He beams, basking in the moment. I can’t even remember what that kind of joy, or freedom, feels like. The closest thing I can think of is riding bareback on the beach at sunrise by myself with nothing but the pounding of hooves and waves for company, and I haven’t done that in a long time.
My stomach twists when I realize Finn has something I want. Something I don’t have, or at least haven’t had since I was much younger—contentment. He accepts whatever life throws at him. No, he doesn’t just accept it. He embraces it. And he looks a heck of a lot happier than me or anyone else I know.
I quietly close the door and retreat to the couch, my ego as bruised as my shoulder.
Is it possible Finn knows more about life than I do? More about living than I do? Have I been doing this all wrong? Wind gusts in the chimney. A dying ember crackles to life as I ease back against the couch cushions, careful not to reopen the wound on my shoulder. I glance at the fire, avoiding the compass staring down at me from the mantel.
Finn won’t be as easy to avoid when he returns.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
A little while later, footsteps sound on the deck outside the door. I hunch down on the couch fake sleeping, not yet prepared to talk to Finn, much less look into his face—the beautiful face I witnessed outside in the storm.
The door creaks open. After it clicks shut, it sounds like Finn’s taking off his jacket and flip-flops. A second later, footsteps pad toward the couch. I concentrate on the rhythmic breath of my pretend sleep. I wish he’d just go away. I need time to think.
But. No.
Of course not.
What does he do?
He moseys right over to my couch, lifts my feet, and plops down with my feet in his lap.
And I can’t do a thing about it because I’m supposed to be sound asleep. Ugh.
So I just lie there, trying not to
wiggle the feet in his lap. His lap. His lap. Augh. My feet don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I have no experience with boys. I mean, I don’t think the slobbery, braces-clicking kisses with Pete Jones in eighth grade count. That experience didn’t exactly inspire a wave of hormonal boy craziness. Then Dad and Mere wrecked. Dad disintegrated, and boys weren’t a very high priority.
Now I realize how completely inexperienced and clumsy I am with the opposite sex.
Dear God, I’m going to die. Die.
Not from an injured shoulder.
Not from a horrific hurricane.
From . . . awkwardness.
The fire pops, and I jump.
“Soph?” Finn wiggles my feet—the feet resting awkwardly in his lap.
I almost laugh out loud. God must have a sense of humor, or he wouldn’t have dropped me in this storm with this boy. Put me in AP Spanish, I’m your girl. AP English, I can write an analysis essay to knock your socks off. Biology, horses, you name it. I’ve got it covered. Heck, toss me a Rubik’s Cube or challenge me in a game of speed chess. I’ll take your challenge. Put me on a couch in the dark—with one Y chromosome—and I wilt like a Christmas poinsettia in July.
“Soph?” he asks again.
He can see my open eyes. I have to say something. “Yeah.” Wow, Mr. Richards would be impressed by the complexity of my diction.
“How you feeling?” He squeezes my foot.
“Um—a little better, actually.”
“Jack Daniels is an amazing thing.” He laughs, gently lifting my feet out of his lap. He steps toward the hearth and throws another log on the fire. My jaw unclenches. My toes uncurl. I think I might survive.
“We’re in the eye of the storm,” he says.
“Yeah.” I kind of, sort of know this, because I’ve been spying on you and fake sleeping for a while now.
“The sun will be up soon. There’s something I want you to see.”
“Okay.”
“It’s outside.”
Without asking, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt what he’s up to. He wants me to stand on that rickety railing.
Some deceitful, backstabbing voice that doesn’t belong to me whispers something to the effect of what’s so wrong with that?
Dang it. “Okay.” I must have lost my mind.
“You mean it?” When he turns to face me, one eye narrows—like he’s waiting for a but.
“I said okay.”
He smiles. “You’re going to love this. I promise.”
I kind of doubt it. But I’m stuck now.
He leans down, cupping my elbow in his hand. “Oh, wait. I found something else you’re going to like.” He scurries off to the kitchen. When he returns, he holds something behind his back.
“More Twinkies?” I ask, expecting some disgusting excuse for food.
“Better.”
Better than Twinkies.
“You’re a very lucky girl.” He holds out two pill bottles. “Advil and Tylenol.”
“Where did you find them?” When I was in the bathroom, the medicine cabinet was completely empty.
“I might have borrowed them from a neighbor.” He pops the cap off the Tylenol. “Now, don’t get me wrong. I prefer homeopathic remedies, but when something hurts, it hurts.”
“You broke into another house?” I watch as he counts out a few pills, then offers them to me. I accept, our fingers brushing as he reaches for a glass of water on the coffee table.
“I didn’t take anything else. Trust me.”
The boy is wearing me down. Trust him? I’m not as sure about that. But I am getting tired of arguing with him.
“Now, come on,” he says. “We’re going outside.”
He brings me my tennis shoes and a yellow raincoat. I swallow the nausea rising in my throat along with the pills. I shouldn’t have said yes. But I did. I really have lost my mind.
I slide into my shoes and push myself to standing.
Finn keeps a tight grip on the door when he opens it so it doesn’t smack us in the face. Wind lifts my hair as we step outside and into the eye of the storm. He must be right about the time. The sky is dark, but it’s more charcoal than black. We survived the storm’s approach in the first cottage. We’ve almost survived its impact and another night together here in this house. This storm can’t last much longer.
With the overcast skies, we might not witness the sun cresting the horizon this morning, but it will rise nevertheless. In the fading darkness, I can make out the gnarled trees at the bottom of the hill.
Sure enough, Finn leads me to the front of the church and the spindly railing. He pats the rail. “You can see forever from up here.”
“You want—” My voice cracks. “You want me to stand on top of that?”
“Yes. I know you prefer to play it safe.” He’s challenging me. “But this is worth it. Trust me.” He keeps saying that—trust me. “Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?”
“Well . . .” He did blow me off for homecoming without so much as a sorry and doesn’t seem to remember or care about it.
“Have I?” He does things I would never do—breaks into houses without a care in the world, explores the world around him in the eye of a storm, surfs in the face of oncoming hurricanes. But he also delivered supplies to a relative in need, saved Mere’s compass, and cared for me when I needed him. This situation is morphing into a whole lot of confusing.
But here I am lifting my leg to the top of the railing, very ungracefully I might add, and standing on the shaky contraption. But I can’t be certain whether it’s the railing that’s shaking or my legs. Something is trembling enough to rattle my teeth, though. Finn grips my legs around my knees. His fingers feel terrifying and tender all at the same time. I want to tell him to let go, that I’ve got this, but I don’t. I can’t stand up here alone.
I open one eye a sliver, biting down on my lower lip and bracing for the plummet to my death. Instead, I exhale. He’s right. The scenery is beautiful, like an Ansel Adams photograph. Strokes of ash paint the sky. Ebony ink colors the sea. Pearly waves crash on aged-ivory sand. I never knew something so devoid of color could be so beautiful.
I drink in the pre-dawn beauty with Finn. The wind brushes my cheeks like stiff feathers. The sea oats flap, the ocean churns, the world rushes around us. Nature scuttles in a million different directions but in perfect harmony, like a well-trained orchestra. The wind, the water, the oats bend and roll and sway in rhythm.
Then a frantic, out-of-sync movement catches my eye. Careful not to move my lower body, I tilt my head, peering into the darkness down near the beach. The angry ocean has already devoured the first row of dunes. But farther back, tangled in what appears to be one of those silt fences used to protect the receding dunes, is a struggling animal—a large, struggling animal.
“Finn?”
He doesn’t hear me. “Finn?” I reach behind me for his hand. When I glance over my shoulder, he looks up at me, eyebrows raised.
“There’s something out there on the dunes.”
“Huh?” he asks as he helps me down to the deck. “What is it?”
I open my mouth to speak, but my voice hangs in my throat. He grips both my shoulders. “What is it, Sophie?”
I wave a hand near my face as if that will somehow help me swallow or jump-start my voice or both. He steadies his eyes on my face and waits.
“It’s . . . it’s a horse. One of the wild ponies is trapped out there on the dunes.” I grab his hand, then pull him toward the stairs leading down to the boardwalk that intersects with the main road below. “We have to do something.”
“I don’t see how—”
“I don’t either. But it’s there. Maybe it swam around the fence or maybe there’s a break somewhere. I don’t know. Maybe it jumped a fence.”
He stares at me skeptically.
I yank him toward the boardwalk. “We have to do something,” I say again.
He leans back, digging his flip-flops i
n and not moving. “I’m not sure. That surf is dangerous even for me,” he shouts over the wind.
“Really?” My heart races. “This is the one time you’re going to play it safe? I can’t believe it. When there’s an actual reason to take a risk, you’re going to pass?”
He winces as though I slapped him.
I charge down the boardwalk without a backward glance. Halfway to the road, my toe catches on a loose board. I skid across several slick boards and then across gritty sand, crashing and burning in epic style. I lie facedown for a second—afraid to move, afraid I broke something important, like an ankle. When I work up the nerve to test my limbs and joints, everything seems to be in working order. The shoulder doesn’t seem any worse than it already was. As I roll to my back, Finn drops to his knees beside me.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod, thankful he doesn’t crack a joke about my clumsiness.
He reaches for my hand. “Back there.” He gestures toward the church up the hill. “I wasn’t thinking about me when I said we should wait. I was thinking about you being hurt.”
I glance down at my shoulder. The home remedies mixed with the two Tylenol are doing their job, but there’s still some tenderness there. I won’t be ready for an intense upper-body workout anytime soon. Sudden movement still makes the world tilt a bit. But the horse’s dire situation did briefly distract me from my own pain and unsteadiness.
I accept his hand, allowing him to help me to my feet. “My shoulder is fine.” I twist my face into a smile. It’s kind of hard with sand gritting my teeth and lips, but I’m determined.
He brushes a lock of tangled hair off my cheek. “If we’re going to save the horse, we might need to keep ourselves alive for the time being.” His mouth is set in a firm line, but I’m pretty sure he’s trying not to laugh at me.
He clutches my hand as we cross the deserted road and cut a trail between two widely spaced oceanfront mansions. Crashing waves overpower the wind and our senses as we near the beach. We pause at the top of a sandy hill to scan the dunes. Bits and pieces of the silt fence wind back and forth through sea oats, brush, and sand, but we see no sign of the pony.
