Reckless Girls(15)
Give it time.
Nothing you feel is wrong.
There will always be a before and an after, and you have to learn to live in the after.
That was the one Brittany liked the most. “In the After” is tattooed in curling script on the inside of her wrist now, slightly hidden by the beaded bracelets she’s currently wearing. She’d gotten the tattoo just before they’d left on this trip, a pledge to enjoy life again.
That’s what traveling around Europe was supposed to be about: seeing new things, exploring new places, and cementing the bond between them with new memories. Otherwise, they were only friends because the same horrible thing had happened to each of them. They wanted to be friends because they’d chosen each other. They wanted to have a story they could tell that wouldn’t make people wince, their eyes widen, their lips wobble with sympathy or, worse, pity.
We’ll tell people we met in college, Brittany had said. Instant best friends.
In the same history class, Amma had added. Maybe a sorority. Did the backpacking thing our senior year.
They could almost see it, this fun house mirror version of themselves, where they were normal.
Now, Amma hugs Brittany again, wrapping her other arm around her. “Tomorrow is going to be better,” she says.
Brittany practically shoves Amma away as she says, “Jesus, did you just follow me out here to be a human fortune cookie?”
Another thing Amma is getting used to, these sudden shifts, as though every mood Brittany ever has is always right there at the surface, waiting to burst forth. Amma understands it, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t tired of it.
No, I followed you out here because you were crying like a lunatic again, and you’re the one with a fucking fortune cookie saying literally inked on your skin, so maybe take a seat, Britt.
The harsh words are right there on her tongue, so heavy she can almost taste them, and Amma imagines how good it would feel to say what she actually thinks—but it would only last for a few moments, and then the regret would set in. Besides, they still have two more weeks on this trip and one more country to get through together before they head back home to New Hampshire. A fight now would just ruin everything.
“I’m just trying to help,” Amma says instead, the words pale and weak, and Brittany sighs as she wraps her arms tightly around her body, hugging her elbows. Her skin is faintly blue in the moonlight, and once again, Amma wishes they’d stayed in Paris where they could ease this tension with a late-night drink or a mad dash through the city streets, finding boys named Etienne and Alexandre to flirt with in dim cafés.
Instead, they’re in the sad backyard of a sad suburban hostel, and when Brittany says, “I don’t think you can help. I don’t think anyone can,” Amma thinks to herself, This was a mistake.
She tells herself she means choosing the hostel.
But she knows better.
For such a small atoll, Meroe Island is overstuffed with legend. Named for the HMS Meroe, a frigate that was shipwrecked there in 1821, the atoll is, from the water, a veritable Eden, a child’s storybook ideal of an island. There is little hint of the dangers that await you once you have set foot on its sandy beaches. Impenetrable jungle and a dearth of fresh water are the first challenges, but there are others. The fish that swim in the lagoon are beautifully and brightly colored, yet poisonous, and therefore inedible. A small but deadly species of shark swims through the crystalline waters. Insects buzz and bite, carrying with them all manner of tropical fevers.
And yet for all that, perhaps the most dangerous element of Meroe is what the island seems to do to those who tarry there too long. A sort of madness sets in when one is away from society for too long, when one looks out to the horizon and sees only sea and sky.
—Rambles and Recollections: My Travels in the South Pacific by Lord Christopher Ellings, 1931
NOW
SEVEN
My morning watch on the ship ends as the sun comes up.
The sky almost looks like it’s on fire, and the soft pinks I’m accustomed to are instead a blazing red, bleeding into orange.
The colors are reflected in the glass-like surface of the ocean all around us, and even though it’s beautiful, my stomach sinks.
Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.
It was one of the first things Nico taught me when he was teaching me about sailing. Looking at this bloodred sky right now, it’s hard to imagine a storm heading our way, but I can almost smell it on the air, a hint of a cold, metallic tinge.
Nico pops his head out of the cabin and frowns. “Fuck,” he mutters, and then he’s gone again.
Alarm skitters up my spine, and I follow him below.
He’s sitting at the table in the galley, scowling at a weather radar map open on his laptop. When I come closer, he taps at a big blob of green on the screen. “There it is,” he says, and the simple phrase makes my knees watery. “Not too big, and if we alter course now, I think we can mostly skate around the edges of it, but…” He releases a breath, ruffling his hair. “I’m not gonna lie, it’s gonna get a little gnarly.”
“What exactly is your definition of ‘a little gnarly’?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest, but before he can answer, the door to the cabin opens. Brittany appears, with a loose and faded T-shirt slipping off one of her tanned shoulders, her dark hair a tangled mess as she looks at us with sleepy eyes. “Something wrong?” she asks, and I shake my head even as Nico says, “We’re just in for a bit of rough weather.”