Reckless Girls(5)

On family vacations, that is, staying at the nicest resorts on the islands, places where I wouldn’t even be able to get a job scrubbing toilets. I don’t mention this. I’m assuming that they only see Nico as a beach bum, a friendly guy with a great smile and an even better body who works on boats and definitely has no idea which fork to use at a fancy dinner.

“What about you?” Brittany asks. As she reaches up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear, I notice a tattoo on her wrist. “Where were you before this?”

In the After.

I wonder what that means, if anything. Maybe it’s just a lyric from a Taylor Swift song I can’t bring to mind.

“I grew up in Nebraska,” I tell her. “But me and my mom moved to San Diego when I was a kid. That’s where I met Nico last year. He told me about his whole plan of sailing around the South Pacific. About how there were hundreds of islands that didn’t even have names, places that were barely on maps.” That had been the part I’d liked the most, if I was honest. The idea of going somewhere almost completely unknown.

“And you followed him?” Amma asks, cocking her head to one side.

I don’t like the way she says it, but it’s true. I hitched onto Nico’s dream because coming up with my own felt impossible, back then. Dreams were for people with money and time, people who didn’t feel hollowed out from watching the only person who loved them die in agony. Dreams were for people who had choices, opportunities. I didn’t believe I had any of those things.

But it’s not like I’m going to confess as much to Brittany and Amma. Instead, I shrug and smile. “I mean, you’ve seen him, can you blame me?”

Brittany laughs and nods, but Amma is still studying me. I feel like there’s more she wants to ask, but then Nico is back, four beers dangling from his fingertips.

“So,” he says, setting them down on the table. “Did you two tell Lux what we were just talking about?”

“We were getting to know her first,” Brittany says, giving me a little conspiratorial wink, like we’re already friends.

Nico squeezes in close to me, grinning as he sips his beer. “Babe,” he says, “you’re gonna love this.” He nods at Brittany. “Show her.”

Reaching into her back pocket, Brittany pulls out her phone. “Amma and I met freshman year of college,” she begins, and Amma nods.

“Western civ. So fucking boring.” Brittany smiles. “But ever since, we’ve been talking about taking this big trip once we graduated. This is our last stop, and we wanted something special. Something different than what every sorority girl on vacation in Hawaii puts on their Instagram. Something … off the beaten path.”

She hands me her phone, and I realize I’m looking at a map. But it’s all light blue, the entire screen is nothing but ocean. It actually takes me a second to spot the tiny sand-colored dot in the middle of all that emptiness.

“It’s an island,” Amma says to me.

“An atoll,” Brittany corrects.

“An atoll is an island,” Nico says, leaning over my shoulder to look at the map. “Made of coral. They’re all over the place in this part of the world. During World War II—”

I hold up a hand. “Nico, I love you, but men talking about World War II gives me hives.”

Brittany laughs loudly, throwing her head back, her teeth very white in the glow from the Bud Light sign above our table. “Okay, I knew I liked you because of the cool name, but now I really like you.”

Amma smiles, but I see her posture stiffen slightly, and her gaze slides away for a moment.

“Anyway, I know this place,” Nico tells me. “Meroe Island. Named after a ship called the HMS Meroe that was wrecked there in the 1800s. The coral caused a lot of ships to go aground in the area. But the Meroe was the first big one, so I guess it got naming rights.”

“Did anyone survive?” Amma asks, propping one elbow on the table.

Nico shrugs. “The wreck? Yeah, pretty much everyone. But the island got them in the end. Crew of thirty-some dudes, whittled down to eight guys by the time they were rescued. There’s not much life out there to sustain you for long. You can fish, but the jungle is pretty rough from what I hear. And there’s no fresh water.”

“And you want to go there why?” I ask, handing Brittany her phone.

She shoves it back into her pocket. “I read about it a couple of years ago on this travel blog. Nico’s right, it’s hardcore and everything, but it was also…” Her gaze goes a little dreamy, slightly unfocused. “I don’t know. It looked so beautiful. And remote. A real escape, you know?”

She laughs then, self-conscious. “Plus, it seems cool. To spend a little time off the grid.” She smiles and rolls her eyes. “I know, you’re probably thinking I’ve seen The Beach one too many times.”

“No,” I say, sipping my beer and grinning. “I was thinking you read The Beach too many times. You strike me as a book-before-the-movie kind of girl.”

She clinks her bottle against mine. “Fuck yeah.”

“The guy we wanted to take us wasn’t at the marina,” Amma adds. She’s peeled the whole label off her bottle now and is tearing it into small pieces. “But Nico was, so Brittany decided it was fate.”