The Paper Swan(22)

I thought of all the nights I’d spent in temperature controlled clubs and restaurants, under artificial lights, drinking artificial cocktails with artificial friends. Artificial problems. Artificial drama. How many real, glorious nights had I missed? Nights like this, when the universe dances for you, and you become a tiny but beautiful note of the magical song it sings.

“Skye,” said Damian, but I couldn’t stop the tears.

It was like a great, big cleansing. All the good and bad and sad and glad broke loose.

I hated being weak in front of him. I hated when he picked me up and I clung to him. I hated when he carried me downstairs and put me in the shower. I hated when he wiped me dry and helped me dress. I hated when he put medicine and a fresh bandage on my finger. I hated when he tucked me in and turned off the lights. I hated that I wanted him to stay and hold me and stroke my hair, because that Stockholm syndrome shit? I hated that it was happening to me.





I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING to what sounded like dozens of canons being hurled into the sea. We were under attack—someone had caught up to us. I ran up the stairs, expecting to be surrounded by a fleet of boats, with my father holding a loudspeaker:

Come out with your hands in the air.

He’d see me and I was alive! And three kisses would turn into six, and nine, and twelve.

Thank God you got here, Dad, because it was just me and Damian, and he cut my finger, and I was surrounded by sharks, and he left me, but it was just dolphins, you see, and then I saw a real night, and something was starting to happen, and my head wasn’t right and—

There were no boats. No loudspeaker. No Dad.

We were anchored in the shadow of a steep cliff. Dozens of pelicans were diving into the water, and coming up with sardines for breakfast. Sometimes they hit the water at the same time and the resulting splashes sounded like shells exploding in a war zone.

Damian was swimming on the other side of the boat. His strokes were long and lean, and he was oblivious to the chaos around us. He had the perfect swimmer’s body—powerful legs, broad shoulders, narrow hips. He rotated his body left and then right, one shoulder out, as he breathed through each stroke. He was quiet and efficient, barely lifting his chin above the surface, but I was so focused on each inhalation that everything else faded—all the noise, all the birds—until there was only him, his breath, and the wet rasp of his lips. It was rhythmic and steady and forceful and mesmerizing and . . . overwhelmingly male.

Something clicked inside me at that moment. I stood outside of myself, realizing how easy it was to judge someone, to vilify and condemn the things we don’t understand, because:

OMG. How can she even THINK that way about the guy who kidnapped her? HE CUT HER FINGER OFF!

Or

That person should have known better than to get into the car with a stranger.

Or

How could she stay with him that long when he abused her day in and day out?

Or

Monster. He shot and killed his own family.

Because those are all things we’re not supposed to do, and yet inside of me was a kernel of the inexplicable from which dark things bloom, something I couldn’t understand or justify. I knew better than to romanticize my captor, but there it was—sick and twisted and disgusting as it was. And it scared me. It scared me because I saw a glimmer of all the terrifying things we’re capable of, because the human psyche is such a fragile thing, a yolk contained within a brittle shell—one crack and out it spills: a neighbor goes on a suicide mission, tribes massacre tribes, countries turn their faces away from injustices. And it all starts within, because within is where all things begin.

I ran to the bedroom and shut the door. I needed to barricade myself against . . . myself. I needed to think about foosball and Pacman and pizza with Nick—a triathlon of nice, normal things with a nice, normal guy—someone worth romanticizing.

“Breakfast.” There was no knocking or privacy or nice, normal courtesies with Damian. He just walked in.

We faced each other for the first time since my stupid, clingy breakdown the night before. I didn’t know where he’d slept, but he hadn’t come down after he put me to bed. He looked at me like he always did—intense and impenetrable. He must have showered because he smelled like absinthe and mint. And I really, really wanted him to smell like pelicans and sardines.

“We’ll be anchoring in Bahia Tortugas tonight,” he said as we ate. “We need to refuel and fill up the water tank.”

I had no idea where Bahia Tortugas was, but fuel and water meant some kind of port or marina, and that meant we’d be around people.