The Ones We're Meant to Find(39)

Three logs short of setting sail.

I feel none of the joy I did when I finished Hubert. Instead, the taro patty sits like a boulder in my stomach, and I do everything slowly—checking my pack, climbing the ridge, even going through the grayscale meadow and its creepy shrines. I cut my trees with precision, trying to make each stroke count. All the while, the forest keeps on calling my name. Beckoning.

Cee.

Cee.

Cee.

Fuck it. I toss down the kitchen knife and rise. It’s just the foggy trees and the Shipyard, deeper in. What do I have to be afraid of?

I follow the call of my name, venturing into the trees. My steps, loud at first, quiet down as the pine cones underfoot decay. No beetles today. The island isn’t exactly a menagerie, crossing predators off my list of things to worry about. But as the fog thickens, strung between the trees like cobwebs, I’m also reminded of how alone I was before the boy washed up—and how alone he’ll be when I leave.

I shake off the thought. We’ve only known each other for one week. Kay and I have shared—and lost—years together. Nothing can compare, and when I reach the clearing in the forest and see the Shipyard, surrounded by the piles of junk I scavenged through to exhume Hubert, it rushes back. Every ridge crossing. The broken arms and ribs. The pain and joy and hopelessness, to have come so close and lost it all to a storm. But despite my worst fears, it didn’t take three more years to find another way off this island. This really is a best-case scenario. Leaving will hurt, but I’ll survive. Nothing can kill me. Kay is waiting. I hear her. Her voice—it’s coming from the pool.

Cee. An ash-gray leaf lands in the middle of it, quivering the surface. My ribs uncurl in reach, and I stumble to the pool rim, my face perfectly reflected in water still as glass.

It shatters as I step in.

The water closes over me. My thoughts dilute. My eyes open. The pool’s shockingly deep. I part the water before me like a curtain, revealing the bottom. It’s plush with moss and speckled with toadstools, some as small as pebbles, other as big as dinner plates, glazed with light from above. Shadows gather, cloudlike, as I dive deeper. The water goes on forever and ever, and at some point, I begin to see.

In color—just like my memories and dreams—I see Kay. We’re in a shoebox of a room, lying on the same bed and curled like kidneys, knee to knee. My fingers comb through her hair as I talk to her and my words appear on my hands, wrists, arms. They darken into bruises. The walls around us move away. Now I’m alone and speaking to a man in a white suit. Eighty years, he says, but I can’t wait that long, so I walk to the doorway and step out, into the ocean waiting beyond. Water licks my skin; the sun bakes it dry as I’m washed ashore. A woman runs out to greet me; she wears a baby-blue sweater with iron-on pugs. I gave her that sweater, and she gives me a mug of tea and together we go to see a wall of concrete, soaring into the sky.

The images come faster and faster.

And freeze.

I choke as something cuts into my midsection, digging in as it draws me up and up and up.

Turns out it’s the boy’s arm, a vise around my waist when we break the surface, and though it doesn’t feel like he’s trying to kill me, I still panic. “The fuck do you—”

I break off. My eyes widen, absorbing the turquoise water around us and the gem-green trees, hemming in the Shipyard.

Turquoise.

Green.

My vision blurs, unable to process. To focus. When it finally refocuses, it’s on the boy, his face mere centimeters from mine, his breaths ragged on my lips. His are pink. His hair is a dark, dark brown, strands matting his forehead. His eyes are the color of the sky.

Color.

Joules, I can see in color.

A voice worms through my sensory overload. It’s the boy’s, ordering to me swim.

Hard to obey when he’s holding on to me like a floatation device. “What are you doing?” I snap, pushing him before he can answer.

We separate with a splash. The boy sloshes backward, floundering, then regains control of his limbs. “What does it look like?” he snaps right back, treading the water.

“Like you’re trying to drown me.”

“I was saving you.” He spits out a leaf. “You weren’t moving!” he cries when I glare at him in disbelief. “And you were under for at least three minutes.”

Yeah, right. Three minutes, and I’d be blue in the face. I only choked on one mouthful of water, and guess who made me do that?

“I counted,” says the boy, swimming after me as I paddle to the rim. “I waited as long as I reasonably could and only jumped in when I had to.” Blah blah blah. I hoist myself out of the pool, flopping onto the green dandelions. “Because believe it or not—” The boy flops beside me, panting. “—this is not my idea of fun.” He glances to me. “Say something.”

“Sorry to break it to you, love, but I don’t need saving.”

“Got it,” says the boy, adopting my annoyed tone. “Will keep that in mind if you’re ever hanging off the edge of a cliff.” Then he sits upright and wrings out M.M.’s sweater. It’s blue. Brings out the color of his eyes.

“What?” he asks when he catches me staring.

I’m still peeved at his meddling, but also curious. “What color is my hair?”

“Black…?”