The Ones We're Meant to Find(44)

Silence.

Kasey pressed UNMUTE. “I do.”





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I STEP OFF THE PIER and stroke into the sea. I don’t tire. Don’t falter. I go as far as the horizon, and beyond. The sun rises, transmuting the water around me to gold. I could swim for days.

But I stop when I see the empty sky.

There used to be a city suspended in the air, made of disks of varying diameters but all stacked together, forming a 3D teardrop.

Now it’s in flaming pieces, bobbing in the ocean, and there isn’t a soul in sight.

“Kay!” Her name bursts from my lips before the thought shudders through my brain—that this is our home. Was our home, before I somehow ended up on the island. “Kay!”

A hunk of metal floats past me, sending up a wave. I swim faster, into the wreckage, but I’m too late. I spent too long on the island, too long building my boat, too long with Hero, the boy who washed ashore.

I stop swimming and sink.

Too late …

Too late …

I wake with a start.

Choke on salt water.

It’s under my chin. Under my toes. All around me. Sea, and nothing else.

So this is how it is. A nightmare within a nightmare. A wave claps over me. Salt water rips up my sinuses. I breathe it in to wake up faster.

But I don’t wake. The sea spits me back out, swallows me again, and again, and in between the rounds it sinks in: It’s finally happened.

I’ve woken up in the ocean.

My senses return. I’ve lost the clogs on my feet, but I’ve still got on M.M.’s cargo pants and sweater, and they’re weighing me down. Come the next wave, I duck under, shucking both. Breaking the surface, I try to orient myself. The steel-blue waters are never-ending, but my eyes latch on to a smear of beige in the distance.

The shore.

I throw everything I have into the swim. Sand scrapes my knees—in the shallows finally. I part crawl, part paddle, the surf growing feeble but I am too. For a moment, I don’t think I’m going to make it. The sea tugs at me, refusing to let go.

Then I’m being lifted out of the water. Arms wrap around my shoulders and brace under my knees. The cold assault of air is agony. I see his face, his lips, forming a name that looks like mine. I try to say his—Hero—but my mouth won’t move. My scalp is too tight. Any moment now, my skull’s going to burst through, and— And—

And—

And—



* * *



For a while after I come to, I lie, alone, in the dim of M.M.’s bedroom, remembering everything that happened. Waking up in the ocean. Swimming to the shore. Blacking out from the pain—the worst I’ve ever felt.

There’s no pain now. No feeling at all. My limbs feel like newly set gelatin. My arms won’t support me when I try to sit up, and my head bangs into the headboard on my way back down. A curse rips from my lips, and the door whips back on its hinges. Hero rushes to the bedside. He helps me up. He hands me water I didn’t realize I desperately needed until it’s trembling in my hands. I drain it. He sets the emptied glass on the rocking chair, then sits beside me, the mattress dimpling.

I look at him. He looks at me.

I know what we’re both thinking: I woke up in the ocean today. I warned him last night this could happen, but now that it’s actually happened, it’s scary. Ten times scarier than falling off the ridge. I should address it.

“About today…” I look down at the blanket in my lap, suddenly at a loss for words. I feel stripped bare of my usual defenses and when Hero’s arms go around me, I let myself be enfolded. I bury my face into the scratchy knit of his sweater and let myself be cradled. I don’t need saving—but honestly? I wouldn’t mind it, every now and then. Certainly didn’t mind it today. I’m tired. Tired of chopping down trees and wearing ugly sweaters and eating the same three things. I miss Kay. I miss my life of sequined dresses and fancy mashed potatoes and boys— Scratch that. The boy I have here does just fine.

“So,” I start when I begin to feel more like myself. I push back from Hero’s chest to make myself audible. “Still up for beach yoga?”

He peers at me through his lashes. “Was that what today was?”

“Advanced-advanced. What, scared?”

“Very,” he admits. “But sign me up.”

“Done. We meet at eight a.m.”

Speaking of time … I glance toward the window.

“You were out for a day,” supplies Hero.

A day. My gut knots. Even if it was a dream, the fear of finding Kay too late is very real, and now my sleepwalking habit has sent me an ultimatum: Find Kay or drown.

Good thing Leona’s almost built. I just need to tie all the logs together and fashion the oar.

When I’m feeling up to it, and with Hero’s help, I make it onto the porch, down the steps, and to the house side, where— The sand beside the rocks is empty.

No Leona.

No logs.

No pieces on the beach, when we scour. And we do, for hours, until at last, I go back to the house and stand by the hollow in the sand where Leona should be but she’s not. Not coming back. I have to accept it.

Leona is gone.



* * *



This time around, I don’t even have the heart to despair. I tell Hero I need a moment alone, then head straight for the sunken pier and stare hard at the horizon, mind churning.