Wreckage (24 page)

He never returned to the shelter after that day. I still don’t know why and David is unwilling to discuss it, so now we play the avoidance game. When we do speak, it’s only about food or the weather.

As I step out of my tattered old cutoffs I try to shake feelings of abandonment off with them. Whatever reason he’s staying away, I have no other choice than to let him. Pulling the green cotton tee over my head, I unwind the string that holds my hair in place and shake the dirty curls down my back. I hike up the remains of my beige underwear, hanging even lower than the week before. I never thought I could lose my appetite but I guess becoming a murderer will do that to you. Shoving the shirt and shorts into my makeshift laundry bag, I wade out into the ocean. The water’s heavenly, as always. It’s the way Josh and Daniel used to like their bathwater, warm but not hot.

Nope. Not thinking about that today. I put the pack of clothes on a large rock settled in the middle of the shallow lagoon. The water here comes up to my waist and is perfect for laundry.

After washing the pile of clothes and setting them out to dry, I dunk beneath the water and slide out of my bra and underwear, hanging them on the rock to be washed after I bathe. Then, unzipping the black makeup bag, I fumble through half a dozen tiny refilled bottles of watery shampoo, pulling out my favorite gardenia scent, the one Margaret swiped from the Marriott by our house before leaving on our trip. She’d already used most of it by the time we left Fiji, but it’s the last scent I remember of her and I save this one for the most special or most desperate times. The last time I used it was Christmas Day, when David made me that coral necklace and Kent was still alive.

I massage my scalp, the scabs finally all gone and little rough tufts of new hair growing in like sproutlets in spring. The tiny drop of shampoo I spilled into my palm barely suds up but it still smells amazing. I let the delicate scent tickle my nose and imagine that I’m in a hotel room, with wonderfully ugly pictures filling the walls and the beds covered in stiff floral bedspreads.

Just as I’m about to rinse off, the familiar feeling of someone watching sends a chill through me, goose bumps coursing up my arms. Crouching low in the water, I use one arm to cover myself and the other to grab the hanging undergarments. I know the only other person on the island is David, but somehow I’m searching the beach for a stranger.

I pull on the sagging underwear and toss the tied together bra straps over my shoulders. So what if they don’t get washed this week? Leaving the other items that need to be washed, I push my way through the tide toward the beach. I don’t know where my courage is coming from. Mostly it’s a desperate desire to never be taken by surprise again.

“Hello? Who’s there?” I shout, my voice quivering in an annoyingly weak way. “David, is that you?”

When I step onto the hot beach, a man’s figure breaks the tree line. A scream claws its way up my throat until my brain registers that it’s David.

“Oh, you scared me!” I laugh nervously. “Do you have more laundry?”

David shakes his head in slow motion, working very hard to not make eye contact. “No, um . . . I wanted to tell you to be safe out there. I was fishing earlier and the undertow is very strong today.”

“All right, I’ll do my best.” Nothing’s changed. Cocking my head to the side, I try to look into his eyes. Usually, if I look long enough, I understand him better. A single inky curl hangs across his forehead, and those eyes, so deep blue I can get lost in them.

“Your hair’s down,” he mumbles, like he’s just waking up. Reaching out with one finger, he outlines a cluster of curls. I’ve missed his touch. The heat pulsing from his palm pulls me in and I nuzzle my cheek against his fiery hot hand. He takes a shaky breath making my heart race loudly.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I say, closing my eyes. A tear squeezes out and runs down my cheek. David’s thumb traces the salty wet trail. I open my eyes, expecting to see that giant wall I’ve been throwing myself against for weeks. All I see is David . . . and something else, something new. There’s a glimmer that makes my pulse pound and skin tingle.

Using his fingertips, he follows my jaw, leaving a prickling trail behind them. He wipes his thumb across my lower lip, which tastes salty from my tear. Beyond thinking, I lean forward, lips parting hungrily.

His eyes dart between my mouth and my eyes, gauging my expressions, reading my desire. It’s impossible to think about anything but his mouth on mine, how he’d pull me into his arms and we’d melt together, forgetting about everything but the two of us. My body wants it, my heart wants it, and I hope David wants it too. Reaching, I run my hand across his bearded cheek, down his neck, pulling him toward me. Then he freezes. Letting his hand fall from my face, he pushes me backward toward the water and away from his arms.

“I’d better go,” he says, clearing his throat. Shame and disgust are written on his face, and then, turning on his heel, he’s gone.

What was that?
My feet slap against the water-soaked sand as I rush into the ocean, diving as soon as the water’s deep enough.

The waves crash above me as I coast under the water like I belong here. Even when the momentum of my dive runs out, I stay under until my lungs burn. I like this burn. It’s a different kind than before on the beach with David, less consuming, more cleansing. If I stay down here long enough will it burn him out of me? Then maybe I won’t need him anymore. I hate how much I need him.

I can hold my breath for a long time but when the undertow starts tugging me out toward the reef, I head for the surface. Wiping salt from my eyes, I wish I could rub out David just as easily.

I hastily finish my bath and then clean my extra set of clothes, beating them against the rough stone and rubbing sand on any dark spots. Rummaging around on the top of the rock I pull down the last dirty item, David’s old khakis. I can wiggle my entire hand through a hole in his right knee. He has an ongoing debate with himself on whether he should simply rip off the bottom half. One day it’s just going to fall off and that’ll be the end of that. Dunking the ragged material under the water, I wash them quickly and then lay them out on the rock with the rest of the laundry. I’m finished but I don’t want to return to camp, so I lie back in the water and float, staring up at the sky.

A storm’s rolling in from the west; it’s in the air. Dark storm clouds crowd the horizon, slowly encroaching on the tranquil blue above me. For an extremely brief moment I let myself think about Jerry and the boys, how during the summer thunderstorms Jer would sit on our deck under the awning watching the rain fall, how our kids were the only ones in the neighborhood who slept
better
during thunderstorms.

That familiar gnawing ache of separation spreads through my chest and I remind myself not to hope. For all I know Jerry’s dating again, the boys calling her mom, looking for
her
kisses on scraped knees, and I’m no more than a picture relegated to the top of the piano and the children’s nightstand. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force those thoughts away, the ravaging thoughts that haunt me. It takes a deep roll of thunder that vibrates my bones to make the thoughts scatter like rats into the dark corners of my subconscious. The storm’s almost here. I have to get back.

Out of breath and arms shaking, I arrive at the shelter in relatively good time just as the rain moves in with staggered heavy drops. Thankfully, the fire’s still burning. Tossing the sopping wet pack into our shelter, I grab the fire cover we made when the rains started to come through. Some days the lean-to structure made of sticks and leaves and bits of life raft is enough to prevent the fire going out during a storm and other times it isn’t. Making a new fire is difficult and we’ve done our best to avoid it, especially now that Kent’s gone. Kent. Even thinking his name hurts, especially in those bald parts of my head where the scabs used to be. I push him out of my mind and quickly hang the clothes off the rods of bamboo lining the front of our roof so they can dry some before the monsoon explodes from the sky. Otherwise, we’ll be stuck with damp, stinky clothes until the storm breaks and I’ll have to wash them all over again.

I shake sand out of my jean shorts and throw on damp clothes before pulling down the cracked yellow sheeting scavenged from the raft. Two of the four sides are long enough to reach the bamboo floor so I can tie them down. The other two flap uselessly in the wind. The rain explodes just as I curl up in the corner where the back wall and a piece of raft meet, keeping me fractionally dry. Where’s David? I hate that he’d rather tough out a rainstorm with no shelter than stay dry in the same room with me.

When the wind hits, I rush to pull down the semi-dry clothing, laying them flat inside the shelter. When all the clothes are safe, I climb under the woven palm-frond blanket. The temperature’s fallen at least ten degrees and the fire’s dwindling. Without the warmth of Margaret’s suit coat, still wet and lying out with the other laundry, my teeth start chattering. I should be used to this, lying here, cold and alone. My body seems to remember those times too, shaking from the inside out. What did I do that first night on the island, sitting in the sand with Margaret’s corpse on my lap? Back then I thought of better times, of home and family. I pinch my eyes closed, as if to keep out the wind and keep in the memories.

I’m surprised at the face looking back at me. Today, it’s not Jerry’s face, it’s David’s. David teaching me to fish and laughing on the plane with me before the crash, how white and straight his teeth looked and how fresh his skin smelled when he held me while Kent stitched my shoulder. It doesn’t take long for images to bombard me like the coming rainstorm. Those were my good times, when he smiled and we were friends, before I killed a man to save his life and he abandoned me so inexplicably.

A crash of damp air floods beneath the blanket, interrupting my memories. I reach out to yank the woven cover down but I’m shivering so hard I can barely unfold my fingers. Then David’s warm hands are on me, rubbing my arms.

“Lily, are you all right?” I’m too cold to speak so I nod, jerkily. “You’re frozen,” he whispers. “Where’s your coat?”

“Over th-th-there,” I stutter. “It’s w-w-wet.”

He slips his arms around me and I press my torso against his, needing his body heat more than air. He isn’t wearing a shirt and the overgrown hair on his chest tickles my face. I pull in tighter, pressing my frozen toes against his feet, still warm from the sand. My right leg slips naturally in between his, locking us together. He smells like wind and salt.

It’s so good to be held again, to listen to the beat of his heart with my head on his chest and to feel the way our skin melds together in the spots where flesh meets flesh. I let out a little sigh and wrap my arms around his rib cage, thinking about nothing more than how I can get closer to the velvety heat pulsing from his body. Soon, all my muscles relax.

“Better?”

“Mmmm,” I mumble. “So much better. You’re the best. Thank you, David.” Wiggling up a little to speak, I nuzzle into his neck, his beard soft as fleece against my cheek. I could stay here all day.

David seems to have a different idea. As soon as the word “better” leaves my lips he starts untangling our limbs, pushing me away toward the wall of the shelter.

“What’re you doing?” I cry. “You can’t go yet, that was so warm.” Childishly I hold on. The more insistently he pushes, the tighter my arms coil around him. I don’t want to be alone anymore.

“I . . . I need to go get some food for lunch. You’ll be hungry after all that shivering.” He tenses up against me, like a pillow turning into a rock. It’s so obvious; he’s making an excuse to leave because he can’t stand being around me.

“I’m not hungry,” I say through gritted teeth, digging my fingers into his shoulders. “I don’t want you to leave yet.”

“Well, that’s nice for you but
I
want to leave.” He takes his left hand off my shoulder where he’d been pushing me away, grabs the wrist on my right hand and pries it off his arm. One quick roll to the left and he’s gone, leaving an overwhelming coldness in the empty space beside me.

“Is it possible you hate me that much?” I stand up, letting the palm frond blanket fall away, shaking again, this time from anger. “Do I disgust you so much you can’t even sleep in the same room with me? You once told me you couldn’t survive alone but that’s exactly what you’re sentencing me to—a life on this island of complete solitude. How dare you do that to me! You have every right to hate me for what I made you do to get rid of Kent but . . .”

“Hate you?” David says. He sits halfway out of the shelter staring into the ocean, his hair filling with rainwater. “I don’t hate you.”

“Well, you don’t
like
me, that’s for sure. All you do is run away and I’m tired of running after you.”

“Then stop,” he says, popping his
p
. “Stop coming after me, Lily. It’ll be better for everyone.”

“I thought we were best friends,” I say, inching forward. “I thought we meant something to each other. Look at everything we’ve been through. Don’t you miss me at all, David?” I put my icicle hand on his shoulder. He flinches away.