Page 16 of Hate Wrecked

RILEY

Be careful what you wish for. I wanted to be close to him again, in a confined space, breathing his air.

And now I’m in a tent on an island with Rowan Finn, and my heart isn’t racing, but aching. I want to numb it or let it free.

But I can do neither.

He crawls in after me, the fire just outside the entrance of the bunker burning low. There’s space between our sleeping bags, but it doesn’t feel like it. I can hear him breathing, the movement of his body as he rustles against the tent, the floor, and the fabric of his sleeping bag.

I’m facing his sleeping bag on my side, slightly angled toward the tent’s opening so I can see out.

When Rowan lies down, he lets out a breath. “I’m a light sleeper, Riley. You don’t have to watch the door. We’ll be fine.”

“I have a hard time sleeping anywhere that isn’t home.”

Rowan sighs. “With all your travel, I don’t think that’s good.”

“It isn’t good, but that’s the reality. What would you suggest? A stiff drink to take the edge off? Some pills? I know how you feel about those.”

“Alcohol doesn’t help you sleep”—Rowan says in a holier than thou tone that I somehow find comforting—“contrary to what you believe.”

I decide to bait him as a distraction from my dark thoughts. “I don’t know. I pass out pretty quickly after a few,” I remark, though he knows.

“Passing out and sleeping are not the same thing.”

It’s easy to get Rowan going on a topic he’s passionate about to pull his attention from the horrible things happening around us.

We need sleep—good sleep to start the day tomorrow. We’re going to load all of our supplies into the lifeboat and sail to the largest island in the atoll.

“Why is there no one missing you right now?” I ask.

Rowan turns toward me slightly. “What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

I see Rowan roll his eyes in the dim light. “Why won’t you let this go?”

“When I would remember you, I remembered you as someone who wanted love,” I whisper, sitting up.

“Sounds desperate.” Rowan sighs. “And what you remember of me? That person is gone, Riley. I had to grow up in that city. There was no room for softness in my profession. I learned it quickly with your family.”

I lie back down, pulling my eyes from Rowan as he moves around—the sound comforting. “He wasn’t my family. He was a mistake. Another one of my mother’s mistakes that I paid for. That my sisters paid for.”

Rowan sits up, hugging his knees. I glance at him. He’s shirtless, in his boxers. When did he take his clothes off? I close my eyes.

We wear similar wounds. He with his father. Me with my mother. Parental figures who let us down changed our reality. Yet, they’re human beings who exist and try. And though we know that, where does forgiveness lie dormant? And how long will it hide away?

I bite my tongue, then sit up again, eyes watching the fire, my body wholly attuned to Rowan’s.

I want to touch him. “Sometimes, I wonder who I would be if she’d never married him.

Would I have turned out differently, or is this just who I am at the core?

Was I destined for this path no matter what? ”

Rowan shakes his head. “You can’t give other people that kind of power.”

“Are you going to stop doing that yourself? Or just chastise me for it? You’re not that much older than me, Rowan. You’re not some almighty philosopher because you have a few years on me.”

“I know.”

“So are you going to lay off?” I ask.

Rowan smiles at me and shakes his head before lying down and turning away from me. “Never.”

I scoff. “Well, think about laying off when we get home.”

Rowan shifts. “When we get out of here you’ll be back to your old life, and all of this will be over. You won’t have to think about this anymore.”

Think about my hands on a dead man ’ s flesh?

Or think about Rowan close to me like I have wanted for years?

I can’t enjoy it; I can’t feel the warmth of it. All I feel is that I am slipping out of shock and into something much worse. What is this feeling? Like a hole in my chest is deepening. Like the mouth of the volcano we are sitting on.

I change my voice to my actress voice, staring at the tent ceiling.

“Elderslie Island is actually an Atoll. The mouth of a volcano. That’s what created this stunning shoreline we see before us today.

” I flourish a hand to the tent ceiling and Rowan rolls over, giving me a look that asks me what the fuck I am doing.

I continue. “From fire and ruin comes life.”

“From destruction. Not always, though,” he whispers. I know his back is to me, a physical manifestation of how he has felt to me for years. A turned back—someone who wants nothing to do with me. And can I blame him? No, I can’t.

I continue my recitation of the facts Rowan told me.

Anything to keep my mind from racing to the past. Both recent and long past. I let my words push away the feeling of withdrawal in my body, the slow death of my want for vices.

I’ll feel worse in the morning. I never should have taken those pills at the hotel. But I didn’t want to feel.

I wanted to fade to black. To drown in the past and all of my mistakes—choosing the wrong man to give my heart to. Choosing the snake over the warm smile of the man next to me. The man who’s had a constant scowl since he picked me up at that airport.

And I feel tomorrow will bring everything but the smiles I used to light up for.

* * *

I wake suddenly during the night, looking over at Rowan to check if he’s awake. He seems to be sleeping peacefully; I can hear his breathing. But my eyes need a moment to adjust.

Outside, I can hear the waves and another low sound. I close my eyes and try to place it. It’s the fire, almost extinguished, but I can still hear it.

I open my eyes once more, staring at the top of the tent until shapes and muted colors begin to appear. I feel trapped. Claustrophobic. I can’t leave the tent without waking Rowan, and I don’t want to disrupt that. He needs sleep after the day we had yesterday. A damn nightmare.

We buried a man. We buried him. He died taking us to this paradise, taking Rowan to his island, and taking me away from my life, from the trail of my mistakes.

My breathing picks up, and I clutch my chest. I can’t have a panic attack, I can’t, but I can feel it coming over me. Tears spill out, sliding down the side of my face, spilling onto the sleeping bag beneath me.

I clench my eyes and try to count, try to repeat a mantra. But I can’t remember the words. I can’t remember anything except how the boat jarred when we hit the reef, how I flew across the boat, hitting my head before Rowan rescued me, pulling me up, cradling my head to his chest.

I reach up, touching the tender spot on my head, wincing. It feels good to feel.

I’ve been numb since we held each other on the beach. Since Rowan put his arms around me. I’m not disillusioned enough to think it’ll happen again. He’s in survival mode now, and I need to be, too.

As soon as he wakes, we will crawl out of this tent, and we will find a way to get word back home. There will be people looking for us. Won’t there?

As far as the world knows, I got on that plane.

A grip of fear punches me in the chest, and I almost rustle Rowan awake, making him reassure me that it’ll all be okay,

But I don’t. It’s not the time for me to beg him to console me or to help me. I lost that privilege years ago—a lifetime ago. I don’t recognize him now. He is rigid and hard, grown and not the young man I knew with an open heart and eyes that traced over me.

Now, it’s all hard glances and scowls.

I turn on my side, staring at Rowan’s profile. I can see the shadow of his jaw and the slow movement of his chest.

His palm rests on his ribcage. I reach out, hesitating, and Rowan pulls in a loud breath, making me pull my hand back.

I want him to want me to touch him. I want the past, but I can’t have it, so I choose to lie on my side, facing him, watching his breathing. I only get a second or two before his voice surprises me, making me jump. “Go back to sleep, Riley.”

“I can’t.”

At this, Rowan’s eyes open, and I stare at the movement of his long eyelashes. “Yeah, me either.”

“What time do you think it is? Did I wake you up?”

“You didn’t wake me up, not really. I was…drifting in and out.”

“Oh, okay.”

“It might be, I don’t know, about five a.m.?” He looks over to the side of the tent. “Sun should be coming up over there soon.”

“Let’s get up then,” I say, pushing up.

Rowan doesn’t move. “I don’t want to. Not yet.”

A voice in my head whispers to me. He ’ s scared. Me too, I say back. Out loud, it seems.

“What?” Rowan asks, turning to me.

“Yeah, me too. I don’t wanna get up yet. I lie back down, studying his quizzical brow in the dim light.

He shakes his head, then looks away. After a moment, he talks again, low and sad. “We don’t have to talk about what we did. Not until it’s time to tell someone. But you and I, we don’t have to talk about it.”

My heart hurts, and I don’t know whether to hug him or shake him. Bury it? Should we talk about it? I don’t know. I need someone to tell me what to do here. My father. My mother. Anyone. I nod my head. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”

“It’s what you want. Trust me.”

“Okay,” I say again, turning to lie on my back. I can’t look at him now; I can’t hear that gruff voice, that cracking. It’s too much like a warning.

My grief is thick in my throat, only to be pushed aside when I hear something outside our tent. I sit up, glancing at Rowan and noticing his wide eyes. He heard it, too.

He doesn’t hesitate, pushing up and moving to the opening of the tent, peering out into the early morning darkness enveloping the sky. I stay still as he leaves the bunker, walking into the early morning light.

The moments pass, slow and agonizing, until finally I hear him say my name, and when I walk out of the tent, into the jungle, finding Rowan returned, he’s smiling.

As Rowan turns to me, a surprising and mischievous spark gleaming in his eyes, he whispers, “You won’t believe this,” he says, beckoning me from the shadows.

Curiosity and grief mingle within me as I join him at the entrance to the bunker.

Together, we make our way through the jungle to the shoreline.

The first light of dawn illuminates the sky, revealing a breathtaking sight that defies the solitude of our island.

In the distance, a pod of dolphins dances through the waves, their sleek bodies catching the faint glow of the approaching sunrise.

Their leaps and splashes break the silence, and tears spring to my eyes.

Rowan’s smile widens as he looks at me, his eyes filled with a wonder I haven’t been graced with in years.

For a moment, the heaviness of what we had to do falls away.

We share a silent acknowledgment that even in our isolation, the world unfolds in ways we cannot explain or fathom.

Leaving Rowan’s side, I turn my gaze to the yacht stranded just offshore.

Life and death. Danger and awe. I shut my eyes, relishing the colors that blend into the sky at the horizon.

Palm trees dance in the wind as I stroll along the shoreline, warm sand beneath my feet.

In this moment, worries about the crash and the uncertainty of our situation fade like the end of a song.