Page 5

Casting Off

Haley

I ’ve got two water bottles and a bunch of jerky in my backpack, plus the first aid kit, a knife, and some spare clothes for Calvin and Easton. I’m standing in the middle of camp, my eyes clenched. What else could we need?

No one else is anxious to go. Dante’s collecting all the extra stakes Calvin made from the fish weir. Sam’s on top of the lookout stand. And I’m not sure where Zane has got to.

It’s just Penny and me waiting to go. “We need to get moving. They’re wrong about this,” I say to her.

Penny cocks her head at me and lies at my feet, her head resting on her paws. If ever there was a “yup” from a dog, it’s now.

I clear my throat. “Hey,” I say. There’s no response. The three of them had been whirling around the camp like moths while I collected the supplies, and now there’s no one. “Hello?”

Where have they gone? I know Sam can’t hear me up on the platform over the wind, jungle noises, and the ocean’s roar. But I yell, “I’m going. Anyone who wants to go with me can. Or not. But I’m going.”

I haven’t lost my common sense. I won’t go alone.

But it’s something my mom did when I was just old enough to stay in the house by myself.

I’d tell her I didn’t want to go to the store.

She’d wander around finding her car keys, her cloth bags.

She was one of the first to bring her own bags to the store.

It sent me into a spiral of embarrassment—her neatly folded canvas bags with pictures of a cartoon earth with big burly arms giving a thumbs up.

I still have those bags—well, back in the garage in Maryland, slowly rotting.

Mom, I need you.

That’s the thing. We’re all too busy floundering around in our day-to-day to appreciate things. My mom’s Chanel No. 5. Her stack of overstuffed bags bouncing around in the back of her hatchback. The way Calvin looks at Pepper when he’s scratching her belly. Easton deep-diving to find me pearls.

What if I never see them again?

What if I never see them again? It sticks in my throat.

I’ve been a fool.

I love them, all of them. Calvin’s told me he loves me.

He’s said it multiple times. But I’ve never said it back.

And Easton? The day we buried the diamonds, I thought he was going to say it.

He loves me. I know he does. My stomach twists.

I didn’t tell them out of fear. Fear they would disappear into the wind when we got off this island, that they’ll leave me like Steven, like my mom, my dad. Like everyone I’ve ever loved.

It’s stupid. So stupid. These guys are nothing like Steven. Not even close.

I drop to my knees in the dust next to the slab Dante uses as a kitchen counter.

Penny crawls a few feet closer to me so that her cool nose is pressing against my leg.

I sink my hands into the uneven curls on the top of her head.

Sam’s no dog groomer. It pulls me from a downward spiral of stupidity.

“You’re such a good girl.” I sink my nose into the fur on the top of her head. “Holy crap, Penny. You need to stop rolling in seaweed.”

Penny barks.

“It’s true.” I hold her head in my hands. Things are totally in the shitter, but I’m feeling a bit better.

She gives me the side-eye.

“Well, you’re right.” I nod at her. I shouldn’t be so stupid about all this. Love isn’t hard.

Zane comes around the corner. “What’s Penny right about? And were you yelling something, Little Bird?”

“I love you.” I burst into tears. Not delicate, elegant, movie star tears.

No, the kind where you can’t catch your breath, your face goes splotchy for a week, and you end up with a zit on the tip of your nose.

My chest heaves up and down, and I’m sure I’m going to hyperventilate and pass out when he pulls me into his arms.

“Of course you do, Little Bird. We know you love us. All of us do. But it’s damn nice to hear it from your lips.” He presses a quick kiss to my mouth.

I’m shaking, and its more than my insides. Like my hand is vibrating on its own.

“Oh, no.” He holds my shoulders, staring into my eyes. His brown eyes sparkle in the dappled jungle light. “Stop thinking that way.” He doesn’t ask me what I’m thinking, so I guess he can tell that it’s not all chocolate and days at the amusement park.

I nod.

Zane grips me hard. “I mean it. I love you. I knew you loved me, and those two are some of the most capable blokes I’ve ever known.

They’re okay. I’m sure of it. And they know you love them.

” He pulls me to his chest, hugging me tightly into his warm inky scent.

I focus on my breath while Zane rubs circles on my back.

“There you go, Little Bird. You’re good.

Have you let it all out?” He tips my chin up to his face.

“Yeah, I didn’t mean to say it like that... I did mean to say it, though. I do love you. I’m sorry I didn’t say it before.”

“I love you too, Little Bird.” But Zane’s normal smile is missing. “I do, and I never doubted that you loved me too. Things don’t happen at the same rate for everyone. It’s great when it does. But sometimes it’s better when you have to wait.”

I nod, snuggling back into Zane’s arms. “I’m such a nincompoop.”

“You’re not!”

A rustle comes down the path from the ocean. Dante’s hands ease around my sides. “Sassy.” There’s gravel in his voice. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong.

I lift my head from Zane’s chest and turn to him. “I love you, Dante Saffron Jones.”

“Right back at you, Sassy. You know they’re fine, right? I can feel it. Can’t you?”

“I...” I don’t know if I can, but I nod.

Dante kisses me behind my ear. “Let’s get you some pomelo juice. That will make you feel better.” He kisses the top of my nose.

“Dante?” Zane says. He massages my shoulders, sticking his thumbs into pressure points with precision. I close my eyes and shut off my ever-funky brain. “We don’t?—”

“I thought they were all gone, too, but I found them in a tub yesterday.” He shrugs, and from under a cloth, Dante pulls two large fruits. “They appeared out of thin air. Happened last week too.”

“I don’t?—”

“They won’t keep much longer, Sassy. We’ll go soon. But first, a quick break for the girl we all love.”

I can’t help it—I sniffle and start choking. Zane hands me a cup of water. “Can we just share it as a snack instead of juice?” I suck my lips into my mouth.

“Sure.” Dante has the two fruits peeled and quartered. “I can even take some up to Sam if you want me to?” He hands me a coconut bowl with one of the two-prong forks Calvin carved.

I roll the fork between my fingers and try not to cry again. “Please.”

“You going someplace, Sassy?” Dante eyes my backpack I packed for going out to find the guys.

“I... I know you all want to get camp more defendable, but?—”

“You want to go after them?” Zane whispers next to me.

“I do. You’re right, Zane, they’re capable guys.

But the pirates Sam saw had guns. And there’s bound to be a lot of them.

They were able to tow the Rock Candy off the reef.

That’s not something one or two guys could do.

So yeah. If there’s even the slightest possibility that they might be on the other side of the mountain, I want to go after them. ”

There’s noise coming from the top of the tree. We all crane our necks up.

“Yo, Sam. Everything okay up there?” Dante’s deep voice fills the camp.

“Yeah, I’m coming down.”

I wipe my eyes with the edge of my jacket.

“You look amazing,” Zane says and kisses the top of my head.

“I don’t need a mirror to know that’s a lie.” I huff out a half-laugh.

“What’s going on? Did you find something out?” Sam’s forehead furrows.

“I think Haley did. But that’s something she can talk to you about later.” Dante has his smirk on. Shit. I love Sam, but I’m not telling him that, not yet. I think it would scare him so far back into his shell we might never see him again. “She wants to go after them.”

Sam winces. “You might be right. I really thought they would be back by now.” He moves around to the far tree that supports the treehouse, where we’ve got a rudimentary map of the island.

Camp, the cove where the Rock Candy landed, the derelict, the waterfall, and the pomelos.

“You two know Chicken Beach better than me. I’ve never even gone over there.

How does it fit in with what Green has drawn here? ”

Zane nods and takes the black marker. “It’s hard.

I’ve never gone all the way to the pomelos from here or from Chicken Beach.

No one but Green has. But the beach curves in.

There’s a lot of ferns, and I found another stream, but I didn’t follow it too far.

Just far enough to find another nest before we came back.

But from the top of the platform, you can make out how the island bulges out and then narrows back in.

It’s like a bulb. This area up here, the top of the bluff, is above the cave on top of the mountain.

It wasn’t possible to climb. Not without ropes and belaying equipment.

” Zane draws in more of what he knows, adding the ocean cave and spots where Chicken Beach curves.

A small squiggle for the part of the shore they found.

“So the question is, can you get from Chicken Beach to the pomelos and back over the mountain like Calvin did? Or is this whole section of the island inaccessible without ropes?” Sam pokes at the newly drawn section of the map.

“It’s really steep. That’s one of the reasons we were in the cave instead of yelling down to you from the top of the mountain. The rocks were loose, and the climbing was not easy.”

“Right.” Sam uses the marker to point to the other side. “But this is where Calvin climbed up over the mountain?”

“Yes, down here is where the trees are. But we haven’t taken the time to explore this part thoroughly, or even the area on the side of the mountain between the pomelos and the derelict,” Zane says.

“We have rope. Granted, it’s not rock-climbing rope, but we’ve got a line from the Rock Candy.

And rock-scrambling was one of the things I did with my dad on the weekends.

There are lots of little mountains between Maryland and the Pennsylvanian border.

” I hated those weekends more and more the older I got.

Now I can see my dad was trying to do the best he could.

He never really knew how to communicate.

My mom never badmouthed him. She’d shrug and say it’s hard to have a meaningful conversation if you’re the only one talking.

I’ve got more of my dad in me than I’d like to admit.

Sam shakes his head. “I don’t know, Haley.”

“Any of you rock-climbed before?” I ask.

“I was on a seventy-five-footer that had a rock wall on the back. We had to change out the foot grips every day for the owner to make it challenging for them. But real rocks? No,” Zane says.

“So then I climb down and look around. I can do it.” I set my jaw.

“Down’s the easy part,” Dante says.

“Now I know none of you have experience climbing. Down’s easy if you’re being belayed on a rope. But climbing? No way. It’s a lot easier to see your handholds on the way up. On the way down, things disappear until you get used to what to look for.”

“It’s too bad we don’t have one of those harnesses we use for washing the sides of the boat. If you think you can do it, Little Bird, I don’t doubt you.”

“So we all go. Staying together is always a good idea.”