Page 33 of Wild Life (STEAM-y #2)

Reality Check

Aleki

Have you ever had an impression that the universe was conspiring behind your back?

Like things had been set in motion without your knowledge as a means to punish you for something you didn’t know you had done?

I had that notion now.

Maris had done nothing wrong, but I couldn’t fight the sensation that my face was still covered by the cloth mask. Everything was wrong and I needed space.

The shell I had grown after I had landed on this island, the one that had hardened my emotions so much so that I couldn’t feel anymore, had regenerated. The joy from our relationship was already like a distant memory.

If I retreated first, it would hurt me less when she physically left. Indifference was my protection against heartbreak. It was easier to harden my heart, to bury it with ice until my blood eventually ran cold again, than to face the reality of what her leaving would mean. What her coming into my life in the first place had meant.

Her footsteps followed behind at a distance as the sun woke up for another day and slowly stretched its rays like tired arms.

We walked the same route separately. We were slipping back into the people we had been before we had fallen in love: two souls who had randomly traveled the same path for a brief time. That was all. Nothing more.

We made it back to the hut, and Poaka jetted past me, heading straight for her. She knelt on the ground and hugged him.

There was a possibility that she would never be rescued, but I knew she was more driven than ever before. Humans could accomplish anything when they had purpose. It was the reason why I had never successfully left—my parents had died and there had been no one to return to in New Zealand.

Maris rubbed Poaka’s belly and talked to him, the usual vibrancy in her voice now lacking. He wiggled as she rubbed his neck, soaking in every bit of the attention. Her absence would hurt him.

Not as much as it would hurt me, though.

She caught me staring and straightened up. “Can we talk?”

Daylight was now in full force, and our new reality was etched onto her face in the form of dark bags under her eyes and her pale complexion.

It was easier to hide our hearts in the darkness than in the light.

“I don’t know what there is to say,” I said.

“Anything would be better than silence. You barely spoke back there.”

“I didn’t think I had to. We both know what seeing those sick bats means.” I wasn’t a scientist, but I knew how serious the situation was. The bats were sick, and Maris had a calling to take care of them.

“We don’t actually know if I can leave. I tried to be rescued before, but I failed miserably.” She was attempting to lighten the mood by planting false hope inside me. Yet again, she was considering my emotions over hers.

“But, you’re still going to try to leave?”

She was turning the knife in my chest, even if she didn’t want to do it. “I am.”

I sighed. “And I won’t stop you, if it’s what you want.”

“I don’t want to leave you. But I’m a scientist, and I have an obligation to the organisms that I study.”

“And my obligation to you is always to never hold you back from your commitment.”

She moved in as if to touch me, but I didn’t have the heart to meet her the rest of the way. “Aleki, it doesn’t have to be a final thing. I would come back to see about the bats. And to see you.”

“To be with me? To stay?”

Her gaze fell from mine to her feet, speaking volumes about our future. “I don’t know. I mean…I wouldn’t know anything until I could get back to my lab and confer with my team.”

“And bring them here?”

She caught my hostile glare. “What?”

“They’ll want to come here and see the cave, see the land they’ve never heard of, see the freak who has been living here his whole life.” I didn’t want the public here, invading my space. They’d colonize this place, forever changing my home.

“Aleki, no. You’re not a freak.” She planted her delicate hands on my rough chest. I turned my face, suddenly self-conscious of how unrefined I was compared to her—how savage.

“You’re the one who called me Cryptid before you knew my name. What do you think your city friends will think of me? They’ll do what people from my old world always did, poke and prod at anything different.”

Her touch was gentle when she cupped my face. “You’re not weird. And they won’t do that to you. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Will you be able to stop them from bringing more people? You and I both know it’ll never happen that way. Initially, they’ll be concerned with the bats. Then the island. Before you know it, dozens of people will want to study it, take things from it, completely disrupting my home. This is my home, Maris. The only life I’ve ever known for a long time. And you going back not only takes away the one person that I love, but it puts my existence in danger. Life will never be the same once you leave.”

“I can’t just do nothing. An entire species is in danger. Your existence is already compromised if the bats die off. Your food supply, both plant and animal, would dwindle over time. This affects you, too.”

I took a deep breath, willing my irritation to settle. “I’m not asking you to do nothing.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, already withdrawing from me. “Then what are you asking me to do, Aleki?”

That was the question. What did I want her to do? I wouldn’t make her do anything. The situation was frustrating and beyond my control. “I don’t know. I wish that last night never happened.”

She softened a little. “Me too. I’m really sorry. I love you with all my heart, and I promise I’ll always be yours. I won’t abandon you. If I ever get rescued, it’ll be temporary. I’ll be back soon, and we’ll figure the rest out.”

She buried herself in my chest, and I inhaled her spicy-sweet scent.

“I won’t abandon you,” she promised. “You could have left me on the beach as shark food instead of taking me in. I’ll owe you forever for saving me.”

“You don’t owe me anything. I’d do it all over again if you showed up on my island. I’d keep you as mine in every life.” That was the only truth I was sure of now, despite all of the uncertainty that faced us.

Her tears dripped down my chest. “Babe, I promise, I’ll come back to you. Don’t give up on me.”

I kissed her head, wishing I could believe that our love was that simple and that the outside world wasn’t waiting to complicate it.

***

Needing to clear my head, I had left Maris back at the hut while she caught up on sleep, and somehow found my way to the beach. I didn’t remember making the trek, but here I was with my spear and basket in hand and my feet sinking into the sand.

I watched the sea. Its waves were active, matching the tempo of my mind.

Perhaps Maris was right. Would it be so crazy to believe that she could return home, seek treatment for the bats, and come back to me as if time apart had never happened? I wanted to think things would be that easy, except I had never been an optimist.

For a while after I had fallen for her, I could only see the good in my life, but that had vanished as quickly as it had come. The world wasn’t that simple, and Maris knew it, too. Her childhood had been similar to mine since she had been deprived of what the average child experienced. I suspected that all the promises she had made to me were really to convince herself that things could be that easy. If she said the words, she could believe them.

Deep down, neither of us believed them.

I noticed a speck on the horizon grow larger.

Dread filled me as it barreled through the water, heading for the shore.

Twenty-four years here and a boat had never shown up…until now. This was how the world worked. As Maris would say: “Sick irony and twisted timing.”

Multiple bodies moved inside, but only one jumped out, splashing into the water. A man.

His stride slowed as he took in the spear I held. He lifted his hands into the air as if to prove he was unarmed. He viewed me as I had anticipated anyone from the outside world would—as a threatening barbarian.

“I come in peace.” His voice was weak, lacking any rigidity, just like his backbone as he stood before me.

I lowered my spear, aiming it at the sand instead.

He had pale skin, contrasted by the dark hair atop his head and the forest in the shape of eyebrows above his eyes. His nose was weak—that of a man who was meant to sit behind a desk.

“My name is Eli, and I’m looking for a woman,” he shouted, as if unsure that I could understand English. It reminded me of Maris when she had first arrived, except not one bit as cute.

I knew exactly who he was. He was that asshole Maris had been seeing before washing ashore. I instantly hated him. He’d touched her, seen her naked, and I wanted nothing more than to skin him alive. I gripped my spear but aimed it downward to the sand.

“Do you understand me? I’m looking for a woman with brown hair who goes by the name of Maris.”

I closed my eyes. My Maris . He had come for my Maris. To take her away from me. To rip my heart out of my chest.

Some would say that it was a stroke of luck that someone had arrived to rescue her right when she needed to find a cure for the bats.

I would say it was the biggest case of bad luck that I’d ever experienced.

“Please, if you understand anything I’m saying, can you respond? I’m desperate for help.”

I could hide her. Pretend not to understand English. Go back to denying I could speak. Never tell Maris that I had seen this Eli.

But my conscience wouldn’t let me. My love for Maris wouldn’t let me.

Defeated, I replied. “F-follow me.”