Girl Lost (6 page)

“I can’t,” he says, his tone a shade of desperation. “I can’t leave you alone. I’ve tried.”

I give him a bleak smile. “Try harder.”

I need to get some exercise. It’s a day off—a Thursday. Micah would jump out of bed and row with me, but I don’t want to bother—worry—him. So I choke down the desire to text him and creep out of my room. I’m not terribly surprised that James is asleep on the floor next to Orchid’s bed—he’s been around almost constantly since we went to the club. I have my own thoughts and reservations about the guy, but I remind myself that it’s not my business as I slip into the dark hallway.

There’s a girl asleep in the hall, a computer propped next to her. I stare for a brief moment then shake my head and step over her and head out.

I promised Micah I wouldn’t go out on the ocean by myself. I wrestle with that promise the entire way down to the boathouse.

I could always use the rowing machine, but I don’t want that—I want the freedom of the open water, the danger of the ocean thrumming around me.

My promises be damned. I
need
that today.

I see something from the corner of my eye, a flash of red and the ghost of laughter. It makes my stomach drop, and I break into a jog, racing the memories that aren’t real. I’m more unsettled today than I have been in years, and I’m furious with Peter. He should have accepted my limits, shouldn’t have pushed for more when I was so very clear.

Talking about it has stirred up all the old memories, the anxious desire to see someone that I know I won’t see—because he’s not real.

Why couldn’t he be? Why did he have to be an illusion—why couldn’t the precious memories of happiness been grounded in fact and not a gauze that hid the horrors of my parents death? Why did even that meager comfort have to be so fucking false?

I can feel tears on my face, but I ignore them as I hit the water, cutting through it with fierce precision. The ocean is rough, rising to the weather that is starting to chill. A wave slaps the side of the kayak, and I fight to keep her upright and steady, gasping as the ice cold water drenches my thighs.

Any thought of the Boy and Peter and the mess that is my life vanishes under the chill and the need to deal with the crisis at hand.

Which is why I came out here. I bare my teeth, a grimace more than smile, and push the boat farther into the deep waters, riding the danger like a wave.

It’s stupid. It’s fucking suicidal, and Micah will be furious. The Boy will be irate, his cat eyes flaring with anger.

The other boys will suffer, because he is angry. I hesitate at that thought, and the kayak gets yanked around by the pull of the tides. I swallow the sour taste in my mouth, suddenly exhausted. I don’t want to fight an ocean any more than I want to fight my memories. So I row, letting the ocean’s rhythms pull me in, until I hit the rocky beach. I pull my kayak up and flop onto the ground.

I lost it. I haven’t been that caught up in the delusions in years—I’d almost forgotten the others, the ones who followed my boy like a loyal pack.

How the hell had I forgotten them? And—more importantly—why was I remembering them now? Was I going backward—was I going to lose it completely? Again?

A sob gets stuck in my throat, and I make a strangled noise and drop my head. I can’t go backward. I can’t go back to Pembrooke.

A hand settles on my back, warm and heavy. I flinch, almost pulling away. But this feels different from my brother, and after the disaster that was yesterday, Peter won’t come to me. Cautiously, I look up.

James crouches next to me, pulling his hand back to run it nervously through his hair.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. My voice is raspy, like I’ve been screaming. I wonder if I was, if I’ve merely forgotten.

How does one forget screaming her throat raw?

“I saw you leave. What are you doing, Gwendolyn?”

It annoys me that he calls me that. No one calls me Gwendolyn—not even Aunt Jane. Daddy had, before the accident. But hearing a familiar name wrapped in James’ silky tones, with odd inflections—it sets my hair on end. I shrug slightly. “What business is it of yours?” I demand.

He hesitates then finally settles on the ground, abandoning his crouch. He makes a slight moue as his hands hit the mud. I smirk. Who would have thought James would be so damn fussy?

“You matter to Orchid. Orchid matters to me. So, by default, you matter to me.”

“I didn’t ask for that, and I don’t want it,” I snap. “I want to be left alone. Don’t you think if I wanted company, I would have woken Orchid up?”

He shakes his head. “No. I don’t think you would. You open up to her, Gwendolyn, but you hide so much of yourself. You won’t even tell us where you came from.”

I go quiet and compress my lips into a thin line. That is also none of his damn business. I’m not giving up my secrets to some good looking boy with a pirate’s smile and a fleeting affection for my roommate.

“Go away, James,” I say tiredly. “I’m not up for playing games, and I don’t want to be bothered.”

“Will you be safe?” he asks softly, touching the bare skin of one arm. It’s a barely there gesture, a brush of his fingertips. I struggle to hold in my shiver and nod my head vigorously. I will tell him anything I have to, if it will get him to leave.

“I don’t believe you,” he says, his voice laced with amusement.

“I don’t give a fuck what you believe,” I snap. His eyebrows shoot up, and it occurs to me that James and Orchid aren’t used to seeing this side of me—the angry girl with a mouth of a sailor and no need to make the people around me happy. “Fuck off.”

“I can’t,” he says simply.

“Why do guys keep saying that?” I demand, furious now. “You
can.
I want you to. But for some reasons that only you seem to know, you won’t. And you’ll tell yourself its okay because I don’t know what I want, because I was angry and hysterical, but the truth of the matter is, it’s creeper behavior and it’s not okay. And I’m over it.”

I push to my feet and grab my kayak. It’s light enough that I can carry it easily to the boathouse. I make it maybe twenty feet before I hear James’ footsteps, crunching the rocks together as he tracks my progress.

“I’m not being a creeper, Gwendolyn. I’m just being a friend.”

“I don’t want a friend,” I say.

He catches my arm, tugging me to a stop. He’s standing too close, and I know I should step back. Everything about this boy screams danger—I should run from that, but I can’t bring myself to move. Can’t bring myself to shake his hand free from where it’s playing in tiny circles against my bare skin. I can’t bring myself to do anything, because how long has it been since a guy came this close? Since I let one? It’s been since the Boy, and the island.

“Why won’t you let someone help you?” James breathes, and I’m pulled from where I’m going in my mind, back to the here and now, to where we stand on a rocky beach, his fingers pressing into the curve of my cheek. His lips are curving into a full, sensual smile.

Wrong. So wrong. He will be furious.

He isn’t real. He can’t be mad.

Liar
.

Then thought vanishes as his lips brush mine, a feather soft caress. I make a soft noise of surprise, and another when his tongue traces my bottom lip. When he bites down, so gently I feel like I am breakable, I gasp, and his arms come around me as he kisses me in earnest.

And for a few endless moments—his hands roaming over my back, cupping my ass and settling on my hip, everywhere at once as he kissed me senseless—I can’t bring myself to move away. I can’t even remember why this is a bad idea, why I
should
move away.

James shifts, and I whimper as he nibbles at my neck, my hand catching in his dark hair.

Wait.

Wrong.

Now you listen. Warned you. He’ll be furious.

Shut. UP.

“Stop,” I gasp. For a moment, as his lips press harder against my skin, sucking at my pulse point, and making the world spin crazily, I think he intends to ignore me. A bolt of fear goes through me.

“James,
stop.”

To my relief, he steps away, his cloudy blue eyes lazy and full of hunger. “Why?” he asks, taking another step away when he sees how shaken I am.

“Because you are with Orchid. And because I love someone else.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend. I know—I checked. What the hell are you talking about?”

Too complicated to try and explain. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not the point,” I say quietly.

“Then what the hell is?” he demands angrily. I watch as he reaches down, casually adjusts himself, and my stomach turns.

“You’re with Orchid,” I repeat.

James laughs and steps away from me. I watch him go, more confused than ever. Because that laugh hadn’t been mocking or dismissive. It had been hopeless.

Before he reaches the path leading to the campus, he stops and turns back to me, yelling, “Don’t do that again, Gwendolyn. Orchid likes her roommate—no more suicide missions in the name of toned arms.”

I laugh, surprising myself. He winks, once, and wheels around, strolling toward the campus.

Leaving me wondering what the hell is going on.

Again.

The boat deck creaks, and I go still, waiting. I know every sound that she makes, the soft splash of waves hitting her sides and what they sound like when the ocean turns savage. I know how the riggings sound when they are dry, wet, or—the perpetual state of being—damp. I know how the stairs to the cabin shriek in the night, how the door sounds when it slaps closed, and the steady thrum of the ocean.

I even know the way the wood sounds when it cracks, what noise it makes when a knife is slammed down against it.

I know every sound the
Second Star
makes, as well—maybe better—than I know the sound of my heart beating and the rasp of my breath when I’m nearing the edge of sleep.

And this creak is the noise of someone creeping along the deck, someone who has not yet announced themselves. Someone who shouldn’t be here. I shift minutely, silently, on the dirty bed, and I wait. Two more quick steps, the soft thump of a body landing on the balls of its feet. My heart jerks unsteadily.

I clench the knife hilt, my fingers so tight they begin to go numb. And I wait.

The third creak is on the stairs. I bolt from the bed, moving with clumsy, sleep-heavy motions. Fear makes my blood pound, my entire body tense as I plaster myself to the wall by the door. There's a fourth—final—creak, and I wait, not even breathing, as whoever is on my boat hesitates on the other side of the door.

It's been three weeks since the Boy vanished. Leaving me alone on this fucking boat. Is he back? Or is it the other men—the ones he says were Mongolian pirates. I don't know who they were, and I don't care. I know the results, and they are horrible enough to deal with.

A crackle comes from the other side of the door, and I stumble back. It's not a normal noise, not on Second Star. It's the sound of...a radio? I jerk the door open and come face to face with a gun barrel.

I scream, my shrill shriek rising above the man's foreign shout, the sudden clatter of footsteps on my boat's deck. The cursing and someone is retching, and I am still screaming.

Trust them,
he said
. They will come and you can go home.

But no one was supposed to come home—no one left the island. That's what I was told, by all of the others who were there. The Boy never spoke of it, but I know—I know, and yet the officials are standing in front of me.

I stop screaming, abruptly, and push past the sailor—he wears a uniform, so military of some nation. I don't bother looking for identification. Because I can still hear others moving around the deck, and that means they'll be found.

I burst onto the deck and slam into a pair of inflexible arms. I shriek, fighting the grip. On the other side of the deck, I see a cluster of sailors around the pile of tarps. I can see the rusty brown staining the canvas, leaking onto the once-pristine decks.

"Leave them alone," I scream. That's when they realize I'm still holding the knife.

A door opens, and I stir from where I'm sitting in the shower. The water is cold, I realize, pelting me like tiny droplets of ice. Orchid pokes her head into the bathroom, eyebrows drawn together in worry.

Poor Orchid. She had no idea, when they assigned us as roommates, that I was fucking insane. She deserves a refund of some sorts.

I giggle.
I would like to trade this roommate in for a less batshit crazy one, please.
Bet the registrar didn't get that request often.

"Your brother is here," Orchid says, not commenting on the fact that I'm almost blue, that I’m shaking, or that I'm sitting down and I've been in here for hours.

I blink at her, and she frowns. "Micah, Gwen. Do you want me to send him away?"

I shake my head, pushing to my feet. She backs out hastily, and I turn the water off. My teeth start chattering as I rub myself dry and pull on my sleep shirt and a pair of panties.