Wanderlove (31 page)

“If you’re not ready, I’ll have to go alone.”

“Go where?” he shouts after me as I jog away.

When I reach the shoreline, I hurl my stick into the sea. It skips once. Not bad for a stick. Rowan catches up with me at the end of the dock.

“So . . .” My toes curl over the edge. “Do you think I’m ready?”

“I think you might be drunk.”

“I think,” I say, and then I step into the water.

There’s no shock of cold, like I expect. Only a sudden, soothing warmth. The tickle of sea grass, the gentle suck of sand. I push off the bottom and try to shoot forward, but the current nudges me in another direction. It’s almost like the waves are playing with me.
Bria! You’re back!

Each summer until this one, I swam at my favorite beach almost every day. I went with Reese or my parents at first, but once I got my license, I preferred to go alone. It wasn’t the biggest beach, or the closest, or even the most scenic. Definitely not the best place to scope out guys. Olivia always wanted to drive to Santa Monica, or to giggle at the crazies in Venice. But when I was by myself, the isolation was what I loved. Knowing that I could sit and not be hassled when I pulled out my sketchbook. And that my sketchbook would still be there when I came back from a long, slow swim in the water, which was always freezing. Nothing like
this
.

Belizean water feels like a hug.

Something shimmies by my ankle. I squeal, but I feel no fear. Even if I’m chewed to pieces . . . In the ocean? What a way to go.

Okay, maybe I’m a little drunk, but it’s far better than death by Guatemala City sinkhole sludge.

There’s a splash, and Rowan surfaces beside me. He’s shed his shirt. I feel my breath catch, and this time, I let it. Let myself notice the way the moon highlights his skin like white charcoal. The shape of his collarbone, with his Mayan necklace right in the center. His chest. His shoulders.

“Trapezius,” I tell him.

He flexes his arm.

“Wrong muscle.”

“I
knew
I’d get you in the water one of these days.”

“Or nights,” I say with a grin.

“Race you?”

Without warning, I lunge for the horizon. He grabs my calf and yanks me back. “Cheater!” I scream as he charges ahead.

I catch his foot just in time, and I pounce and push him under. I try to swim away, but my legs tangle in my god-forsaken skirt. He wraps his arms around my hips and lifts me in the air. I manage only one short scream before he tosses me over his shoulder and I’m underwater.

When I burst up, laughing and spitting, he grabs me around the waist. I bite him in the trapezius. He tries to escape, but neither of us can swim, we’re both laughing so hard.

And suddenly, we stop. And we’re just looking at each other, panting.

We come together in a series of motions. He catches my hands. I wind my fingers through his. He brings my arms behind his waist.

The water shifts endlessly, knocking us together, pulling us apart.

Then my back hits something. When I turn to look, Rowan grips me under my arms and lifts me out of the water, until I’m sitting on the dock. He climbs out after me, trapping the sopping layers of my skirt with his knees. I fall back and pull him with me, my hands running over his chest and back, his skin wet and smooth, all the vital muscles just waiting to be named.

He reaches for my hands, pulls them over my head, and holds them. And then my heart turns over, because his mouth’s found mine.

Day 17, Night

How It Ends

Here’s what’s
supposed
to happen.

Everything’s supposed to culminate that night on the dock. Okay, maybe not on the dock, because that would be splintery. But the arc that began with a glance in the Guatemala City airport brought to its inevitable conclusion in a hostel bed, with the music from the beach party filtering through the window, the wind gone wild right outside.

But in reality, we don’t even make it to the hostel.

And unfortunately, I don’t mean it like
that.

Here’s how it really ends.

I’m lying on the dock, and Rowan’s on top of me, and we’ve been kissing for so long my whole face feels numb—but the good kind of numb, which I swear exists. The world could screech to a halt on its axis and the dock could be swept out to sea in an apocalyptic current, and we wouldn’t notice. Our universes have condensed into each other.

At long last, Rowan rolls to the side and tugs me up.

We stumble down the dock, then through the sand, playfully, him half carrying me, but we don’t get very far, because we keep stopping to kiss. At one point, I trip over the root of a coconut palm and fall, and it’s funny, but it also kind of hurts.

Rowan’s kneeling next to me, holding me, kissing me.

And I want to go on, I want to continue, but something inside me has started to pull back.

It’s the most intense moment of my life, and suddenly, that scares me. I know this was the whole point of my trip.

I’m finally living out my promise to Olivia. To find somebody to make me forget. But this isn’t just somebody.

It’s Rowan.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

I shake my head. He takes that to mean everything’s okay, and he weaves both his hands through my hair and kisses me again. Mentally, I fight to keep myself here, on this island, on this beach, in this moment, but it’s too late.
I can’t, I can’t, I
can’t.

“Bria?”

“I can’t.”

Rowan looks confused for a second. Then he pulls his hands from my face.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just . . . I promised myself. It just hasn’t been long enough since . . . I mean, promised myself

I wouldn’t, unless . . .” It sounds so idiotic coming out, but it’s too late to stop. “Unless it can be meaningless.”

“Meaningless?”

It’s not a harsh word, but the way he says it, each consonant feels like a finger-jab in my chest. “I know it’s too late for that,” I say hurriedly. “I know. I shouldn’t have . . . It’s my fault. I just never thought this would happen. We’re like brother and sister.”

“Bria, give me a break. You know that’s bullshit.”

“But it’s what you said—”

“I thought it was what you wanted.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s what
you
wanted.”

“No, it’s—I’m not going to argue about this. You were the one who said you had a boyfriend.”

“Because I was scared!” I pound my fist in the sand. “Of
this
!” Rowan lifts his hand, and then it falls back on his knees, a dead bird.

“I’ve got to think of myself, Rowan. And for a while longer, that means thinking
only
of myself. I just can’t give any more of myself away. I’m sorry.”

“This is your life, Bria.”

“I know that—”

“I’m not finished,” he says. “This is your life. But it’s mine, too. And I’m sick, I’m tired, I’m so damned
exhausted
of wasting it on
meaningless
things. If you want to go down the same path I did, I can’t stop you. But I won’t help you either.”

“I’m not asking you to help me!” My voice breaks. “Just that . . . Rowan, please. I can’t stand it if both of you are mad at me.”

“Both? Me and who else?”

“You and Starling.”

“Wait, what do you mean, Starling? Why’s Starling mad at you?”

Oh God. Now I’ve done it.

I squeeze my arms around my middle to restrain the sick in my stomach. I want to lie, but I can’t. Not after everything that’s happened. And he’ll find out from Starling anyway—something I should have realized this whole time. “I talked to her last night,” I admit. “And a few days ago. She wanted me to call her if I suspected anything. Any trouble.”

“Bria . . . are you saying you called my sister to tell on me?” I hug myself more tightly. “I thought I was doing the right thing. We were worried about you. . . .”

“I don’t believe this!” Rowan kicks at the sand. “Why didn’t you talk to me first? After I was completely honest with you? About everything?”

“I’m
sorry
. She was going to come here, but I called her off. It’s fine. She’s pissed at me, not at you, okay?” I grab at Rowan’s hands, trying to pull him toward me, but he shakes me off.

“Way too late for that, Bria.”

“That’s not what I meant. I just—I don’t get why it has to be all or nothing! Can’t we just go back to the way things were? What about all those places you wanted to take me?” Rowan shakes his head scornfully.

“What about wanderlove?” I ask, but he’s already turned away.

As I climb the stairs to my room, full-body shell-shocked, the wind rattling my brain in my skull, my arms and legs doped with the worst kind of numbness, I have to keep telling

myself that as bad as it hurts, it would hurt so much more if I’d let what almost happened happen.

If I’d let myself fall for him.

But the next morning, when I push open the door to Rowan’s room and find his bed empty, his backpack missing, I know that’s the biggest bullshit of all. Because it’s too late—

I’ve fallen.

PA RT 4

The Ruins

I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life—and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.

~ Georgia O’Keeffe

There are always flowers for those who want to see them.

~Henri Matisse

Day 18:

Afterward

I walk through the remnants of Lobsterfest. It looks like a battleground, with lobster claws and confetti for weapons. An invisible haze of smoke seems to hang in the air, scorching my already aching throat. Last night’s winds hauled in a tumble of clouds. The sea looks more gray than turquoise.

I stop by the dive shop. Devon’s there, puffy-eyed, orga-nizing the rack of wet suits. They remind me of the hog corpses in the Mayan butcher stalls.

“I thought you left,” she says. “Rowan came and got his check late last night. He said he had to catch the first water taxi this morning. He didn’t say anything about the two of you parting ways, though, so I thought . . . Is something wrong?”

They don’t do goodbyes.

“Everything’s fine.” I’m amazed by how cheerful I sound.

All those months of faking happiness have really paid off.

“So now you’re on your own?”

“Well, I . . .” It hasn’t hit me until she says it.

I am on my own.

“If you want to meet up for dinner tonight,” she says, “I think a few of us are going to Gilligan’s for drinks. Almost everyone will be gone by then, though. After the party’s over, the island empties pretty quickly.”

I tell her I’ll think about it, even though I know I won’t go.

In the afternoon, I put on my bathing suit and head to the channel. I walk to the very end of the cement pier, shedding my shorts and shirt as I go. When my face hits the water, I don’t remember diving in.

I climb out and dive in again, over and over, until I’m exhausted. Then I crawl out and lie on my back. I watch goose bumps rise on my stomach, my thighs. I’ve grown so tan over the last few days I hardly recognize my skin as my own. I try to breathe deeply like I did last night, lying on the sand. But my chest feels shallow, my throat parched. I think the numbness has spread.

Desperate to feel something, I attempt to coax out the anger that poisoned me for so many months. But when I picture Toby, lying with his hand on my stomach, I think of Rowan, lying beside me on the dock the day we arrived.

When I picture my parents, failing to notice when I put away my pencils, I think of Rowan, consoling me after Emily whored out my sketchbook.

I think of him bringing me his old backpack in Panajachel, the lake like a crinkled sheet of foil behind him. I think of him in Livingston, storytelling the legend of his dragon tattoo.

I’m glad I learned it so young. To depend on myself, and no
one else.

But didn’t Rowan depend on me by the end? I think about how much he opened up to me over the course of our trip, and how much I opened up to him. I spent so much time gaining his trust. His respect. And I lost it all, in one stupid night.