Yours Truly, Taddy (5 page)

No one replied.

The sounds of the waves crashed against the debris.  

A rush of dizziness came over me. I licked my lips tasting blood and let out a cry. 

“
Mademoiselle
.” A strained voice murmured behind me. It was the one that had awoken me from my dream.

Sobbing, I looked over my shoulder.

Leon lay a few feet behind me. His shirt was off, displaying his muscular body. Little red cuts covered his arms, hair wet and slicked back, his face sunburned.

Instinctively I touched my cheeks. Irritated and hot, they felt burnt too. My body started to tremble violently, almost as if going into shock over what happened. “How long…have we been…on here?” I glanced up at the sky.

The sun wasn’t up as high as when we’d first taken off. 

“Heures,” he said. Leon inched himself closer to me and held out his hand to try and comfort me. “Please don’t cry.”

“I need my friends.”

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No. I don’t think so.” I placed my palm against his. “I feel…disoriented.”

“Did you hit your head?” With his other hand, he touched the back of my neck and examined my scalp. “I do not feel any bumps. What do you see?”

“Your beautiful chest.” 

He smirked and asked, “Any white spots?”

Shaking my head in response, I couldn’t believe we’d been on this makeshift raft for hours. “What happened?”

“We crashed.”

“I get that. Where is everyone?”

He didn’t say anything.

Emotions soared inside me.
Tell me they landed okay. Everyone is floating up ahead of us. They’ve gone for help. Something.
“Leon. Please.”

“I do not know…”

“Then tell me what you do know.” I studied his handsome face. He had a wide forehead, thick eyebrows, and lips that I’m sure, under any circumstance except for today, were kissable.

“The pilot made a sharp turn—back to the island.”

“Didn’t we fall apart in the air?” It was all a blur.

His feelings seemed hidden. Upset. I could tell by those kissable lips of his. They trembled. He cleared his throat and said, “I grabbed onto you. My seatbelt snapped.”

“We got sucked out together?”

“Oui. We ended up in the water with a chunk of the ceiling. I pulled us up on here. You were unconscious.”

“Leon, you saved me?”

He tapped the metal. “This is what saved us.”

“Where is everyone?” I asked him again. I had to know.

Leon’s eyes settled on the water. I followed.

Aquamarine and dark navy waves were all around us.  We were in the middle of nowhere. Even the air seemed still. No breeze.

I wanted to get up and run. Run like when I knew the “F” train was on the subway platform back home and I had to catch it. The anxiety coming over me became unbearable. Would there ever be another train to catch? A ride to take us from here to there, wherever here was exactly…I hadn’t a clue.

“My friends didn’t get sucked out like we did.” I thought about Lex, Blake, and Vive. Such a nightmare—how could they be taken away from me?

“The plane turned back for the island. They must be close to Eden.” Leon’s words filled with hope.

“Eden?”

He nodded. “They probably swam to shore.”

“You think so?”

“Oui.” For a second, I thought I noticed tears in his hazel eyes. Blinking a few times, they disappeared. 

“How do you know they’re alive?”

“Stop.”

“No. You don’t know. Do you?”

“Arrête!”

“They’re dead.” I cupped my mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“My heart would tell me if they were gone.” 

“Your heart?” I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

“If your friends had died, do you not think you would feel their loss, deep-down inside, even without anyone telling you?”

Hmmm. I didn’t want to go there.

Move Over Brooke Shields

On a floating piece of the aircraft, we sat in silence. 

Leon glared at me. I searched inside myself for an answer to his question about whether or not I thought my friends were…dead or alive.

My mind recounted the time my parents had dropped me off at Avon Porter. When their sedan had pulled away, I knew in my thirteen-year-old heart that I’d never see them again. And I didn’t, not until years later in family court.

Today, sitting here on this piece of floating shrapnel next to a man I hardly knew, did I sense that same despair about my friends? The only thing I felt was anger. Pure rage boiled within me. If I’d taken my besties money, and not this silly job, none of this would’ve happened. Boarding Air Carribea was all for me, my wants and needs. Not my friends. Therefore this crash weighed on my shoulders.

“Well?” He made his impatience evident. “What does your heart say?”

“I’m not sure. I try never to get my hopes up about anything. I usually…expect bad things.”

“Do bad things usually happen to you, Mademoiselle?”

“Look at us.” My arms flailed around, mocking his question. “Yes, Leon, I seem to get the worst in return.” Crap, I heard myself and that didn’t sound good. I couldn’t lie. My life sucked.

People assume because I came from the Brillford legacy and hung out with rich people, my future was perfect. They were wrong.

“Mademoiselle, you are saying you are pathetic and hopeless.”

“I guess…I am.”

“No,” Leon snapped, in his thick French accent. “I expect Fab is worried, and Gus is looking for us.” 

I sucked in a breath, gaping at him. I suppose a crash like this could bring out the soul searching in anyone. This was the most Leon had talked to me all week. And to think that it took a plane crash, and us being isolated, to make it happen.

“I believe you.”

“You do?” His forehead wrinkled in surprise.

“If I don’t have faith that they’re safe, I’ll stop breathing. Right here, I’ll die.”

“Me too,” he said, and rubbed my shoulder. My skin felt sticky to his warm touch.

“My friends mean everything to me.”

“Oui. I noticed.” He hit a sore spot on my back, pressed in firmly, and worked the knot.

“How?”

“No model comes with a clique of friends for a photo shoot. Maybe a manager or a stylist but you have a crew.”

“Hey, that was Lex’s idea. I’m only eighteen. We didn’t know what you guys would be like to work with. I wasn’t going to come alone.”

“The four of you have a—how do you say in English? A bond.”

“Yes, we certainly do.” Feeling vulnerable, I crossed my arms over the life jacket and pulled my knees up.

“It is endearing to watch. Have you known your friends long?”

Before answering, I realized he’d made observations about me during our time in Miami. I don’t know why that made me uncomfortable. Maybe it was because I’d assumed that Leon hadn’t paid me any attention. Seems I was wrong. “Lex, Blake, and Vive are all I know. They’re all I’ve ever known. My life revolves around them. I wouldn’t have gotten through my childhood without them.”

“Same with Fab and Gus. We do everything together.” Darkness shadowed his face when our eyes met. For a brief second, I sensed he thought about the chance that we might be the only survivors. He’d be in denial if he didn’t at least consider it. “What do you think your friends are doing right this minute?”

I shrugged.

“Picture them in your mind. What do you see?”

Death.

“I can’t. I don’t have much of an imagination.”

“Try, for me, s'il vous plaît.”

“Alright,” I closed my eyes and said, “Lex’s dad is in Japan doing a concert. Her mom is in rehab. Other than her new boyfriend, Ford, who is an NYPD cop, she doesn’t have anyone to call.”

“And…what is Lex saying to Ford?”

“She’s probably trying to get him to send us a helicopter.” I whipped that up only to appease Leon. I didn’t believe a word of it. Nope.

My subconscious debated on whether Birdie would overdose, taking her own life after she learned that her only daughter, who she’d had a recent falling out with, was dead.

More importantly, it was Birdie who’d gotten me my contract with Minnie and this magazine gig. Birdie would never be able to forgive herself. Maybe I’d overdose along with her. I’d never thought about suicide, till today. I didn’t agree one taking their own life or understand how they could do it. For the first time, I could see why people who lose everything quit life.

A bitter taste came up in the back of my mouth. Tears streaked my face.
Stop thinking like that Taddy Brill. They’re fine. Your besties are looking for us.

“You okay?”

I lied with a nod, wiped my eyes, and hoped the tears would stop.

“Très bon,” Leon encouraged me to continue.

They are alive. Believe it.
“Blake’s family is tight with a Senator in Connecticut. Last year, he volunteered for a political campaign to get gay unions legalized. Knowing Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, they’ve probably gotten the Senator to call the Coast Guard or the White House and assemble a search team.”

“And mademoiselle Viveca?”

“She’s drinking, of course, and screaming at Air Carribea’s management team for justice.” I chuckled, opening my eyes in the sun. No one screwed with Vive. She’d rip their heads off.

“Oui, sounds like we will have a big search party here shortly.” For the first time since meeting Leon, his straight-white teeth set perfectly into a smile. I don’t know if it was to sell the load of B.S. he wanted me to believe or if it was because I’d made him feel better. The truth was that he’d made me feel better too.

“Thank you for that.” I ran my hands up and down his muscular arms, examining the shallow abrasions on his skin. “Do these hurt?”

“No.” Holding up his left hand, a shirt was knotted over a wound. Blood soaked through the ivory fabric. “When I reached for you, the seat cut me.”

“I’m sorry…”

“It is not your fault.”

“If you hadn’t done what you did, I’d be dead.” Without a second thought, I leaned down, pressed my lips against his marks, and thanked him with kisses. 

Masculine and rough, he pulled back a bit, acting as if he hadn’t been touched in a while. I wrapped my hand tightly around his pointer-finger and gave him a squeeze, letting him know that it was okay. I was a touchy-feely girl. I hadn’t always been. Six months in juvie, isolated from any contact, will do that to person.

His lips curved up into a grin. “I would do it over again if given the chance.”

Wrapping my arms around Leon, I gave in to my overwhelming need for a hug. I ran my fingers up and down his back. “Thank you.”

Again I sensed hesitation. Then he took to me, meshing his chest up against my life jacket and breasts. Dipping my face into the nape of his neck, I held on to him, and in return he held on to me. His heartbeat steadied with mine. The green and citrus smell of Leon that I’d grown fond of this week had been replaced by adrenaline. 

His hands ran over the back of my neck. He pulled me closer into him and buried his face in my hair. His breath in my ear, he rocked me gently and soothed, “We will get out of this.”

I felt safe in his arms, as safe as I could feel, considering we were stranded with no food or water. Regardless, I was practical. We needed to come up with a plan.

“How?”

“We ejected over there.” He pointed east. “The plane touched down past that direction. Near Eden. We are moving west.” His big arms came up in the air as he spoke.

I studied the water’s direction. “We’re moving further away.”

“Oui.”

“Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”

“I did not know if you were in pain. Then you started mumbling about…lollipops.”

“Princess Lolly,” I corrected.

“And something about Candy Land. You like to play the game?”

“When I was kid I played the board game all the time.”

“Me too.”

“Some girls dream of growing up to be Barbie or Cinderella. Me, I wanted to be Princess Lolly.”

“Something tells me you would be good at that.”

“It’s just a childhood dream.”

“You always talk in your sleep about Princess Lolly?”

“How would I know? I’ve never shared my bed with anyone. Vive and Lex never mentioned anything to me when we roomed together.” Pulling down on the straps of my life jacket, I tightened the nylon fabric over me. I stretched my legs out.

Leon inspected my skin. His hands ran over my knees, making me feel oddly turned on by his touch. My knees were cut up, but no worse than his arms. “Do they hurt?”

Nothing felt broken. “I’m fine.”

“Do not stand, Mademoiselle. We will tip over.”

“I won’t.” I could almost feel the air bubble underneath, keeping us afloat. Soon this piece of metal would submerge, hitting the bottom of the sea. “Can you swim?”

“Oui.”

“We can’t haul this with us. It’ll only take us further out to sea.”

“What about—”

“Jaws.” I knew exactly what he was thinking.

He laughed, nervously. “Oui. What about Jaws?”

“While I slept, did you see any…fins?”

Leon’s sunburned face went white. Eyelashes, long and thick, shadowed his cheeks as he said, “No sharks.”