Finally, we reach the crest of the hill we’ve been climbing, and the view unfolds before us—Halia Falls laid out like the Emerald City twinkling in the distance. Beyond the resort, you can see the curve of the bay where the water sparkles, steady breakers landing softly on the shore. And you can see even farther, to the more mountainous part of the island. I think I can even spot the rushing waters of the beautiful waterfall the driver pointed out to me this morning.
“Wow,” Jamie breathes out. It’s the first thing either of us has said in thirty minutes.
“Yeah,” I can’t help but agree.
Jamie finds a seat on a fallen log, catching his breath. “You know, I didn’t actually want to come here,” he says quietly, like he’s talking to himself more than to me. “I thought it would be too hard, given everything…”
I swallow and nod, even though Jamie’s not looking at me. His eyes are still trained on our bird’s-eye view of the resort.
“It was Amelia who encouraged me to come down,” he continues. “She kept telling me I shouldn’t let the past stop me from moving forward with my future. And she always gives the best advice.”
Yeah, like telling you not to marry me.
The memory of what happened last year is too much for me to handle right now. I need to change the subject away from Jamie’s older sister and her opinions about how I wasn’tmarriage material. I turn away from Jamie, pointing toward the sky. “Hey, look! You can already see the moon. A waxing gibbous.” Jamie’s brow crinkles in confusion as he follows my gesture up to the pale, nearly full smudge of a moon. “Did you know that the waxing gibbous signifies a time of reflection on the mistakes of the past?” I blurt out.
“Um, no, I didn’t.” Jamie’s looking at me like I’ve swallowed a deck of tarot cards.
“I’ve got all this content lined up about the blood moon eclipse on Friday,” I say. “Did you know we’re in the path of totality? I’m the social media manager for a brand called Flowies, and my boss is actually letting me do a whole campaign about—”
“Wait, what?”
Yes, Jamie, I know I’ve gone around the bend. Just go with it.
Except, Jamie’s no longer looking at me like I’m ridiculous. He’s got his “working out a tough logic puzzle” face on.
“I thought you were here with your boyfriend so he could study the squids?”
Shit.
“Um, yeah, no, I am.” I drag my fingers through my hair in a failed attempt to tame some of the snarls. “It’s a vacation-slash-work trip for both of us, actually.”Smooth save.
Jamie studies my face for a moment. His dark eyes can be so expressive, but right now, they look guarded. I can’t tell if he’s buying my explanation. Then he looks away, turning back toward the path.
“We should probably get going. It’ll be nightfall soon.”
I nod. The skyisrapidly darkening.
We walk a few minutes in silence, then come to a fork in the path. I pause, not sure which way leads back to hot showers and fluffy towels. “I think we need the left one again,” Jamie offers after a beat. Then he looks down the other fork. “Although, it does look like the trail levels out to the right…” He seems hesitant.
“So… right, then?”
Jamie closes his eyes for a minute. Then opens them. “No, it’s left. I remember it from the resort map. Going left each time will bring us back to the hotel. No use risking a shortcut. We should follow what the map said.”
I nod once—lord knows I have no sense of direction—and head left.
We go a few yards down our chosen path and pretty soon find that this trail doesnotlevel out. If anything, it gets steeper.
And right as the path becomes filled with boulders, rain dumps out of the sky like someone’s turned on a water hose. I’d been mostly dry, but in seconds, my hair and my cover-up are nearly as wet as when I stomped out of the ocean.
“We should have gone right,” I mutter.
“Excuse me?” Jamie’s words are punctuated with puffs of air as he exerts himself up the hill.
I stop in the middle of the path and take a step toward him.“I’m just saying, if you had listened to your gut, instead of obsessively following the—”
“And ifyouhad given one ounce of thought to your plan before you jumped off the boat, we wouldn’t need to rely on my memory of the map.” He takes a step toward me, and we’re nearly chest to chest. The closeness sends another jolt of energy burning through me. Or maybe it’s the unrestrained anger in his voice. “I did what I thought was right,” Jamie spits out. “Sorry I didn’t want to risk us getting stuck in the wilderness overnight just so that—”
I bark out a bitter laugh. “You never riskanything.”
