With a man who unsettles some dormant part of myself. But quiets the rest of me.
He tells me about the time a gray seagull landed on the island, after he had drifted near a stretch of land he had no name for. It perched itself on the peak of the farmhouse and refused to leave. The island drifted back out to sea, but the seagull remained, squawking at him every morning when he left the house. “That thing drove me mad with its ceaseless bawling.” It lived on the island for three months, catchingfish along the rocky shore, shrieking at Clay as if it were his fault the bird was trapped too far out at sea. At last, they drifted close to a series of small uninhabited islands where thousands of birds were nesting. “But that damn seagull didnae want to leave, like it suddenly preferred the island. The tide began pulling us back out to sea, an’ I had to climb up onto the roof to scare the thing off, force it to go, or it might’ve stayed for’er.”
His accent grows stronger the more whiskey spills past his lips. “You were about as welcoming to that bird as you were to me when I first arrived,” I say, flashing him a look.
“I’m nae running a bed and breakfast,” he answers with a soft smile. “But I do seem to have a knack for picking up strays.”
“At least I do the dishes.”
He laughs and nods, draining the last of his whiskey. “I prefer ye over the seagull.”
I lift both eyebrows. “That’s quite the pickup line.” I wish I could pull the words back into my throat as soon as they touch the air.
But he smiles, stands up, and admires the setting sun—only a half dome, the sea devouring most of it. “My wife used to tell me I wasnae any good at saying how I felt. But she claimed she could always see it in my eyes, that they revealed everything to her. She said I couldnae hide the truth when I looked at her. It was clear as water.” He looks back at me now, risks his eyes meeting mine, tender and dangerous and softly blue. And I see everything in them. Just like she did. And I think… maybe he wants me to see it too.
I bring the glass to my lips, swallowing down the thoughts rising inside me like tidewater.
I crave something I shouldn’t.
I am a silly woman.
But as he watches me, I feel the air tighten in my lungs. I feel like someone from a different story. A different timeline. A gravity in the center of my chest—a thread always pulling, pulling, driving me insane.A pulsing in my eardrums that only grows louder when I try to ignore it. When he looks at me.
He breathes and the air seems to change—subtly, like a sudden drop in barometric pressure, atoms dividing, seconds splitting. The line between before and after unspools. Right from wrong. Him from me. It all feels perilous. And unnamable.
The island falls silent.
Time unraveling and remaking itself.
Or maybe it’s all in my head, in my unreliable heart. A feeling that can’t be measured—only felt. Deep in the gut. In the part of me that’s losing track of my place in the world.
He tilts the empty glass in his hand, nodding to himself—as if he can feel it too, the ache hanging in the air between us—and he swallows, turning for the door. Abruptly, without a word.
“Clay,” I utter.
He stops, shoulders stiff—like he’s afraid of what he’ll say if he doesn’t leave the porch. I almost stand up. I almost move closer. But he exhales, looking down at me, and I swear I can see it in the whites of his eyes. See everything there. All the things he’s been pushing down for months. Just like me.
I almost smile. I almost don’t. I almost can’t feel my feet below me, feel my heart ratcheting up like a windup doll.
“I didnae know—” He shakes his head, clears his throat, as if he’s speaking from some faraway place. A distant version of himself. “I was sleepwalking… every day the same as the last, an’ then ye washed ashore. And ye woke me up.” He blinks—memories in his eyes. Hurt in them. A flicker of sadness. But no, it’s more than this. It’s the long stormy nights he’s spent on the island. Alone. Hands reaching, reaching, but finding nothing. An empty bed. Cold pillow. The silence.
Behind him, the sky melts into rosebud hues of pink, the sun paralyzed against the surface of the ocean. I swallow, the taste of whiskey still on my tongue, and he lifts his arm, slowly—a millimeter at atime, an eternity—but I don’t flinch away. I don’t say what I should. I let the evening air fill my lungs, I let his fingers find my cheekbone, my temple—lightly, delicately. Like he’s barely touching me at all, cells colliding. Like this is all a dream. A lie. A story told in a language so ancient it feels dangerous.
But I need to know how it ends.
I need to know what happens next.
His hand is careful, strong. Making me shiver. I hold in a breath, lungs no longer necessary. I can see all the grief, all the loneliness in his stare. But it’s tangled up in something else. Something that might mean nothing at all. But it also might be…
The sky turns watery, losing all color as the sun vanishes, split between light and dark. Sundered. And a new thought tethers itself to the back of my mind.
I could stay.
I could forget the boat. Push it out into the sea, empty, useless. Discarded.
I could maroon myself to this little island. A castaway.
Wrecked. Beached. Lost.
