“Nae,” he answers, his voice like an echo, held in the cavern of his chest too long. “I always knew ye gave up yer old life, but seeing ye back there, with him—” His eyes drop, air escaping his lips. “Knowing ye lost yer nana… and ye couldnae even say goodbye.” He pulls away from me. “It’s my fault ye weren’t with her at the end. My fault that everyone ye knew has changed, yer whole life lost.”
“None of this is your fault—” I try, but he steps back, placing the whiskey on the kitchen counter, then walks out the back door.
He strides down the steps, stopping on the path that leads to the garden, the sky dark and troublesome, but I follow, refusing to let the conversation end.
“I’ve been trapped on this island since that awful night,” he says to the wind. “But now… I’ve damned ye to the same fate.” He glances at me. “I didnae see it until now.” He knits his hands together at the back of his neck, looking up at the night sky. “I wanted ye to stay here with me… I wanted you.”
I ease closer to him. “Clay…” I start. “You’re not making any sense. You couldn’t have changed what happened.” I feel my voice cracking, just wanting to touch him, wanting to feel his heartbeat against my palm—the thing that always steadies me, makes me feel safe.
“Yer wrong, Ellie,” he says now. “I could have.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I lied to you.”
A thin edge of doubt circles my thoughts, and I frown at him. “When?”
“The day ye washed onto the island, an’ I carried ye up to the house… I thought you were an apparition. A cruel trick of the sea. I’d been aloneso long, years where I never saw another soul. An’ then ye were here and I wanted to protect ye. I didnae think ye’d be trapped. I didnae think I’d fall in love with you.” His eyes are watery, and he looks away from me, to the sky, the sea, at nothing, before swallowing and lifting his gaze. He looks beautiful in this light, dangerous somehow, but still beautiful. Like he belongs in a story. “You were so desperate to get off the island after ye woke up…” he continues. “Ye asked if I had a boat, a way for ye to get back home.”
My body stiffens.
“I told ye I didn’t. I told ye… there was no way back. But I lied.”
The air sinks into my stomach, swirls into a storm.
“There was a boat, Ellie,” he confesses—his voice hollow and awful. “An’ if I’d told ye the truth, in those early days when we were still close to land, ye might have made it back. Ye might never have been trapped here.”
“No,” I sputter. “There wasn’t a boat. I would have seen it.”
He looks like a man who has lost his footing, who is standing at a great height, about to fall. “Ye did see it,” he answers. “I didnae tell ye of the boat because I thought it was dangerous, I thought I was protecting you. I didnae want ye shoving out into the Atlantic. Was worried ye widnae survive, especially when ye was still hurt, barely able to stand on yer own, let alone paddle out across the Atlantic. And another part of me…” The wind stirs his hair, stirs my memory, makes me feel like I’m falling too. Like I’m going to be sick. “I was relieved ye were here. Ye pushed away a small bit of the loneliness. But I knew I was being selfish, keeping it from you. So a day or two later, I drug the wee boat down to the shore, I repaired a small hole in the gunwale, an’ I was planning to tell ye about it in the morning, let you go if that’s what ye wanted.” His jaw contracts. “But when the sun rose, the boat was gone. The tide had risen, pulled it out into the Atlantic.” His shoulders drop, remembering it now. “I dinnae know what happened, I’d left the boat at the waterline before, but the waves took it. I was stupid to leave it out there.” He pauses, runs a hand down his face, looking like he’s imprisoned by theguilt, like it’s been tearing at him all this time. This secret he’s kept. “I wanted to tell ye the truth so many times. I hated myself for it. But I was afraid ye wouldnae forgive me. Afraid ye’d look at me like ye are now.”
My lungs stop drawing in air. “Fuck,” I whisper, dropping my eyes to the ground. But then a new thought surfaces, and I lift my head. “The boat that washed ashore, months later…” I begin, but I can already see the answer in his eyes.
“The current brought it back,” he confirms.
I turn away from him, arms crossed, looking out at the dark sea. The little rowboat that washed ashore was his. The truth returned, the sea giving it back. I had been so thankful for that little boat, but now I see how improbable it was—a boat washing ashore, intact. It had been adrift for months, likely never straying far from the island, until one morning the winds shifted, pushing it back against the rocks—missing an oar. An oar that must have tipped into the sea during a storm or strong winds.
A boat that had belonged to Clay.
He lied.
He had a boat—in those earliest days, when it could have made a difference. When I could have rowed and surely reached the Faroes. When there was still time. But he kept it from me until it was too late. And he changed the course of my whole life.
“I shouldnae done it, Ellie. I should’ve told ye the truth that first day, I should’ve shown ye the boat and let ye decide what to do.”
“You took the choice from me,” I tell him, the sky beginning to swirl, my ears starting to hum.
He nods, agreeing, eyes sloped with the memory. “I was afraid,” he admits. “Afraid ye’d drown. Afraid to lose you.”
You’re losing me right now,I want to say.
His shoulders sink. “Maybe there’s still time. If I could get ye back to shore, back to yer home, ye could still rebuild your life, Ellie. You could start again.”
My head is too muddy to comprehend his words, my heart beating too fast. I walk away from him, toward the steep side of the island where I can see the narrow band of lights in the distance.
“Ellie,” he tries, starting after me.
“No,” I snap, not turning to look at him. Hurt and anger boiling up inside me. “I don’t want to hear any more. I need to be alone.”
