It takes every pound of self-restraint I have not to lean forward and continue. I look away to the tattered blanket beneath us. While it’s our paradise, it’s another kind of pretend.
In the world outside, affection is slow. Not a thing born of desperation or reduced to convenience. And while this is the polar opposite, my body remembers my last kiss, forced on me under the eaves of the theater.
I don’t want either of us to regret this.
“Think on it. Overnight.” I grit my teeth. I don’t want to delay. Why must I make everything difficult? She’s here. She cares for me. But flights of fancy run through my veins. I’ve been alone so long. I run into storms—into the arms of anyone who shows me the slightest affection.
I can’t ruin this because it’s what I want. She must know we’re destined for different lives. Brief stars in each other’s constellations before the lines are redrawn.
Bridget lowers her hand and weaves her fingers with mine.
“I will think much on this, trust me,” she agrees, smiling in that heart-wrenching way to make this all the harder. “And you consider that if you wish to stay here, I’ll stay. But if you wish for the adventures you listen to with stars in your eyes, perhaps the world is big enough for us to find a corner to escape into. We could start with my hometown and work our way out.”
She pauses, gulps again, and massages the tops of my fingers with her thumbs.
“I’ll need another kiss before we head back,” she adds, leaning forward once more. “To ensure I have all the evidence necessary for a clear assessment. Don’t you think?”
We are a hair’s breadth apart. Inside me the want has crested into a tidal wave. Bridget is my riptide, pulling me under.
“Perfectly sensible.”
It’s late when we pop our heads out of the cave. Too late, yet I can’t care. Whatever need be said to Elle, I’ll say it. My future seems so vast, I could fall into its depths and be lost.
And oh, do I so wish to be lost with Bridget.
23Elle
To Solve
I walk the opposite way than my usual route, clockwise. The snow melts into my hair, mixing with the sweat of dance and panic.
The rowboat was still upturned on the beach beside the dock. Liney would never swim to the mainland. She must be on the island. Why is she avoiding me? Aren’t I accommodating everything she wants? Overaccommodating, given our circumstances.
Did she and Bridget watch for me to leave and duck in behind me? Perhaps when I return, she’ll be in bed already and laughing at me. I can forgive a jape so long as she’s safe.
I’m dodging around an outcropping of trees when I see her.
She’s coming out of the earth. No, she’s emerging from a well-camouflaged cave. Where did that come from? Relief floods through me as strong as anger, no longer bridled by fear. She’s been playing in a hole in the ground while I’ve feared her dead or worse.
I make to hail her when a round face, surrounded by a shock of blackhair, also pops out. A face smiling wide and easy. Straining up, kissing my sister.
I crouch, stuck between not wanting to interrupt and fearing what this means. I approach slowly, keeping out of their sight lines.
Bridget’s mouth is moving as I come into hearing distance, but the waves keep her words just out of reach.
“I bet Ireland has a lot of seaweed I’ve never seen,” Liney says. She holds her hand out to Bridget, who grasps it and squeezes.
They’re turned away from me, heading back to the lighthouse.Thisis what they’ve been talking about?
“I’m sure it does. We could get you a book to press them—like leaves, right?”
Liney nods enthusiastically. Have I ever seen her shoulders so relaxed or her smile so beaming? “And something to protect it from the water too. Boats and paper don’t go together.”
I turn toward the dock, but it’s hidden behind trees. Seaweed, Ireland, water, boat—they’re abandoning me. Bridget wants to steal my sister. And Liney’s happy to leave me behind. So casual. How long have they been planning this? When did the scale tip from Liney’s gratefulness and understanding of our circumstances to Bridget’s siren call?
“Oh, the blanket!” Liney laughs. “We can’t forget it here.”
Here as in the cave, or the island? She submerges back into the cave. It’s just the dying sun, the unknowingly doomed stranger, and an island desperate to help me kill her.
