The Paradise Problem (64)
The packed agenda keeps us busy and all the socializing really does turn the island into a shoebox; every night there’s a gathering, a party, some way for my parents and the McKellans to display their enormous wealth. Tonight is no different.
I heard Jake and Kellan talking about the spectacle of it at our groomsmen fitting—something about an Old Hollywood soiree. Kellan confirmed that his mother applied for a waiver from the Indonesian government to adjust the number of allowable items visitors can bring to Pulau Jingga simply so she could ship two crates full of costumes here for the party. It’s just like everything else so far this week: excessive to the point of distasteful.
I wonder if Anna knows this; I can’t imagine how she’d react.
And as soon as I have the thought—of Anna back at the bungalow, alone, waiting for me, wondering what the fuck happened—that tightness is back, the feeling of something wrong inside me.
* * *
ANNA MUST HEAR MY footsteps because she jogs around the lower deck to the wood slats of the bridge, throwing her arms up, hands resting on top of her head. She blows out a huge breath, turning in a half circle when she sees me. And the way it looks like she might cry makes me feel another strange wave of paradoxical anger.
I don’t get it. I have no fucking idea what’s going on with me.
“There you are,” she says, voice shaking. “Jesus Christ, West. I was about to go looking for you.”
I frown. “I was fine.”
“Where did you go?”
I know there’s no way around this, but the urgency to turn around and walk back along the bridge and down the beach to the quiet tip of the island feels like a second heartbeat in my torso. “I just went for a walk.”
“A walk?” she repeats. “You’ve been gone for like three hours.”
“I had to get some air.”
I feel her staring at me as I look out at the water. I can see this from the outside, how terrible this is, how fucked up I’m being after how things have been between us, after opening up to her, and after what she said.
I’m your ride-or-die, West Weston.
I know it’s not fair to sound so clipped, but I simply do not have the mental fortitude to walk it back. I don’t know how to explain what’s going on inside me. I feel like an uneasy, outdated version of myself, and I hate it. I know it’s not possible that seeing my dad has wiped out the years I spent working through this exact kind of thing, but I’m twenty years old again and staring down the barrel of emotions that are too big to wrap my head around.
“You’re being weird,” she says quietly.
Finally, I meet her eyes. “How so?”
Anna stares at me. “Seriously?”
“What do you want me to say?” I swallow as a shiver runs down my spine. “I just went for a walk. Don’t make it into something it isn’t.”
“Someth—?” She cuts off, jaw tight as she looks out at the water. I listen to her taking three deep breaths before she says a quiet “Sure. Okay. I say nice things and you bail. Nothing at all to read into there.”
“We barely know each other,” I say. “Just remember that.”
At the wounded look in her eyes, I immediately want to pull the words back into my mouth.
Anna huffs out a laugh. “Oh, I will.” After another beat of silence between us, she takes a final, deep breath and then turns fully to me, smiling in a way that feels both familiar and devastating. Everything in her expression looks the same as it always does, but her eyes are completely blank. “I took the liberty of choosing a couple options for you for tonight.” She lifts her chin to the inside of the bungalow. “I laid them out on the bed.”
“Thank you.” I thought that going for a walk, getting some distance from her, would make this feeling go away, but if anything, it’s worse.
It isn’t anger. It’s anguish.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say.
“Actually, I did,” she says. “Everyone was going through the trunks, pulling what they wanted, and I didn’t know where you were. I was worried all that would be left for you was the dress Jack Lemmon wore in Some Like It Hot.”
I laugh dryly. “Thank you.”
She doesn’t smile back and of course she doesn’t. I’m being a dick. “You’re welcome.” She turns to go inside and then stops. “Will it make you weirder if I get ready in here tonight? I can go over to the spa and get dressed there if you’d prefer.”
“Anna,” I say, “it’s fine.”
“Cool,” she says, and disappears inside.
* * *
IT TAKES ME ABOUT five minutes to get my tux on, and the remaining time before the party I spend on the deck, answering emails on my phone, responding to faculty texts and questions, and generally avoiding thinking about anything within a twenty-foot radius. Which is a strategy that is handily obliterated the second Anna walks out onto the deck in a cream satin dress that perfectly hugs her curves, and when she turns to blow out a citronella candle on the deck, I see that the dress dips so low in the back it reveals the twin shadows of her tailbone. The smooth expanse of her back is interrupted only by the tan line, which sends a fresh wave of frustration through me, and I look away, sucking in a deep breath.