Later, I’d lain in bed thinking that I might have set myself on fire just to burn my dad, but it had felt worth it. The way his face had gone pale, the satisfaction of finally, finally saying everything I’d wanted to, of giving in to that side of myself that just wanted to fucking do something, no matter how impulsive.
I shrug, suddenly shy. “It sounds stupid, I’m sure.”
“It doesn’t.” Her hand lands on mine, squeezing it. “It sounds brave.”
I look over at her, smiling even as I feel my throat go tight. “Thanks.”
“Told you,” she goes on. “Tough. Steely. A fighter.”
“Yeah, well, lately, I feel more like a drifter.” I sigh. “Like I’m just clinging on to someone else’s dream.”
“Nothing wrong with a little drifting,” she tells me, and then flashes me that bright white grin again. “Means you have options.”
“Options,” I repeat, and I like that. It feels more solid when she puts it that way. Like I’m not just drifting, but waiting. Waiting for the right thing, the right opportunity, the right dream to pursue.
If only I can figure out what it is.
We stay at the pool for another hour or so, and when we head back, the others are already gathered on the beach. It’s become a routine now, all of us congregating there by midday, and it’s like we’re a little family on vacation or something.
But as Eliza and I approach, I realize no one is talking. They’re all just staring at the horizon, frowning. I approach Brittany.
“What’s going on?”
She points.
There, out at sea, is a sail.
Given that there were other people here when we showed up, it shouldn’t surprise me that another boat might turn up. But it’s still unnerving, seeing someone sail directly toward us—toward what has started to feel like our own private island.
We watch in silence as the boat makes its way through the shoals. It’s not as nice as the Azure Sky, not even as nice as the Susannah. A solidly middle-of-the-road boat, and seeing it makes my heart sink.
“Shit,” Brittany says at my side, shading her eyes against the sun. “I don’t want to share.”
There’s something so plaintive in her voice that I laugh even though I’m disappointed, too.
“You’re already sharing with Eliza and Jake,” I remind her, and she glances over at me.
“But they’re friends now,” she says. “Friends with good booze, too. These people aren’t friends. They’re interlopers.”
“Wanna defend the island?” I ask her. “Make booby traps, go full Swiss Family Robinson?”
I’m joking, obviously, but Brittany says, “Maybe we could go get that skull back at the airstrip. Put it on the beach, scare them into leaving.”
When she sees my horrified expression, she laughs, bumping her hip against mine. “Oh my god, your face.”
Before turning her gaze back to sea, she asks, “Speaking of, what were you and Eliza doing in the jungle?”
It’s right there on the tip of my tongue to tell her all about the pool, that perfect hidden spot, but something stops me. “Oh, just walking around. Nothing special.”
She nods as the boat motors over the breakers and into the harbor. From this distance, I spot a single figure, standing at the wheel.
“And then,” Jake says with a sigh, “there were seven.”
BEFORE
Eliza is almost seventeen when it all comes crashing down.
Before that night in April, her life hadn’t exactly been charmed. There was never enough money, her dad split before she even really knew him, and she and Mum had moved so many times. They’d lived in big cities like London and Manchester, and tiny villages with names that sound like something out of a storybook—but, for Eliza, they were still just a series of council flats and shitty schools.
She’s glided by, Eliza has, because she’s pretty, because she’s quick, because she worked out that thing, that secret, that takes most people ages to learn—no one really wants you to be yourself. They only want themselves reflected back at them.
Eliza is very good at doing just that.
So while she never has the nicest clothes or the hottest brands, she always has friends, always finds herself at the center of things, and that’s where she likes to be, where she feels the most in control.
By the time she’s sixteen, things have settled. Her mum has a good job now, working as a housekeeper for a rich family just outside of London, while Eliza is firmly ensconced in the social hierarchy of her school: queen bee, a perfect golden girl despite her rather dingy semidetached house and her drugstore makeup. She’s studying for her GSCEs, smart enough to get into a decent university, smart enough to ensure that the life that trapped her mother isn’t going to trap her.