“Mum,” Eliza says, her voice a croak, her whole body going hot and cold at the same time. “You have to tell them the drugs are his. Because they are, right? He made you take them to London?”
“Jack had nothing to do with this,” her mum says, and Eliza scoffs even though she’s crying.
“Right, because you just got three kilos of coke on your own, and then just decided to carry them with you to London. Mum, please!”
Her mum’s voice is so soft when she answers, so tired. “It won’t matter anyway.”
It doesn’t. Her mum never comes back from London, sentenced to ten years for trafficking with the intent to sell. She never once mentions Jack Kelly’s name, pleads guilty, and is swallowed up by the system.
Her last night in the village, the night before her mum’s sister will take her off to Essex, Eliza sees Jake one final time. After her mum’s arrest, she’s stayed away from him, him and his whole bloody family, but she knows they’re going back to Australia soon, and she thinks about it all the time, him and his father—his fucking father—in some other big house, able to start over clean and fresh whenever they want or need.
She sits there in his car, her eyes stinging with how much she’s cried, her tissues crumpled in her hand, and he lights a joint, offering her a hit.
She doesn’t take it, the idea of drugs abhorrent to her now. She’s vowed to never touch any of it again.
Jake only shrugs, sucking the blue smoke into his lungs, exhaling it into the car, and Eliza feels slightly dizzy.
“It’s all just so unfair,” she says now.
“Fucking way of it, isn’t it?” Jake replies easily, and Eliza looks at him.
He’s so handsome, caught in the orange glow of the streetlight, and she suddenly understands that men like Jake’s father—men like Jake himself—will get away with this forever.
Eliza thought she had worked out the secret, but it’s nothing compared to this secret brotherhood of men.
“I guess,” she says, and what she thinks is, But it doesn’t have to be.
It won’t be for me.
A_Wandering_Heart: Anyone ever heard of #MeroeIsland? Apparently it’s just a few days sail from Hawaii, and me and some friends were thinking of hitting it up after #HawaiianPro. Thoughts??
Shaka2379: @A_Wandering_Heart WOULD NOT. That place has bad vibes. Me and some buddies stopped by two years ago 2/10 DO NOT RECOMMEND.
A_Wandering_Heart: @Shaka2379 Lol, okay?? What do you mean “bad vibes?”
Shaka2379: @A_Wandering_Heart Idk just alot of people died there I guess, place feels off. We were gonna stay for like a week bailed after 2 days. IF U GO U KNO.
UrBoyRobbRoy: @Shaka2379 @A_Wandering_Heart PUUUUSSSSSSIES. More for the rest of us!!! #GonnaEatThatLongPigSon #FuckinInfluencers
Twitter, March 2022
NOW
FIFTEEN
The other boat anchors behind the Susannah and the Azure Sky, and I take it as a good sign. Whoever is aboard, they’re respectful and keeping their distance.
“Should we take the dinghy out to greet them?” Nico asks. His arm is slung around my shoulders, and I step a little closer to him.
“Welcoming party?” Jake asks. “Not a terrible idea.”
“I’m not feeling all that welcoming, darling,” Eliza replies. “Why don’t you and Nico go? Put the fear of god in them just in case.”
Jake snorts. “Ah yes, nothing more intimidating than one guy in salmon shorts, and another sporting a dinosaur bandana.”
But a man has already jumped off the boat, and is swimming for shore.
“Well, at least he’s observing the local customs,” Amma jokes, but we’re all too tense to laugh.
I can’t help it—watching someone else approach the island that has now started to seem like “ours,” I feel possessive.
I didn’t know I had that streak in me, and it strikes me how much we revert back to the most basic human instincts when we leave civilization behind, even temporarily.
The man is a capable swimmer, and he quickly reaches the shore, staggering toward us with a big smile on his face.
He’s ropy and skinny, his shorts hanging low on his hips, held up by a belt so old and fraying that at first glance, it looks like a stray piece of twine. His hair has been buzzed down to the scalp, pink skin showing through in some places where the sun obviously got him. But he’s got an easy grin as he surveys us on the beach, his hands on his hips. He’s not quite as tall as Jake, but a little taller than Nico. Still, I think I could knock him over with one good push.