Or her. Leona. The name pops into my head. It sounds fierce. I’m going to need fierce if I want to get off this island on a raft. Because frankly, that’s what Leona’s going to be. A raft. I have neither the skill to craft a proper boat, nor three more years to spare.
Too soon, the last of the light fades, forcing me back into the house. I soak off the day’s grime in the tub. As I’m drying off, a mouthwatering aroma wafts into the bathroom. I follow the scent to the kitchen, where, on the table, rests a bowl. The steam rising from it smells like mashed potatoes …
… swirled with butter and sprinkled with chives. The flavors melt across my tongue, as if they’re real. I know they’re not, but what is real is the smile Kay gives me from across the table …
… the edge of the table pressing into my stomach as I lean in, drooling, until I see the bowl’s contents.
Taro, not potato.
The door behind me opens. I whip around as the boy walks in. “You harvested them?”
“Just two,” he says, washing his hands at the sink.
“Just?” Joules, there are only twelve plants in all.
The boy turns off the tap. Plip-plop-plip. The last droplet falls. “I’m not going to let us starve.”
Even before he faces me, I can imagine his expression. I draw it from his voice—from the preemptive edge to it, as if he senses my hackles are raised.
He’s not wrong. “It’s not about us.” I eat only what I need and stockpile the rest. I bake unappetizing biscuits because they will keep. Mashed taros? That’s a luxury I can’t afford. “I need to ration for the journey,” I say, and catch the look on the boy’s face, a flash so quick I would’ve missed it yesterday but already, I can read between his lines. The thinning of his lips? That’s his skepticism.
What if there’s nothing out there?
The softness in his eyes? That’s pity I mistook for concern.
She could be dead.
He thinks I’m delusional, and that angers me. Scares me—what if he’s right?—and when we’re trapped in a tiny kitchen together and he’s a meter away, I’m breathing in his doubt and I need to push it out and so the words leave my mouth before I can think any better of them. “Unlike you, I have someone waiting for me.”
And then I can’t see his face, or what my words do to it, because all I can see is Kay’s, blurred through my tear-chafed eyes. Hers are dry. She’s whole; I’m broken, I shouldn’t be—Mom was barely in our lives—and I wonder what’s wrong with me but that’s not what I say.
What’s wrong with you? I ask Kay, and the memory shatters. The boy is gone and I’m alone now, back in M.M.’s kitchen. My hands grip the table. Droplets dot the wooden surface. I wipe them off. Wipe my face. Sniff. In the memory, we were young, but was the last thing I said to Kay just as regrettable? Did I get to tell her I love her, and if not, will I ever be able to?
I will. I have to. I lift the bowl of mashed taro, appetite gone, but food is food and can’t be wasted so I taste it. It’s good. Sea-salted. A feast for my guilt.
I stomach what I can and leave behind more than half for the boy. For when he returns.
If he returns.
I keep watch by the kitchen window until night falls, then curl up on the couch, feeling dejected and pathetic for it.
“I hurt him,” I lament as U-me rolls over, stationing herself before my knees.
“Agree.”
“He’s never coming back.” Melodramatic, I know, but I can’t help it.
“Disagree.”
“You sound confident,” I mutter, laying my head down on the couch arm beneath the windowsill, my eyes fixating on the ceiling above. I guess we are on an abandoned island with limited real estate. He’ll have to return eventually. No guarantee we’ll be on speaking terms, though. I’ll miss his voice, I think, and groan, covering my eyes with an arm. I wish I could share my emotions with U-me and have her tell me I’m being irrational. Kay would. I’ve known the boy for, what? Two days? Three years without a human fix and two days later I’m addicted. Past-me would laugh at current-me, unable to sleep and heart leaping when finally, sometime around midnight, a sound comes from the porch. Whine of the front door, then creak of the half door separating the kitchen from the living room. Footsteps, soft.
And him. His outline fuzzes through my lashes as I pretend to be asleep, stirring only when I hear him stop by the couch.
“Cee?” His voice is a murmur of moonlight. I am the sea, pulled toward it. I don’t fight my reaction or act on it. Just let it swell, welcoming the physical yearning after so lengthy a drought.