Page 113 of Hate Wrecked

I shake my head. “I don’t know, I’ve been reading the book?—”

“You can see it toward the end.” He swallows. “You can see it when you see her again.”

I kiss Rowan then. His arms wrap around me, and I pull his face close, needing him closer and closer before we aren’t alone anymore. Before we have to face reality. When he drops the gun into the sand and grabs my hips, I wrap my legs around him. His mouth is on my neck when he speaks again. “I never stopped thinking about you. I think I was always hoping I’d find you again. I just didn’t think it would be here.”

I sigh at his touch, close my eyes tight. “I’m yours. I’m yours here, I’ll be yours when we leave. Please, please?—”

Rowan kisses me fiercely, ending my plea. When he pulls away, I see the salt in his eyes. “I’m yours, Riley. I’ve always been fucking yours.”

COME HOME TO ME

ROWAN

The hum comesbefore the sight—low and steady, vibrating through my chest like a second heartbeat. Riley hears it first. She straightens, eyes wide, mouth parted, scanning the sky like it’s a trick of sound, like we might be imagining it.

But then the birds in the trees scatter, and a white speck breaks over the water.

A plane.

Riley grabs my hand, squeezes hard. By the time the wheels kiss the overgrown runway, Riley is in my arms, holding me tight.

They come out fast—sharp voices, stretchers, kits, guns. I don’t let go of Riley as I talk to them, tell them where the men are.

We gather what we can in quiet, together. Our battered belongings, Desi’s manuscript, my notebooks, Garfield squirming and howling like a demon.

There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to leave. That wants to stay on Falcon island forever, where the rules of the world can’t touch us. But the island isn’t ours. It never was. It’s a place built on lost things—and we’re lucky enough to still be found. I hope it will again become a place for growth. We grew on the shores, in the jungle, in our tent, beneath the water, and under each other’s gaze.

When the engine of the plane roars and we lift off, I glance out the window. The island shrinks below us—trees, salt-worn buildings, the wrecked ship and the stolen vessel—and then it’s just endless and blue and blinding sun. Somehow a different hue than what I saw from the boat when we sailed toward our fate.

Riley exhales like she’s been holding her breath for months.

The cabin is quiet except for the thrum of air, the propeller, and the occasional cry from Garfield. Across from us, a medic writes notes on a large pad of paper. I catch him glancing at Riley between sentences, then at me.

When he stands and leaves us alone at the back of the plane, I turn to Riley, voice low, taking her hands. “You okay?”

She blinks at me, then leans forward, pressing her forehead to my shoulder. “I think so.”

“Your hand is shaking.”

She looks down. Her fingers twitch where they’re threaded through mine. She tries to pull away. I don’t let her.

“You don’t have to hold everything together anymore. You don’t have to make the best of anything, put on a show. We’re still there, in some ways,” I say. “You can be whoever you want to be when we get home too.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” she whispers.

I laugh. “I’m being serious, Riley.”

Her mouth twitches. “You too, though. You can be whoever you want to be, too.”

I run my hand over her hair, kiss her temple. “You were brave, you know?”

“You too,” she whispers.

“You once said you didn’t want your mess of your life to ruin me, to hurt me.” She pulls back, looking into my eyes. I continue. “You’re a mess I welcome. You could never ruin me. From the moment I first saw you, you gave me a reason to get up every morning. I just wanted to see your face, the way your mouth moves when you’re mischievous, the way your eyes look when your heart swells. I was ruined in the best way the day we met. I’ve never been the same, and that’s okay. I used to hate the way you wrecked me; now I crave it with everything I am.”

When she kisses me, I feel our forgiveness. I feel our fractures mending. I feel hope for the first time in years. We slipped through the cracks. Became ghosts to the rest of the world. But I came alive on that island with her.

There are things you don’t do in this life, and the one that has ruled my life is repeating my father’s sins. But I can’t look at loving Riley as a sin anymore. She makes me feel alive; she exhumes the darkness that has tangled around my heart, and makes it ours, makes it new. I lost part of myself to her the moment she looked at me like I could cure her loneliness with my own.

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