Page 20 of Hate Wrecked

Riley shrugged as if she hadn’t planned it out. “I don’t know. The sand? The water? Whatever feeling this fucking pill is going to give me here in about”—she glanced at her watch—“twenty minutes?”

The last thing I needed was a drugged-out Riley drowning in the ocean after I saw her take the pill and knew where she was going. “Okay.”

“You drive,” she said, grabbing her purse and tossing the keys at me.

I grabbed them before they hit my face, and Riley laughed. “I’m a horrible throw.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I laughed, reaching for the notepad on the counter. I left a quick message telling everyone where we would be and hoped I wouldn’t get in trouble.

My entire career was riding on how well I performed at this job, though at times, I wanted to sayfuck itand do what I wanted to do—which was write. But what money was there in that career if you didn’t have any connections?

None.

Perhaps one day, when I was on my deathbed, I could write a memoir about the wild experiences I had as a bodyguard. I had already seen enough to fill a damn book with that family.

There are things you don’t do in this life. One of them is repeating your father’s sins. So I took Riley to do something I always wanted: to exhume the darkness of my heart. I brought her to the cliffside, to my spot, the one that would become ours.

I took her there to scream into the sky.

And I lost part of myself to her the moment she dried her eyes and looked back at me like I could cure her loneliness with my own.

SCREAM INTO THE SKY

ROWAN

When I close my eyes,I don’t see the captain. I don’t see his eyes; I don’t see his lifeless body. I see my father. I see the way he looked when life was gone from him, when my mother wept on the hardwood floor, a mess. It was my job to step up. It was my job to be the man of the house.

I succeeded in escaping, first through books and then in America, where I hoped the past wouldn’t follow me. It’s caught up to me now.

The captain is a slight man, and for that, I’m thankful as we navigate through the jungle. My mind tries to rescue me, pulling me back to when Riley and I first met, back to her obsession with that ridiculous movieWeekend at Bernie’s. They carried that dead man around just as Riley and I are dragging one through the jungle.

Except there is no laughter, no jokes, and no plan exists beyond getting him out of the sun so that when rescue comes, we can tell them where to find him. So they can take him home to his final resting place.

I glance over at Riley and see tears on her face. She catches my eye and shakes her head. “I’m fine.”

She isn’t. Who would be fine right now?

We find the spot I scouted. It’s nothing really, some old bunker laid in ruins from the World War II occupancy. I hope it will keep him safe until we find help.What kind of scavengers live here?I push the thought away, untangling myself from the dead man’s arms as we reach the entrance. “I got him,” I say, pulling his limp form from Riley. She watches me, hands clenched at her sides, as I maneuver him into the dark.

“Will he be okay there?” she asks from outside the entrance, doubt covering her face.

I take him to the back of the dark bunker and lay him down, then look back at Riley. “It’ll keep the rain off of him. In the morning, we’ll reassess. We just need to get settled. At dawn, we’ll move to one of the other islands and get to the main one. We need a good night of rest. We’re going to be sore from the wreck.”

“Okay.”

It’s her default response.Okay. I’m okay. This is okay.

When I reach her, I place my hand on her shoulder, turning her away from the captain, back toward our campsite.

When we break the tree line, I feel the panic swelling inside me again. So I busy myself. When I touch the tent, it feels dry. “Help me with this?”

Riley walks over, and we make quick work of assembling the tent.

After, I look across the shoreline to the jungle. “Let’s look for firewood.” I have a lighter in my suitcase, and I pray it wasn’t ruined in the wreck.

Riley and I walk in silence to the tree line. When we walk under the leaves once again, and the shade envelopes us, I breathe. Death comes to us all, mother, daughter, father, son, captain.

I didn’t know that man. We barely had time to speak on the trip out, and he struck me as reserved, which I didn’t mind. I don’t know who will mourn him. Does he have a son like me? Will his absence leave a hole the way my father did?

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