Page 29 of Hate Wrecked

It’s easy to get Rowan going on a topic he’s passionate about to pull his attention from the horrible things happening around us.

We need sleep—good sleep to start the day tomorrow. We’re going to load all of our supplies into the lifeboat and sail to the largest island in the atoll.

“Why is there no one missing you right now?” I ask.

Rowan turns toward me slightly. “What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

I see Rowan roll his eyes in the dim light. “Why won’t you let this go?”

“When I would remember you, I remembered you as someone who wanted love,” I whisper, sitting up.

“Sounds desperate.” Rowan sighs. “And what you remember of me? That person is gone, Riley. I had to grow up in that city. There was no room for softness in my profession. I learned it quickly with your family.”

I lie back down, pulling my eyes from Rowan as he moves around—the sound comforting. “He wasn’t my family. He was a mistake. Another one of my mother’s mistakes that I paid for. That my sisters paid for.”

Rowan sits up, hugging his knees. I glance at him. He’s shirtless, in his boxers. When did he take his clothes off? I close my eyes.

We wear similar wounds. He with his father. Me with my mother. Parental figures who let us down changed our reality. Yet, they’re human beings who exist and try. And though we know that, where does forgiveness lie dormant? And how long will it hide away?

I bite my tongue, then sit up again, eyes watching the fire, my body wholly attuned to Rowan’s. I want to touch him. “Sometimes, I wonder who I would be if she’d never married him. Would I have turned out differently, or is this just who I am at the core? Was I destined for this path no matter what?”

Rowan shakes his head. “You can’t give other people that kind of power.”

“Are you going to stop doing that yourself? Or just chastise me for it? You’re not that much older than me, Rowan. You’re not some almighty philosopher because you have a few years on me.”

“I know.”

“So are you going to lay off?” I ask.

Rowan smiles at me and shakes his head before lying down and turning away from me. “Never.”

I scoff. “Well, think about laying off when we get home.”

Rowan shifts. “When we get out of here you’ll be back to your old life, and all of this will be over. You won’t have to think about this anymore.”

Think about my hands on a dead man’s flesh?

Or think about Rowan close to me like I have wanted for years?

I can’t enjoy it; I can’t feel the warmth of it. All I feel is that I am slipping out of shock and into something much worse. What is this feeling? Like a hole in my chest is deepening. Like the mouth of the volcano we are sitting on.

I change my voice to my actress voice, staring at the tent ceiling. “Elderslie Island is actually an Atoll. The mouth of a volcano. That’s what created this stunning shoreline we see before us today.” I flourish a hand to the tent ceiling and Rowan rolls over, giving me a look that asks me what the fuck I am doing. I continue. “From fire and ruin comes life.”

“From destruction. Not always, though,” he whispers. I know his back is to me, a physical manifestation of how he has felt to me for years. A turned back—someone who wants nothing to do with me. And can I blame him? No, I can’t.

I continue my recitation of the facts Rowan told me. Anything to keep my mind from racing to the past. Both recent and long past. I let my words push away the feeling of withdrawal in my body, the slow death of my want for vices. I’ll feel worse in the morning. I never should have taken those pills at the hotel. But I didn’t want to feel.

I wanted to fade to black. To drown in the past and all of my mistakes—choosing the wrong man to give my heart to. Choosing the snake over the warm smile of the man next to me. The man who’s had a constant scowl since he picked me up at that airport.

And I feel tomorrow will bring everything but the smiles I used to light up for.

* * *

I wake suddenly during the night, looking over at Rowan to check if he’s awake. He seems to be sleeping peacefully; I can hear his breathing. But my eyes need a moment to adjust.

Outside, I can hear the waves and another low sound. I close my eyes and try to place it. It’s the fire, almost extinguished, but I can still hear it.

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