Page 36 of Hate Wrecked

Though I thought it was painfully obvious, I couldn't tell her how I really felt.

“Have you ever been to Italy?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No. I’d love to go one day, though. I’d love to travel to a lot of places.”

“Like where?”

I racked my mind, and it landed on the book on my nightstand at home. Maybe that's what sealed our fate. “Elderslie Atoll.”

“Where is that?”

“The Pacific.”

“Why there? I’ve never heard of it.”

“You’ll have to ask your parents about it. I bet they’ve heard of it. I’m reading a novel about the double murder in the 70s.”

“And you want to go there because there was a murder there?” she asked.

I looked down at Riley, at her green eyes, and quickly looked away before my gaze could go to her lips. “It’s more than that. They say the island is cursed. I just wonder…”

“If you're immune?” she edged.

I laughed. “No.” But maybe I was lying to myself then. Perhaps I wanted to tempt fate. I took the same job my father had to see if I was immune to his mistakes. If it was the man and not the magic. Maybe I wanted to go to the island for the same reason.

“You couldn't pay me to step foot on a cursed island,” Riley declared.

“Well, it’s probably a dream. I don’t know when I would ever get the time off or have the funds to fly to Hawaii for that trip.”

Riley sat up, dangerously close to me. “Please tell me my stepfather is paying you well.”

I nodded. “Yes, I just…my mother was frugal. She rarely took time off or prioritized stuff like vacations and travel. Maybe it's hard to shake.”

Riley groaned, laying back down in my lap. “And here I am talking about taking off to Italy. You must think I’m insufferable.”

She was begging for a compliment. And I fell right into it. “No. I definitely do not.”

Riley reached up and grabbed the chain that hung from my neck. The wedding ring dangling from it was worn. “Why do you keep this?”

I looked down at her, my eyes transfixed on her long fingers as she moved the ring around. “I don’t know. Someone had to. My mother couldn’t bear to look at it.”

“Rightfully so,” Riley replied.

“Maybe it brings me comfort.”

“It ended. I wouldn’t want anything to do with my parents’ wedding rings,” Riley grumbled.

“I don’t blame you. And maybe I’ll put it in a drawer one day. But right now, it makes me think of home. And that's not bad in a city like this.”

Behind us, we heard a door slam. Riley scooted off my lap and sat on her side of the bench. I glanced over my shoulder, seeing her mother and stepfather by the pool talking. They didn’t look toward us, often forgetting the garden existed.

Often forgetting anyone existed when they were together.

“They don’t care that we’re friends,” Riley whispered, her eyes also over her shoulder, watching them. “They don’t care what I do.”

“They would probably care what I do.”

“Lucky,” Riley whispered, staring back into the ocean before us. “I could probably disappear into the ocean, and it would take them months to even notice.”

---