Island Rush (21 page)

I shook my head. “I still don’t get why you cared in the first place about mine,” I pushed.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged angrily, looking away. That anger quickly diffused.  “I guess I was curious how a teenager could change so dramatically over so little time. I knew it was rare to see a girl at your age change like that within days. You suddenly seemed like an extremely mature person. Then again, you always were,” he babbled on.

He was spot on once I thought about it. How did he know, though? “I talked back in class, disrespected you, and didn’t do my work…” I shook my head, not understanding. “How could you see I was mature when I would do all those things?”

He thought about it and looked as if he was stumped. “I honestly don’t know. I got a totally different vibe off of you. I just knew,” he said, his eyes still moving back to flashing anywhere but to mine.

We sat there for a minute before he spoke in a quiet voice.  “We should get going.”

We stood and moved out of the packed trees to where it was more open and grassy. I followed Mr. Rush and a few seconds later, we were back to where we originally fell asleep and had our fire.  Damp ashes were visible on the ground along with the spear and five coconuts we had been carrying. We even saw the flint and stone we used last night too.

I picked up what I carried yesterday and balanced the spear and two coconuts in my arms.  When I watched Mr. Rush, he bent down and picked up the stone and flint. However, when he stood back up and dropped them in his pocket, he froze. I paid more attention to him as he closed his eyes for a moment and sighed.  He slowly drew back out his fist with the flint and stone, dropping it back to the ground.  His hand free, he shoved it back into his pocket and retrieved what I saw to be broken pieces of the seashells that held the dew.

He dug out the broken shells from his other pocket too, wiping away the evidence in the grass with an annoyed face. He must have crushed them last night when we were trying to keep warm. Rubbing up against each other like that and rolling… yeah, that would have crushed the shells and make him not notice, not with all the rain that came down.

“Well, that sucks,” he said, putting the flint and stone in his now empty pocket.

“At least we have the coconuts to drink from.  And I’m sure we can find more shells and clay.”

He nodded to me as he picked up the rest of the coconuts he needed to carry.  “Yeah, we will be fine,” he said, brushing his concerns away.  I found it somewhat ironic he said that with what happened next.

Chapter 18

We didn’t get the chance to start our day of walking.  When we were about to walk out towards the edge of trees, it started to downpour to the point where it was hard to see anything. The wind started to pick up too, and we once again sat against a tree that blocked the wind and rain. At least it was hot outside, and we didn’t need to worry about getting cold.

I would have rather been freezing though than go through a storm of this magnitude. It only took minutes for the wind and rain to pick up to the point where we couldn’t even hear ourselves speak! It got serious real quick. Above us, we could see the trees swaying back and forth in a rough motion, the leaves and branches hanging on for dear life. They bent forward and sideways from what we could see in the blur of this disaster.  I instinctively pushed myself into Mr. Rush’s side. In return, he wound his arm around me and held me to him when we realized the tree we were huddled up against wasn’t shielding much.

I didn’t expect a slightly dark sky this morning to turn into this.  As minutes passed, it got worse.  The wind began affecting our balance, even with us against the tree!  My hair blew over my face and, between those strands, my eyes caught a swift motion.  A small tree many yards away was swaying until it snapped and fell to the ground!  Another tree nearby also lost its hold but didn’t fall to the ground. I thought my eyes were tricking me with what I witnessed.  The tree was being dragged through the air at an intense speed until it disappeared from my vision. I wasn’t sure if I could believe my eyes until Mr. Rush reacted.

Gripping my arm hard, he pulled me away from the tree.  All I wanted to do was go back.  That was until I turned around and saw the tree we were against was struggling to keep its place too!  Was this a fucking hurricane?!

It was a blur with how fast everything happened.  I couldn’t believe a storm could come on like this.  The trees were being whipped into the freaking air for God’s sake!  Mr. Rush though understood that we could process this craziness later.  He pulled me down to the ground for a quick second and yelled loudly so I could hear him.  “We need to—”

With us kneeling before each other on the ground, I managed to see what happened through the rain and unearthly winds.  He was cut off by a large branch that hit him from the side, throwing him to his back a few feet away from me. I watched in horror at his shocked face and the weather around us.

I scrambled on my knees over to him, gripping the grass for assistance as I moved.  When I got to him and saw he was okay, he rolled back up onto his knees.  Finding my eyes as he held us to the ground, I noticed he was breathing hard.  He seemed okay otherwise.

He took my hand, a daring moment for him with his next action.  Mr. Rush stood and pulled me to him until I was on both feet. Then we were running, with him pulling me back into the heavily guarded woods. It was a hard process no matter how quickly it flashed by. You couldn’t call it running when we were as balanced as a drunk. We nearly fell after each step!  All I focused on were my feet since he held my hand in guidance.

From the corner of my eye, I caught more small plants and trees whipping up and out of sight.  You couldn’t even call this rain and wind anymore! The massive gusts led the sharp drops to its destination, picking up sticks, leaves, and now small trees with it.  My own hair wasn’t all that was blasting in my face either. Twigs and dirt, water and leaves, wind and salt, held blind me too.

He was leading us back into the packed woods for more cover, but we didn’t make it.  His hand that I was grasping slid down and towards the ground as I saw Mr. Rush fall before me. He wouldn’t let my hand go, which made me feel secure.  It came with a price though as my eyes widened.  On the ground, he suddenly started to slide back towards me!  Being dragged by this extremely forceful weather!  It was crazy but not something I had time to wrap my head around.  As he slid along the ground, he knocked me to the ground with him.

“Oh god!” I shrieked out as I felt us being dragged back along the freaking ground!  I felt my mind whirl around with the wind, and all I could think was that this couldn’t be happening to us!

He grasped my arm as I did his arm, sliding over the wet leaves and mud, being literally blown back in the direction of the ocean.  We were going fast too.  My other hand scrambled along the ground as we were being swept away, trying to desperately grab something – anything at all – to hold on to!  We needed to keep ourselves from being sucked away thanks to whatever the hell this was! When I didn’t think I could become more panicked, I felt both my legs swing up into the wind.  My legs uncontrollably smacked against a thick tree that was still rooted to the Earth.

“Ahhhh fuck!” I screamed out as I felt the pain enter my knees.  My words and screech were drowned out by the noise of the storm and my heart beating in my ears. From that hit came an instant tug that wanted to break our connected arms apart when I was whipped in another direction.  Our grip was firm, though, and we remained holding on.  

It was all turning into a blur when I felt more pain hitting me in every direction.  Like little cuts and impacts that came from sticks and bushes as we were still being dragged through the grass and dirt, slowly but surely. 

Mr. Rush realized that this would be it for us when we started to lift off the ground and towards the heart of this deadly storm.  Our eyes met in a flash, and his hand gripped my arm tighter.  In his eyes, it was clear why.  Suddenly, we stopped being pulled!  Mr. Rush’s scrambling hand found something on the ground to stop us.  That fast force and jerk nearly broke us away from each other, but it didn’t, thank God. 

I couldn’t see much, but I could feel him holding on to my arm hard as his stomach was on the wet ground.  His other hand saved us since it was now grasping something I couldn’t see.  When I felt Mr. Rush slowly try to find the strength to pull me up closer, I helped him out.  I dug my free hand into the grass and mud, holding onto him as I tried inching up closer to where he was grabbing whatever was saving us.  Digging my foot into the ground too, I managed to pull myself up next to him.

I felt him let me go so he could put his arm around me to hold me down more firmly.  He lifted himself slightly, settling on top of my back to hold me down. I was on my stomach, my body being pushed into the ground and mud with his weight. I felt his breath in my ear and knew his back was to the intense storm.

“Grab the roots!” he yelled.

I looked up and saw what was keeping us there. Mr. Rush had both of his hands now twined in the roots of a big tree so he wouldn’t be taken by the storm. He was holding me down with his body since he was already safe with the roots he held. I was in the safest place possible.  Hopefully, he could hold on but if he couldn’t, I needed security.

I wrapped my hands up over our heads in the roots with his. I felt his legs leave on top of mine, his body beginning to pick up with the wind! It was the scariest feeling to experience when my body did the same thing! The wind grew stronger and was making both of us rise. My god, we were literally holding on for our lives!

Mr. Rush slammed down on me when the wind let us go, only to pick up again. “Hold on!  If you can’t, I’m here,” he yelled, and that was when I saw I was shaking without the help of the storm.

My thoughts couldn’t grasp what was happening.  All I could think was that we had to live. But why exactly?  We had a very slim possibility of getting out of here.  If that happened, I could get revenge for what happened, and Mr. Rush could have the life he wanted.  We both wanted those things, and that was probably why he was holding on.  Jill was his reason and if he couldn’t get out of this place… well, he must figure living here is better than being dead.

But why was I holding on? I had faith that I would see my mother in the afterlife if I were to die. Stay here and what happens? There was no going home to take care of my father and brother; I lost hope of ever getting back. So why? 

Then it clicked. Mr. Rush was the reason to stay here.  I wanted to see my mother, but it wasn’t my time to die.  I couldn’t stand the thought of going on without Mr. Rush.  Call me stupid, crazy, and just a typical girl.  Living on this island with him, though… it gave me something I never had before.

I wasn’t sure how long we held on.  If it were a minute or an hour, I didn’t know. At last, Mr. Rush collapsed one last time against me and our legs didn’t fly back up in the wind. His weight was a welcome as was his hard breathing in my ear. We were actually okay.

It was the most relieving thing in the world to feel that a terrible storm died down and eventually faded away after several minutes.  All that was left was a very dark sky and a little bit of wind.  It left my mind in a haze.  How could something like that come on so quickly only to leave just as fast?

Our breathing died down. When Mr. Rush lifted his weight off me, he rolled me over onto my back so we could look at each other for the first time.  I saw he hadn’t fully sat up but only lifted his weight. He was still laying over me, his face close to mine, and his arms all that were keeping him up.

I said nothing.  It was a shock, seeing his face.  Dirt and water covered him and his face.  His hair went in every direction with mud spread over the strands. A few small cuts covered his body that I could see, including a few along his cheeks and chest.

With seeing that, all I could think was that it made him so beautiful.  Under all those dull colors of dirt and a little blood was a rich chocolate engraved in his eyes. What made him so spectacular at that moment was that all his emotions were presented to me without his knowledge of it. The concern, awe, wonder, and shock that didn’t just have to do with the storm.

He pressed more of his weight on me, leaning down as he lifted one of his hands, running the back of it down the side of my face. His breath picked up and was growing harder than before.

I found my voice after averting my eyes. When I looked back, that same awe and shock were still there, breath growing harder as that sweetness brushed my face. “Are you okay?” I asked in a higher tone than intended.

A strange looked crossed his face.  His eyes were always the doorway to his feelings. Now it was open, and it penetrated my senses. I might have laughed at the words I just spoke, but I didn’t get the chance to.  His face descended, and his lips stopped on mine.

He kissed me.  With it was an intense amount of passion that I couldn’t understand. I froze as he unwound, one hand keeping him propped over me as the other wound around me and cupped my neck, pulling me up to him.

Mr. Rush was always so loyal to Jill, so sure of her, or so it seemed.  It’s understandable why it would be a shock to me that he was kissing me. His lips moved over mine, and I sure hadn’t expected it. He was so… warm.  It made everything inside me race faster than I could handle, especially since we were still recovering from that wicked storm.  Now how was I supposed to recover from this?

I didn’t get what he was doing.  Did he hit his head on a tree as I did my legs?  Was he actually doing this because he liked me as I did him? I’ve tried staying away but did I try hard enough? No, not even close. I just got sucked in and ignored all the issues.  Did he think that maybe I was Jill somehow?  I feel that that was a huge possibility.  He might be using his lust for her out on me for all I knew.  I seriously wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

That was why I finally let go and let him take me away with his lips. I started to move my mouth with his, letting myself drown in the fact that I was actually kissing him.  Him - the one guy I was always infatuated with.  The one guy I dreamed of having.

His lips were warm and full on mine, moving longingly.  It made the hairs on my arms stand on end. And with those arms, I lifted them and wrapped them around his body, resting one hand on his back as my other hand cupped his neck.

His mouth started to move with an urgency like he had been hungry for so long and couldn’t control himself. I did the same, welcoming him with open arms – or lips.  I let him push his lips and even his tongue deeper.  The power he was exerting on my mouth was so soft and warm.  The little prickly hairs that had begun to grow on his chin and below his nose brushed my skin too and made me moan.  Combine that with his breath which felt just as amazing… it made me get lost in all of him. 

We searched each other’s mouths until he abruptly stopped, the action making my heart jump hard.  He pulled his head back to stare at me with a look of shock and absolute wonder. We froze, and I knew we were sure we had no clue what just occurred. The only thing I became sure of was that this changed everything.