Positively Beautiful (22 page)

Up until now, the scariest places I've ever been are the creepy-ass buildings Chaz and Michael love so much.

They seem like child's play now.

I am all by myself. On a deserted island.

And it is dark.

At first after Jason leaves, I sit by the fire and stare into the flames, watching the air darken and the sparks float high into the sky. The mosquitoes come out, and other small biting
bugs, but I find some of the bug spray Jason left, and I continue to sit and stare. As the fire dies, I begin to hear sounds.

Big sounds and little sounds.

Small rustling in the bushes, the roar of a faraway boat motor. From the nearby cove comes a cascade of splashes, like a handful of giant silver coins dashed across the surface of the water.

Then I hear something crash through the bushes—
close
—and I begin to think serious bear thoughts, or … an alligator!? The thought of a monstrous lizard slithering its way out of the bushes sends me scurrying into the tent. I have a flashlight and a battery lantern and I turn them both on. I don't have a book. Reading at night has always been my way to keep the demons at bay. All I can do is huddle in the sleeping bag and listen so hard it makes my ears hurt. A few mosquitoes have followed me into the tent and they drone around so loudly I want to scream.

The hours pass excruciatingly slowly. I lie awake shaking, every new noise almost sending me over the edge. Shadows move and writhe on the tent walls and I hope they are branches but deep down I know it is the dark trying to get in.

I cannot sleep. I cannot sleep even though it is the one thing I want most in the world because the thoughts in my head are almost unbearable.

I must have dozed off, because Jason is leaning over me when I open my eyes. The light is pearly and gray and even the chirping birds sound sleepy.

“Hey,” he says softly. I wonder how long he has been watching me sleep.

“Hey.” I am curled up in a tight little ball hugging my knees. For a minute we look at each other and without speaking he leaves the tent. I get up. It's a little chilly, gauzy pink fog stealing through the trees, and I drag the sleeping bag out with me. He is stoking the fire and I sit in one of the camp chairs.

“I brought coffee,” he says without turning around. “And a sausage biscuit.”

I pick up the thermos and sip. The coffee is hot and black and bitter and tastes wonderful.

“Are there alligators on the island?” I ask. “Something
big
was outside the tent last night.” I shudder just thinking about it.

He laughs. “Raccoons,” he says, pointing at the trash bag with its contents strewn everywhere. “I should have hung it up in the tree but I forgot.”

“Oh.”
Raccoons
made all that noise? What, are the raccoons in Florida the size of small cars?

“I can't stay long, I've got to get to school, but I wanted to come check on you,” he says. He's got the fire burning nicely now and I stretch my bare feet out to it. He sits on the log facing me.

“How was the night? Do you want to leave? I didn't tell my parents you're here. They wouldn't approve of you being out here all by yourself, but if you want to come back to my house, I'm sure they would be happy to have you—”

I shake my head immediately. Even with the scary noises,
and the living, breathing darkness, I do not want to leave. Not yet.

“I want to stay.” I lean forward and put my hand on his arm. He looks up. “Thank you,” I say.

He smiles, but it's a small smile, and his eyes are troubled.

“I'll be back this afternoon. I brought you some more food, and a couple of my books. I know you like to read. Are you going to be okay? Say the word and I'll take you home.”

“I'm good here.” But I'm crying again, tears slipping down my cheeks.

He nods and stands up. He looks down at me and cups my wet cheek with his palm and then he's gone.

I'm not sure what to do with myself. I can't remember when I'd ever been away from the TV, my computer, or my phone for any length of time. It feels odd, and at first I'm antsy. Then I decide to go for a walk and follow one of the trails leading out of the back of the campsite. It leads me to the bigger beach I saw when we came in, overlooking the open water. I wish I had a camera. I sit for a while and watch the sun rise and the boats skim across the water. My tears seem disconnected from me, like a soft summer rain falling gently in the background. A pelican, with a blond Mohawk and startlingly human blue eyes, lands with a
splish-splash
and comes up with a fish in its pouch. I watch in fascination as it gulps down the squirming creature.

I see a fin in the water, and I tense, but then I see the gray back of a dolphin as it porpoises to the surface.

Not a shark.

I think about what Jason said in one of his e-mails, about watching dolphins jump for joy.
Does she think about death? Do animals feel joy because they don't think about death or because they live with it every day?

After a while I get up and follow the beach around the island. I climb over fallen trees and look at pilings out in the water.
Someone
used to live here, someone used to call this home. I walk until the sun is high in the sky and the sun is burning my arms, and then I turn back. I am still crying. I can't seem to stop and I have given up trying.

I wonder about my mom, what she is doing right now, and if she's okay, and then I start running to make myself stop thinking about it. But even then, pictures of her drawn, worried face leak into my head.

I make my way back to the private little beach. I take off all my clothes except for my bra and underwear and lie in the warm water until it creeps away with the tide and only muddy sand and crabs remain, and still I lie there. I'm shriveled up like a prune when I get out, feeling as tender and weak as a newborn. I put the towel under the shade of a bush and go to sleep.

When I wake, the towel is soaked with my tears. I can't remember my dream, not really, but bits of it flash in my head. Trina dressed up like the Statue of Liberty saying, “Michael is looking for you, everyone is looking for you, where are you, Erin?” and then being in a department store with my mom,
mortally embarrassed about going bra shopping for the first time.

I stretch, realizing the sun is going down and that I must have slept for hours. Jason still hasn't arrived, and that scares me. Why hasn't he come back?

I make my way to the campsite, and it is darker among the trees and bushes, and I tremble, even though it's not cold. The fire is dead, and I have to go find some firewood, venturing into the shadowy, whispering bushes. I come back at a dead run with the logs in my arms. I'm already frightened, and the sun isn't even down yet. I am all alone, and no one but Jason knows I am here. What if something happened to him, what if he leaves me here all by myself?

I try to get the fire lit with the long lighter Jason used this morning, but the big logs don't want to light. I sit back on my heels. Eventually I curl up on the blanket in as tight a ball as I can manage, with the flashlight clenched in my fist, and stare at the flameless logs.

It's fully dark by the time I hear the soft
putt-putt
of Jason's boat and hear him walk up the path. I cannot seem to move, and I hear him hesitate at the edge of the clearing as he sees me.

“Erin?” he says softly.

“I need to stop the thoughts,” I say, “
but they won't stop. I can't make them stop
.”

He comes and pulls me into his arms and rocks with me as the tears slide down my face. I'm aware of his body against mine, warm and big and safe.

“Have you eaten?” he asks when I'm done crying.

I shake my head. I watch while he finds some leaves to put under the logs and lights them. Flames start licking at the logs. He puts some hamburgers on the grill and after a while hands me a plate and I eat.

His eyes are on me.

“Erin,” he says.

I look at him, sideways.

“I've got something to show you. Will you come with me?”

It seems an oddly formal invitation, as if this is something important to him.

I hesitate.
No, not really, I don't want to do anything but sit here and maybe if I try hard enough I'll disappear and I won't have to think about anything anymore, ever.

He takes my hand gently, pulls me to my feet, and leads me into the darkness.

Somehow, with my hand in his, it's bearable.

We walk through the dark green murmur of bushes. The moon cannot find its way completely into this place, and only dribbles and splats of light mark the ripple of our passage. We pass my small beach and walk farther. The bushes are thick here, dark, tangled, menacing, and I clutch Jason's hand.

I see a silver gleam, like the sheen off a frozen winter pond, a moment before we emerge beside a small lagoon. It is a pool of still, radiant light, ringed by the quiet, watching bushes. Jason tosses a shell into the water and shards of light dance across the surface. The luminescent flickers shimmer and shake until finally fading into the silent shine of a looking glass.

“It's—it's unbelievable.” My voice feels rusty and unused, as if I have not spoken for days. After I speak, I wish I hadn't, because it feels wrong to speak in the hallowed sanctuary of this place.

“Isn't it, though?” Jason says back, easily. He pulls me down onto a log beside the water. “They'll come soon.”

“They will?”
Who will?

“When I was fifteen,” Jason says, “my mom found out she had breast cancer. My grandmother already had it, and it seemed too surreal that my mother had it too. At first, before my grandmother got bad, my mom spent every moment she wasn't in treatment painting. That's what she does. That's
her
secret place she goes when it's all too much. I was trying so hard to be strong for her, but sometimes it got too hard, being strong. I didn't feel strong inside, you know? So, I would come here. I would come and camp for a few days and it was like … it was like when I broke my finger playing basketball. It hurt like crap, and I realized the only thing I could do is fix it. So I yanked on it, twice, and the bone slipped back into place. Even though it still hurt, it felt whole, the way it should. That's how it is when I come here. Everything can be screwed up and broken, but when I come here, everything clicks back to where it should be. Does that make sense?”