“Odd. Like there’s something awful?”
She leaned over and sniffed my drink. There was nothing left of it now, so she shrugged her shoulders at me. “I can’t smell anything. But it shouldn’t have tasted too bad if it was just vodka in there.” The attention off me for the moment, she poured me another one and handed it over. “Try it again.”
This time, the drink seemed to go down easier. There was still the distinct sense I was drinking something alcoholic, but there was no strange bitter taste to it.
“That one was fine,” I said.
“Maybe Annabel just gave you too much for your first go,” Tanya said, but the frown remained. She went over to Annabel and although I couldn’t hear what they were saying, it looked serious until Tanya was eventually won round, smiling and shaking her head.
The party carried on. I remember dancing, I remember some of the guys in my year with their hands on me as they tried to dance next to me, everyone cheering and having a fun time. It was like my senses were dialled up to ten, but I figured that’s just what being drunk felt like. Everything was bright and colourful and I felt more confident than I ever had before, like nothing could ever bother me again. I kept being supplied with drinks from the girls, and when they giggled I giggled too, in a stupid high-pitched voice.
One amazing moment was on my way back from the toilet, when Chloe’s boyfriend, Elliott, cornered me. He didn’t actually go to our school and had shown up at the afterparty an hour or so in. He was so different from the boys at school. He even had a nose piercing, which was definitely not allowed at ours.
“Here’s my favourite girl,” he said, putting an arm around me.
Even though I giggled, I still thought of his girlfriend. “Isn’t Chloe your favourite girl?”
He grinned at that. “Of course. Doesn’t mean I can’t have more than one though, right?”
He leaned forward, and I’m sure he was about to kiss me. My heart started pounding, and I leaned towards him, even starting to close my eyes.
But then Esther walked into the hallway and he sprang away from me, laughing.
“We were wondering where you two had got to,” Esther said. She didn’t seem bothered, but she was mainly looking at me. Had she seen that we were about to kiss? I couldn’t be sure.
“I was just helping poor Poppy back,” Elliott explained. “She’s drunk as anything.”
“Well, maybe go dance with Chloe,” Esther said.
After he walked away, I expected her to say something to me.
“He really was just helping me,” I blurted out when she stayed silent.
“I’m sure,” she said, then went to the toilet herself.
The rest of the night I danced with lots more guys, but I didn’t come close to a first kiss again. And when Aidan offered to walk me home, Annabel came out of the toilets saying she’d thrown up and needed Aidan’s support, so he didn’t get the chance.
But walking home by myself didn’t bother me, not after the amazing night I’d had. When I got home, I hung up my prom dress as carefully as possible, not wanting to wrinkle it any further so it held the memory of that night forever.
I really think I’m finally becoming someone, diary. Imagine what I’m going to be like in the future!
No one is going to recognise me.
Twenty-Eight
Annabel
May 22, 2023
The storm is starting to weaken.
What was once heavy rain, the kind that prevents you from barely taking a single step, is now pathetic spitting, and even the thick clouds have started to drift away, their work done. The stars begin to peek out from behind them, hidden all along, and finally bring some light to this place.
How is it still night? It must be almost dawn soon, surely. It feels like this night is lasting forever.
Maybe it is. Maybe we’re trapped on a magic island where time has no laws, and we’re doomed to be here until only one of us is left.
God. No wonder I didn’t sleep.
I didn’t even attempt it. I lay in bed for ages, and then the moment the storm seemed like it was clearing, I was up searching for Chloe again, not caring what a battered state I looked. But she wasn’t in any of the huts, not even Tanya’s, which I checked on with some trepidation, or the main lodge.
I emerge from my hut somewhat cautiously, the hairs on my arms standing on their ends.
Across the lawn, puddles have formed, revealing the area isn’t as straight and perfect as I first thought. It’s muddy too, brown marks gathered everywhere. My sandals become drenched with it, but I don’t care. The final efforts of the storm finish, and at last the moon appears from the clouds, crescent-shaped but strong enough to brighten the whole island.
I head for the main lodge, and find Esther sitting alone at the table, drinking more coffee. She has that wired, too-much-caffeine energy about her, gripping the edges of her chair with her jaw clenched. She jumps when I walk in, but masks it well, composing her expression into one of calm.
“You couldn’t sleep either?” I say.
She shakes her head. “I tried. It was pointless.”
We both look out at the sky, which seems to taunt us with its perpetual nighttime.
“Where’s Chloe?” Esther asks.
My heart drops. “You’ve not seen her?”
“No.”
“We need to go and find her properly this time,” I say. “She could have just become stranded due to the storm. We told her she was an idiot for going out in this weather. You know what she’s like. Impulsive.”
Both of us can picture Chloe then. Her vibrant energy, but also her reckless behaviour. Her tendency to act first, think second. She’ll have just got lost, stumbled somewhere in the dark and stayed there until the storm passed. That’s what I need to keep telling myself. Or maybe she has been hurt, but in an accident of some kind. I can’t think about the alternative, because there’s only me and Esther left.
Esther stands. “We’ll look together again. We still have our torches. They’ll be better now. We weren’t able to get far before. Let’s go.”
She strides out the door without looking back. I hurry to the kitchen drawer and pull out a knife, just in case, and slide it down my bra strap, wincing at the cold metal against bare skin. I have to be prepared for whatever scenario, that’s what I tell myself.
Despite the improved lighting out here, we’re clumsier somehow. We stick together, walking as a pair, but it doesn’t help my nerves. The trees are shrouded in shadow, and every now and then I’m sure someone is out there watching us, following our every move. At one point I stumble over a branch and go crashing to the ground, my knees and palms now slick with mud and leaves.
Esther doesn’t help me up, but she does stand and wait for me to rise again. Neither of us wants to get too far ahead of the other. Neither of us wants our back turned. Assuming Chloe would have sought shelter, we trek through the muddied path underneath the palm trees, heading past the cliffside, which stands out harsh and angry against the moonlight, and shine our torches into bushes. Everything has gone quiet since the storm, the whooshing of the black ocean to remind us of the force of what happened. The ground is littered with its reminders too: twigs, leaves, even scattered remnants of our hen party have ended up here. An old balloon is nestled in a thorny bush, and somehow one of Esther’s running shoes is wedged between a couple of rocks.
“Chloe?” I shout. “Where are you?”
There’s no response, no sign of her. She has to be somewhere.
Poppy’s missing body, that puddle of blood she left behind, springs into view in my mind, as if laughing at me. I shake the thought away and press on.
Eventually, we reach a small fork in the path. We stop, considering which route to take.
“The one on the left leads back down to the main beach,” Esther says, holding her torch at it. “It’s not far. Chloe could have gone this way.”
“But the other way leads to that smaller beach.” This route seems less travelled, weeds growing on the path, but I remember it from the scavenger hunt, going with Tanya. It’s hard to believe that was only two days ago. That Tanya is dead now.
“Right,” Esther says. “It has the green hut with the generator.”
“If Chloe remembered there was a hut around here, she might have tried to find it for shelter.”
“It’s a possibility,” Esther concedes. “But I don’t think there’s any point in checking. Chloe won’t have known the way. That path is more difficult. It was the middle of the storm. She could barely see as it was.”
She turns to head down the path that leads to our usual beach, but something in me hesitates. “Wait.”
She looks back. “What is it?”
“I really think we should go down this path.” Something about it is calling out to me, like a beacon.