Dad and I had been close for as long as I could remember. I loved my mother, too, of course. But when all her love started bleeding out after the accident, Dad and I salvaged as much as we could and poured it all back into each other. In those first days at barracks especially, I never felt the freedom to grieve—not when Dad was in the men’s quarters, the next division over, and the other girls had lost everything.
We saw each other so often back then, despite his being stationed with all the other over-thirties, doing hard manual labor at the seawall and the artificial reefs. It was weird, though. I’d known Dad so well, for so long, but never knew how hollow his face could look just under his cheekbones. And I’d never considered that his beard would become speckled with gray, especially since he’d always kept himself clean-shaven before. He’d been something of a health nut, too—organic this, grass-fed, free-range that—so it was odd to see him shoveling plain porridge into his mouth, or picking the mold off whatever cheese or bread they piled up for us.
In some ways, that was worse than losing Mom. I never had to see her become someone unrecognizable. I never had to see her at her most miserable.
But then, when Dad was collected by the Wolfpack to help with their mission on Sanctuary Island—and when they brought him back to me in a vial, even more unrecognizable than before—I saw all I’d taken for granted.
I never realized how much of home I’d had with me all that time. How, even with everything we’d both lost, even with everything we’d been forced to give up, even in the misery of living shadow lives of what we’d had before—we still had each other.
And I never realized just how alone I’d feel when he was gone.
We’re just past halfway when the sky breaks open as if it’s been smashed with a hammer. Rain falls heavy and hard, with enough force to pierce straight through the tree canopy. Whatever lies beneath the green carpet of leaves—sand or dirt, I’m not sure—turns to thick sludge, sucking on our feet with every step. It feels like the rain has also activated some substance on the green carpet itself—the long, thin leaves cling to my ankles like tentacles.
“How are you here?” Alexa says, behind us.
Hope and I whip around. The tentacle leaves have wrapped themselves completely around both of her ankles, rooting her in place, and she is still.
“Alexa?” I say, but she doesn’t seem to hear me, or see me.
“I thought I’d never see you again, Cass,” she says, reaching her arms up as if to touch someone. There’s an honesty on her face, a soft vulnerability I hadn’t imagined possible. It’s a different sort of honesty than when I saw her fear—her eyes are wide open, sparkling even, and her cheekbones have lost their edges.
Hope pries herself away from the tentacles that curl around her, steps tentatively toward Alexa. She stands right in front of her face, where it’s impossible to ignore her.
And yet, nothing.
This place is not normal, is all I can think. This place is—is—
I blink.
“Birch?” I squint. Tilt my head.
I don’t remember him being with me before, but then again, I can’t remember who was with me, so maybe I’m wrong? And I’m all wet, for some reason, drenched and dripping even though it’s perfectly sunny out, and even though Birch is perfectly dry.
“I asked them to put some cinnamon on the whipped cream, just like you like it,” he says. I hadn’t even noticed the coffee before, but now I can’t think of anything else. I reach out to take it from him and it is hot, warming me all the way to my heart, all the way to places that have been frozen for so long. But I can’t remember why they were frozen in the first place.
“You’re shivering,” he says. “Are you cold?”
His flannel shirt smells like campfire smoke, and I have the oddest sensation that there should be a fire burning, that we should be sitting down and not standing. But he wraps the shirt around my bare shoulders, helps me into the sleeves, and buttons the mismatched buttons all the way down, staring with his deep blue eyes into mine the entire time.
And if I thought I was warm again before, with just the coffee, I was wrong, a million times wrong. Because when his lips find mine, I ignite. I could live in this fire forever.
But then he pulls away, and I get the strangest sensation that he meant his kiss as a goodbye, not a hello. And Emma is here now, like a radiant angel, her tan the perfect shade of bronze and her hair in the long mermaid waves she’d never quite been able to attain. She was always beautiful, but never like this. Birch takes her hand in his and they both smile at me, sincere and brilliant.
Their smiles are like knives, carving my heart out. Through the knife slits comes a blast of cold air that pushes out all the warmth I’d finally felt again.
Birch pulls Emma in close. I turn my eyes away, but there they are again. And when I look in the opposite direction, they are there, too. Their lips touch, and even when I shut my eyes as tight as they’ll go, when I bury my face in my arms, I can’t unsee them. My face is wet, and I get the vague sensation that I’m crying, but then again it might just be the rain that isn’t falling on this sunny day.
A knife scrapes at my ankles, at whatever is holding me in place, digging in tighter and tighter until all at once the pressure dissolves and I am standing in a veritable monsoon. No Birch. No Emma.
“Eden, can you hear me?”
I look down, and there’s Hope, slicing the tentacle leaves away from my legs with our knife. Alexa is with her, staving off the leaves before they have a chance to take hold again. She and Hope shift from foot to foot, presumably to keep themselves from getting trapped.
“I can—” I start, then clear my throat so my words are actually audible. “I can hear you.”
And before I know it, they are on both sides of me, and my feet are moving again. “What,” I say, still struggling to catch my breath, “was that?”
No one answers. Probably because there are no answers.
Together, we make a lot of progress, and eventually there’s no trace of rain, not even a hint of mud, and the leaves are just leaves again, tickling our ankles without latching on.
But while the scenery changes, and the weather changes, my mind is still stuck trying to make sense of Birch, of Emma. Of Birch with Emma. Of the extremes I went through in a matter of minutes: love, security, fear, envy.
The worst part is, it stings like truth, like the only truth I’ve ever known. Perhaps it’s because the truth is woven so neatly with the lies. Even though I can tell them apart, logically—even though I know Birch would never, and Emma wouldn’t either—it’s like someone dug fingernails into my soul, scraped out all my insecurities, and molded a neat little picture to carry around with me for the rest of my life.
I’d love to leave the picture behind, but that’s not quite how fear and insecurity work, I guess. They cling, they dig, they find a way to resurface, even—maybe especially—when you’re sure you’ve fought them off for good.
Birch loved me until the day he died. I know that, in my head.
I can only hope these lies will dissolve and I’ll be able to feel it again.
TWENTY-EIGHT