TWENTY-FOUR

The silence is excruciating.

Nobody looks at me. The way their eyes avoid mine horrifies me, leaves a sour taste on my tongue. Their expressions are indecipherable.

I knew this would happen. I knew this would always be how things ended if I couldn’t hide my past, become a new me. But knowing doesn’t make the reality hurt any less.

No more dancing with Ora. No more sitting on the patio with Josh as he tries to teach me patois. Might even miss Simone side-eyeing me whenever we’d tidy together.

And Aaron.

His face seems all wrong.

No one speaks. Has it been seconds? Minutes? Too long. I struggle to breathe.

“Knew it,” Josh mutters. “Knew there was somethin’—”

Run.

“I gotta go,” I mumble, my throat thick with regret. Then I rush outside.

The sky’s full of dark storm clouds. Droplets pelt the ground, turning dust into mud, wetting the grass in Ora’s front yard.

I run.

Away from Ora’s house. Away from the rubble of what I blew to pieces. Down the road. No clue where I’m going.

Run.

Legs and arms pumping, lungs burning, a scream sitting in my chest and waiting to be set free. Running is all I know how to do. And I’ll still never get far enough away.

I slow to a stop and bend over, hands on my knees, panting. My sweatshirt is soaked through with rain and sweat. I can barely see in front of me. The last slivers of sunlight are gone, buried in dusk and cloud cover. I don’t know where I am, but even if I could see, I wouldn’t recognize anything.

Because this isn’t my home.

This isn’t mine. Not an inch of this country was ever mine to claim.

All I’ve proven by coming here is that self-delusion is powerful.

I thought Jamaica would save me. I thought it’d be different, better, make me feel connected when I was so alone. And at first, I thought I had cracked the code. Because I saw the beauty of this place and the people here. I met friends. I met Aaron.

Yet here I am. For a second time. By myself because of myself.

It hurts more this time around.

I straighten up, stand on the side of the road, pummeled with rain. My head’s heavy from my wet braids. A clap of thunder vibrates the muggy air.

Then a streak of lightning bolts through the sky. Bright and jagged, like nothing I’ve seen before. It illuminates everything around me, and it touches down a few miles away, toward Blackbead.

The lightning and thunder jolt me back to myself. Back to the fact that I’m standing in a massive storm that could get me killed. I feel just enough fear to know I don’t want to die out here. Just enough to know I don’t want to die at all. No matter how tempting.

I look back down the road, back where I came from.

A pair of headlights barrels toward me.

She took the car. She wrapped it around a pole.

I jump out of the way. But the headlights slow. Someone sticks their head through the driver’s side window.

“If you don’t get out the rain right now!” Ora shouts over the downpour.

“Gon’ catch cold!” Simone says through a rear window. “Come!”

I approach the car and realize it’s the sedan Ora’s mom parked in front of the house. I try to peek inside. Ora at the wheel. Josh in the front. Simone leaning forward from the back seat, posted up between them.

They were searching for me. They came for me.

“Stupid, get in the car!” Josh yells.

I toss myself into the back.

I’m drenched. I’m cold. I’ll probably ruin the seats.

“Not a lick of sense,” Simone murmurs. “Less than Rush.”

“Seen,” Ora agrees as she slowly swings the car around to head back home. “What were you thinking? Just sprinting into the storm? Is this track and field? Use your head.”

“I thought… you guys hardly said anything.” It’s all I can utter, and it sounds dumb as hell.

“From day one, what did I tell you?” Ora shoots back. “That you don’t seem like a Joy. And from day one, you lied to me—lied to everyone. Did it for weeks. What do you want us to say?”

“Your best friend die after she see you fuck her man,” Josh adds. “There’s nothing to say.”

Simone kisses her teeth. “Scoob! You so crude with it.”

“Well, is true!” He huffs. “All I mean was, we were surprised. That’s some dark, dark shit.”

My shoulders round. It’s like my body can’t help but fold, curl up and hide. “I fucked up.”

“We know,” says Simone. “And you know.”

“I’m mad as hell, to be honest,” Ora says. “But some wrong choices don’t mean you deserve to die in a hurricane.” She drives through the rain, hands gripping the wheel tight. “The devil in all of us. You not the first or the last.” Ora glances into the rearview mirror. “Is there a towel for the girl anywhere?” Simone immediately starts searching.

By the time we pull into Ora’s driveway, it’s quiet inside my mind. I made a lot of terrible decisions, hurt so many people, ran and hid and did nearly everything wrong.

But I did one thing right.

I found the Young Birds. Told them the truth. And after everything, they’re still here.

Most of them.

Aaron’s standing outside, under the shelter of the porch awning. Everyone’s reluctant to leave the car. We all pretend it’s because of the weather.

But Simone exits first and goes straight for the door. Then Josh.

Ora pauses, tilts her head as if she’s going to say something. But nothing comes. Nothing but “Let’s go.”

We both get out. My heart’s in my throat. Aaron stares me down. I still can’t figure out where he’s at, what he’s thinking. “We need to talk,” he says.

Josh was right. “We need to talk” sucks to hear.

Ora gives us a long look before she goes inside.

The wind whistles. I can’t cope with the silence.

“Being this dramatic… some proof I’m definitely Jamaican, right?” All I’ve got are stupid jokes.

“Don’t even know what to call you,” Aaron says.

“I’m still Carina. I’ve always been Carina to you.”

“And what does that even mean?” He’s always spoken to me in a baby-soft way. This isn’t that. “You lie to me, then made me lie with you to figure out the duppy. We spend all this time together, for what? It’s like I’ve been with a stranger.”

“I didn’t lie about everything. I was only Joy when I really had to be.”

“The night at the pool,” Aaron snaps. “What happened?”

I don’t know what to tell him. So I don’t say anything. I retreat. That’s what I do.

“Because I told you not to go. And it was like you shut off, just like that. So what went on? Was it me? Or all this with Sean and Joy and them?”

“I wanted to be there. I wanted to be there with you.” My teeth dig into the inside of my cheek. “But I thought about everything that happened, and how Monique cheated, and I knew if you found out what I’d done… you’d realize you deserved better.”

“So you lie.”

“I was protecting you.”

“You made a choice for me,” he presses. “Thought I’d break things off if I knew, so you made sure I don’t know. That sound right to you?”

My thoughts are so jumbled, I can’t think straight. Did I lie to keep him from getting hurt? Or to keep him by my side? Or to fight off the inevitable? I don’t know why I did it. I just knew I needed to, or he’d leave me, and I’d be alone again—without him, without Ora. And I couldn’t be alone again.

“I’m sorry.” I try to breathe. “But I knew who I was. And who you were. And I thought—”

“What ’bout me? What ’bout what I know? What I think?” He gestures wildly, his face half illuminated by Ora’s flickering porch light. “You never ask me, not once. If I thought you and Monique were the same, you’d never know.”

He’s right.

“So what make you think you know how I felt about you?”

“I don’t. I should have asked you.”

“Wish you had. Doesn’t matter now.” He scans my face. “Good night, Carina.”

He steps away, gives his attention to the curtain of pouring rain.

Wish you had. Doesn’t matter now.

He’s done. We’re done.

Which is what I always thought would happen. One way or another. Either the beast or the truth would end us.

And I’m still hurting. Imagining the hours we spent together, crossing the island on his motorcycle, joking on WhatsApp, drinking gross bush teas and wearing red ribbons because he asked me to, so I’d be safe from the duppy.

All of it over.

I head into the house.

Ora’s standing near the door. Mouth open.

My heart plummets.

She heard us.

Ora could forgive my past mistakes. But she won’t forgive me breaking Aaron’s heart.

Or hers.