Chapter Eighteen
A high-pitched scream—mine?—slices through me as the air whips up around me. I have no time to prepare, to analyze. I am pure adrenaline, pure instinct, as I point my toes, because some random show I watched years ago said that when falling into water from a great height, you should point your toes to minimize impact.
And then, I hit.
The water is cold and stark. It feels more like concrete than liquid as I crash into it. Pointed toes or not, the pain slaps my every nerve.
I open my mouth, gasping for breath, but my head is underwater, and my lungs fill with liquid. Frantically, I claw above my head…but I don’t know which way is up.
I twist and turn, my lungs burning, my eyes popping. Just pick, my mind blares. Pick a direction and go.
I do. But I must’ve chosen wrong, because a few precious seconds later, my fingers dig into mud.
I’m drowning. The thought slams into me, more jarring than the impact of the water, more searing than the pressure in my chest. I’m drowning, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
My limbs go weak. I no longer have the strength to push the water away from my body, and I open my eyes to deep, black murkiness. The lull of unconsciousness pulls at me—and I can’t bring myself to care.
Stop fighting, it croons to me. Come into the quiet, where you can rest.
If this is death, it doesn’t seem so bad. I no longer hurt. The pain in my lungs, in my heart, washes away with the river. Perhaps, I’m better off this way. Maybe one day, soon, I’ll be with Mama again.
But just as I close my eyes and sink toward the muddy bed of forever sleep, blinding light licks my face.
“Breathe!” a distant voice shouts.
The pain comes roaring back as a fist smashes into my stomach. I choke, and water pours out of my mouth. The fist comes down again, forceful, full of life.
“Breathe, Alaia. Breathe!” the same voice yells, but it still comes from miles away. All I can do is cough as my throat screams its objection and my eyes blur with tears.
“You’ve got this, Alaia.” The voice softens. The fist opens into a palm and rubs soothing circles on my back. “Breathe for me. Please.”
I splutter one more time, and then I try a shallow breath.
My throat is scratchy and raw, and my lungs object the moment that little bit of air hits. This is ridiculous. How can breathing, the most natural building block of life, hurt this badly? But with every sip of air, I feel my body absorbing the oxygen, thanking me like it never has before.
“That’s it. You’ve got this. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
My ears pop, and the voice comes into focus. Bodin.
All of a sudden, I become aware of the pebbled ground under my body, the chilly air against wet skin. The smell of cave clobbers me once more—mossy rock and dank, moist earth. But instead of a ceiling twenty feet above our heads, the cave opens up to a glimmer of blue sky.
I blink. The natural light wasn’t visible before. I would’ve noticed. I must’ve floated farther down the river than I thought before Bodin dragged me to shore. Mateo, Sylvie, and Rae hover above me. Their clothes and hair are dry, so there must’ve been an alternative way down other than jumping—er, falling—into the river.
“You scared the crap out of me.” Sylvie presses a hand to her chest.
“Long way to fall,” Mateo remarks. “That will knock the breath out of anyone.”
“You okay, princess?” Rae asks, real worry in her eyes.
Too much to process. Too soon. I pull my knees to my chest, forming a ball with my body.
“Alaia, you’re safe now,” Bodin says gently. “You’re okay.”
I look up. Wet hair drips around his face. His shirt clings to his chest, revealing solid muscles, and his eyes glimmer with concern.
He looks just like an ethereal being sent from the heavens to protect me.
Silly. My perspective is clearly clouded by the fact that he just saved my life. He could’ve gotten hurt or even died, but he did it anyway. For that, I will be forever indebted to him. That’s the only reason I find him so mesmerizing.
I know this. And yet, I long to touch his furrowed brows and smooth away the worry with my fingers. The desire is compelling, almost irresistible, and so I reach out my hand to do exactly that.
And that’s when I notice it: the back of my hand is smeared with mud.
I freeze. The splotch is so evident, so palpable. It mars my skin, disrupts the orderliness I try to maintain at all times, even out here on a deserted island.
“Alaia? What’s wrong?” Bodin asks.
I hear the words, but I also don’t. Because I’m too busy staring.
My nails are grimy. Dirt is caked underneath them from when I tore at the ground, desperate for escape. I know without looking that my other hand is the same.
The clothes that I wear—stone-washed jean shorts and a ruffled white top with a bow tied at the center—were already dusty from two days on the island. But now, they are sullied with mud, sweat, and what looks a whole lot like blood…
I gasp. No way. I pat my arms, my chest, my torso, looking for the source and finding none. That’s when I realize that my face is wetter and stickier than the rest of my body. I reach up and then pull away red fingers.
“You must’ve given her a bloody nose when you smashed into her,” Mateo says with a disapproving frown at Bodin. “You need to be more careful.”
“Oh, yeah?” Bodin retorts. “What did you do when she fell into the river? Stand there and watch.”
I don’t pay attention to their bickering because my own thoughts race faster and faster as I examine my arms and legs, finding more and more grime. My panic grows with each passing moment.
I don’t like germs. Who does? But I really don’t like them. Being covered in blood, dirt, and god knows what bacteria, with no way to clean or disinfect myself, is my worst nightmare—literally. At least once a month, I wake up drenched in sweat because of this exact scenario.
My body is coated, every square inch tainted by the river. I whip my head around, frantically searching for something that can fix this mess.
But there’s nothing, damn it. Just more dirt, more bacteria, more germs…
My breath comes faster. I can’t fill my lungs, even though the oxygen is right there. I’m no longer underwater, but I’m in just as much danger of drowning.
I can’t do this. I can’t exist with this much dirt on me. I can’t. I can’t. I CAN’T.
I don’t want to break down in front of the others. But a tear makes its way down my cheek, and I can’t stop it. Another one comes, and I can’t stop that. And then another. And another.
A loud noise shatters the silence. It’s awful. A scream that shreds the heart, rips the soul. A wailing so wretched that it must originate in the depths of hell itself. Pure terror personified.
Every head swivels toward me. Aw, crap. One guess who’s making the sound.
Bodin’s eyes widen. “Are you hurt?”
He crouches beside me and tries to wrap his arm around me, which is the absolute worst move he could make. I am not in the space to be touched, and I shriek so loudly that my ear drums tremble. Bodin stumbles back as though I slapped him.
Mateo, too, lowers himself, so that we are eye to eye, but unlike Bodin, he keeps a respectful distance away.
“Tell me how I can help,” he says softly.
“I-I n-n-eed w-at-ter,” I say through sobs.
“Water?” Sylvie raises her eyebrows. “But she just got out of the river. Why does she need more water?”
“Shhhh,” Mateo says without taking his eyes off me. He moves to his backpack and takes out his water bottle, offering it to me. “Take this.”
“But that’s your drinking water,” I protest weakly.
“You need it more than I do.”
Emotions swirl through me. The world still feels like it’s going to collapse. It’s not rational. There’s no logic behind the feeling that the grime on my skin is going to kill me.
But my OCD isn’t reasonable. It defies judgment; it betrays common sense. It jeers at me that no matter what I do, I will never truly be clean again. It’s a ghost that haunts me, driving me mad with its circular, repetitive thoughts.
“Here you go,” Mateo says, handing me a clean piece of fabric. An extra T-shirt that he must’ve packed for a day on a yacht.
Careful not to waste a single drop of water, I douse the T-shirt and get to work.
Dab and scrub. Scrub and dab.
I don’t know how Mateo guessed that I wanted to clean myself, but I’m too preoccupied to question it.
I start with my arms. The slight sting that comes with each scrub also comes with a certain satisfaction and relief. I try to be conservative with the water—but the resolve evaporates as a little voice whispers inside my mind. Are you sure it’s clean? Did you miss a spot? There’s a speck of dirt there. You should go over that area one more time.
I empty the bottle on just one arm, which is now red and raw, but Mateo swoops down before I can start to freak.
“I have more water,” he says, handing me another bottle.
I go through bottle after bottle. Both of his and both of mine.
Bodin paces along the river, Sylvie closes her eyes and tries to sleep, and Rae? She stares but doesn’t say a single word, not even a snide comment or two.
Mateo, on the other hand, keeps handing me bottles like it is the most normal thing in the world.
But as my arms, legs, face, and even hair become clean(er), I look at my clothes in dismay. They are filthy, and given my extreme need for privacy, there’s a negative chance in hell that I’m willing to strip down so that I can wash them.
“You can borrow my shirt,” Mateo says, once again guessing correctly at my distress. “I’m tall enough that it would be long on you. You could wash the clothes and then put them back on.”
“Seriously, dude?” Bodin says, his first words since he tried to touch me. “Lola’s not even here, but you’re dying to show off your abs, aren’t you?”
“Hardly. Scrawny guys like me don’t have a six-pack,” Mateo says patiently. “Alaia wants clean clothes. It’s not a ridiculous need. I’m sure you wouldn’t like it if yours were covered in blood and grime.”
Bodin arches an eyebrow. “And you know this because…?”
“Because he’s right,” I fire back, my voice cracking, my throat raw from the water I swallowed and regurgitated. “I can’t stand that my clothes are dirty.”
Bodin blinks, surprised at my passion. Mateo ignores him and turns back to me. “Would you like my shirt, Alaia?”
I nod silently.
In one fluid motion, Mateo pulls his turquoise polo up and over his head and hands it to me.
I take it gratefully. When I slip it over my head, it falls to mid-thigh, just like he predicted. The next logical step would be to remove my shoes so that I can more easily slide out of my shorts. What’s more, my toes are squishy and wet inside the canvas sneakers. I’d like nothing better than to air them out. But for years now, I’ve protected my bare feet with some sort of sole, be it flip-flops or slippers or sneakers. It’s too uncomfortable to even think about taking them off.
And so, I leave on my canvas sneakers and wiggle out of my disgusting shirt and shorts underneath Mateo’s polo. When he tries to take my clothes, however, I yank them out of his grasp.
Something about his fingers touching my clothes sets me off. Besides, I have to be the one to wash my clothes because I’m the only person who will do it right.
He lets go immediately, as though he is reading my mind.
Another bottle of water is found, and I work the blood and dirt out of my white shirt and jean shorts, washing away the visible and invisible impurities.
Once I am satisfied that they are clean, I carefully put on my sopping clothes and then remove and return Mateo’s shirt.
Finally. I can take a full breath once more. My skin is red and raw, but I am relatively clean.
The feeling of relief lasts one minute, maybe two. The sun has set outside the cave, and shadows slither down from the opening above.
I begin to feel nervous again. I see one, two, three specks of dirt. I’m not clean after all. I pick up the bottle and shake it to see if there’s any water left.
“Not again!” Rae explodes. “We’ve been here for hours.”
“Calm yourself, Rae,” Sylvie says in a warning tone.
Mateo steps forward. “I know it’s hard, Alaia. Believe me, I understand. But you’re as clean as you’re going to get. If you scrub anymore, you’ll draw blood. You can fight this. You are strong, and you are brave. You are in complete control of your life. Nobody else.”
My mouth parts. How dare he look at me with pity in his eyes? I can’t stand it when people treat me like a sick puppy who needs to be helped. But then it dawns on me. He knows. Somehow, someway, Mateo has figured out my secret.