01

For our graduation trip, the three of us planned to island-hop out to Honeymoon Island.

But only I made it onto the island.

My boyfriend, Sebastian Vance, texted me. He said Katherine Dickerson was having an allergic reaction to mosquito bites.

He told me to wait on the island a little while, that the two of them would come over soon.

But I waited until the last ferry back had left, and still there was no sign of either of them.

I was stuck in the dock waiting area, feeding poisonous mosquitoes all night long.

It wasn't until dawn that I caught a boat back to Maui.

A message popped up on my phone. It was Sebastian, blaming me.

"You're still on the island? You're a grown woman. How can you not have a single ounce of flexibility?"

Sitting on the speedboat back, I rubbed my eyes, already swollen shut, the backs of my hands covered in red, angry welts.

Not far off, in the morning light, a dolphin's dorsal fin sliced across the surface of the sea.

I was tired.

This script, where I waited forever for a promise that never came true, I didn't want to play it anymore.

……

By the time I got back to the hotel, it was almost ten in the morning.

My clothes, blown by sea wind all night, clung to me damp and cold.

My hands wouldn't stop shaking, but I still managed to hold the key card stiffly and swipe the door open.

Katherine's laughter drifted out from inside.

"Sebastian, does this one make me look fat?"

She was curled up on the couch, wearing Sebastian's jacket, holding her phone up high in front of his face.

Sebastian leaned in close, one arm draped over the back of the couch, looking down at her with a smile at the corner of his mouth.

I knew that jacket.

Before we left, worried the island would get cold at night, I'd tucked it into his suitcase myself.

He'd said I was making a fuss over nothing.

But now it was draped over Katherine, the cuffs hanging down like a pair of soft hands, shielding her from every gust of wind.

I stood in the doorway.

The sand in my sandals dug into me, grinding at the soles of my feet until they ached.

Katherine saw me first, her eyes lighting up at once.

"Selma Henson, you're back."

She waved at me, her voice light and breezy.

"Come help me pick a photo. Sebastian's terrible at taking pictures. No wonder he never posts any of you on his feed."

Then, as if realizing that hadn't come out quite right, she quickly stuck out her tongue.

Sebastian looked up at me, the same seriousness as always in his eyes.

"Why are you only getting back now?"

My throat felt like it was stuffed with a sponge soaked full of seawater. I wanted to say something, but it got stuck.

"Why didn't you think to call me yesterday?"

My hand tightened around the strap of my luggage.

"You said you'd be quick."

"You still should've been flexible."

"The last boat left, and you couldn't ask a local? Couldn't figure out how to stay on the island? A grown woman, and you had to just wait like an idiot until dawn."

Katherine spoke up softly beside him.

"Sebastian, stop it."

She said stop, but her eyes went to the backs of my hands.

The red welts crowded across my skin, some of them scratched open from last night, oozing faint traces of blood.

Sebastian saw them too.

He paused, then came over and gripped my wrist.

I thought he was going to ask if it hurt.

But he laughed.

"Bitten up this bad? You really are hopeless. Couldn't you have moved out of the way?"

There was that familiar, affectionate disdain in his voice.

The same as so many times before.

He said I was stubborn to a fault.

Said my brain didn't know how to turn a corner.

Said I was lucky he was the only one who could put up with me.

I used to think that was him favoring me.

Only now do I see that favoritism is sometimes just a rope.

He'd loop it around my neck and pull, just a little, and I'd start to wonder whether I was the one in the wrong.

Katherine picked up a small tin box from the table.

"Selma, don't be angry with Sebastian. He spent forever hunting for this yesterday."

She held out the bug balm to me.

A little green tin, its lid already pried loose.

"He said you'd definitely get bitten, so he told me to keep it for you."

I looked at that little tin.

Something lodged in my chest.

So he knew.

He knew Honeymoon Island was full of mosquitoes.

He knew I would wait.

He knew I would be bitten.

And he still didn't come.

Sebastian reached over, took the tin, and pressed it into my palm.

"All right, quit sulking. He bought you the balm, what more do you want?"

The metal tin was cold.

Against my palm it felt like a hard little block of ice.

Suddenly I thought of six months ago, when he'd sent me the travel guide for Honeymoon Island.

White-sand beaches in the photos, glassy water, a dolphin someone had caught on camera.

He'd said,

"Let's go here for our graduation trip."

I asked why.

He ruffled my hair.

"You'll find out when the time comes."

Later I happened to see his search history on his phone.

Honeymoon Island proposal ideas.

Dolphin sunrise proposal.

That day I sat in the library and stared at the screen, smiling for a long time.

The afternoon sun fell across the pages, and I couldn't take in a single problem.

I thought that was our future.

So yesterday when he told me to wait, I really waited.

From the sun high overhead until the sea turned black.

From the last tourists drifting away until the ticket booth went dark.

I sat in the waiting area hugging my backpack, watching my phone's battery tick down bit by bit.

Mosquitoes hummed against my ear.

I texted him.

First message: Sebastian, where are you guys?

Second message: The last ferry's about to leave.

Third message: I'm a little scared.

He didn't reply.

I pressed the phone to my chest and heard my own heartbeat slow, one beat after another.

Like a lamp the sea wind had put out.

Now he stood in front of me, telling me to stop sulking.

I looked down at the bug balm in my hand.

My nails dug into my palm.

Katherine was still smiling.

"Selma, why don't you shower first? We wanted to go check out the night market later."

Sebastian patted my head too.

"Stop dragging out the schedule."

I looked up at him.

"Sebastian."

He gave an impatient "Mm."

I'd meant to ask him whether he'd ever once thought, yesterday, that something might happen to me out there alone.

But the words got to my mouth, and I swallowed them back.

I stepped past them, pulled open my suitcase, and dug out clean clothes.

Just before the bathroom door shut, I heard Katherine lower her voice.

"Is she angry?"

Sebastian said,

"She's always like this."

The running water covered the rest.

Hot water fell on my skin, stinging the swollen bites.

I leaned against the cold tile and slowly sank down.

My tears mixed with the water.

No sound.

I just understood, all at once.

Sebastian's promises weren't ones he'd never keep.

They only expired for me.

And the proposal I'd waited a whole night for on Honeymoon Island had left before dawn, along with the last ferry.

At four in the afternoon, Sebastian woke me.

"Come on, get dressed, we're going out to eat."

I'd only slept a little while, and my head was still heavy.

When I opened my eyes, the curtains weren't drawn tight, and the island light squeezed in through the gap, sharp enough to make my eyes ache.

"I don't want to go."

Outside the door it went quiet for two seconds.

Sebastian pushed the door open and came in, holding the half bottle of water I hadn't finished that morning.

"Didn't you say you wanted seafood? I booked that trending restaurant. Call it making it up to you."

Compensation.

The word came out of his mouth so lightly.

Light as one of those free postcards on the hotel desk, the kind a breeze could knock to the floor.

I looked at him.

"I'm allergic."

"Then eat something plain."

He kept his eyes on his phone.

"Katherine's wanted to go for ages. The table's hard to get. Don't spoil it."

Because I wanted to see just how far a person could take his bias.

The restaurant sat by the water, and the sunset turned the tables orange.

The waiter set down one plate of seafood after another.

Spicy crab boil, salt-and-pepper shrimp, curried clams.

Chili oil floated on the broth, the heat of it stinging up into my nose, and my stomach turned.

The welt on the back of my hand still burned.

I hadn't seen a doctor, but I knew I couldn't touch any of this.

Katherine, though, was delighted.

"Sebastian, you remembered I love this."

Sebastian handed the menu back to the waiter.

"Add an order of the spicy seafood soup."

Katherine picked up a shrimp and set it on Sebastian's plate.

"Sebastian, my hand hurts."

She held out the back of her hand.

Two faint red dots on it.

Sebastian took the shrimp at once, bent his head, and started peeling it for her.

Practiced. He even pulled the vein out clean.

Katherine looked over at me, her smile all innocence.

"You're not jealous over one shrimp, are you?"

I didn't answer.

Sebastian put the peeled shrimp into her bowl, then turned and saw the empty place in front of me, and his face darkened.

"Why aren't you eating?"

"I can't eat this."

"Here we go again."

He tossed his wet wipe onto the table.

"I bring you out for a nice meal and you sit there sulking. You're still holding on to that little thing from yesterday? What's the point?"

My fingertips stopped at the rim of the glass.

"That little thing?"

Sebastian looked at me like I was someone making a scene over nothing.

"You dragged the whole day off schedule, Katherine didn't say a word about it, and you're the one acting hurt."

Katherine tugged lightly at his sleeve.

"Sebastian, don't be like that. Maybe Selma just isn't feeling well."

His tone didn't soften.

"She's always like this. Someone coaxes anyone else and it's fine, but she has to have everyone circling around her."

I called the waiter over.

"Could I have a glass of warm water, please."

The waiter nodded and left.

Sebastian stared at me, his brows knotting tighter.

He was probably used to me explaining, used to me arguing, used to me laying out every grievance one by one and waiting for him to rule who was right and who was wrong.

But this time I didn't.

I just took a sip of the warm water.

It was bland.

Going down my throat, it felt like it washed away the last of that leftover hope too.

After dinner we went back to the hotel, and Katherine complained the whole way about being tired.

We'd barely reached the room when she followed us in, wrapped in a blanket.

"Selma, the AC in my room seems to be broken."

She stood in the doorway, her eyes lowered at the corners.

"My allergy from yesterday still hasn't cleared up. I'm a little scared sleeping alone."

I looked at Sebastian.

He was undoing his watch, and glanced up at that.

"Then you sleep here."

I froze for a second.

"She sleeps here, so where do I sleep?"

Sebastian looked like the question had never crossed his mind.

A few seconds later, he said:

"You take Katherine's room."

Katherine murmured at once:

"That doesn't seem right."

She said it wasn't right, but her feet had already carried her in, and she sat down on the sofa.

Sebastian looked at me, his tone matter-of-fact.

"Katherine's been timid since she was little, and she's not feeling well. You've always been independent. What's one uncomfortable night?"

I looked at that big bed.

The couple's mugs, mine and Sebastian's, were still sitting on the nightstand.