Chapter Twenty-One
Now
“Why haven’t we been doing this the whole time?” Wyatt asked when they came up for air.
“Maybe because I’ve been holding an eight-year grudge against you. Or because we’ve been worrying about what to eat, or we
could both use a shower.” Piper rattled off the list near hysterics, though nothing was funny about the moment.
He cupped her face in his hands. “None of that matters anymore.”
Piper melted back against his mouth. A small voice inside her head screamed to be careful, but she pushed it aside. All she
wanted to do was sink into Wyatt’s kiss, bury herself in his deliciously soft lips, and forget everything else. She wrapped
her arms around his neck, straining to get closer. Deepening the kiss, his tongue sweetly parted her lips for more. Piper
swore her bones were melting, evaporating under the all-consuming heat of Wyatt’s embrace.
His fingers traced the shell of her ear, the curve of her neck, breaking their kiss only long enough to pull back and study her face. Almost like he was convincing himself this wasn’t a dream. Finding proof that she was real, this was actually happening, in her eyes. She placed a hand on either side of his face, losing herself in his intense gaze, the sand and surf fading away. Energy skittered between them. Piper tugged his face back down to hers, but when Wyatt made a noise that sounded more like pain than pleasure, she snapped back to her senses.
A small circle of blood seeped through the makeshift bandage on his leg. As much as Piper wanted to continue reenacting their
high school glory days, Wyatt was in no shape for a full-blown make-out session.
He followed her gaze to his leg. “It’s okay.”
His sweet face tempted Piper to dismiss her better judgment and get lost in his touch, but his eyes were still dull, his face
pinched. Someone had to be the responsible one right now.
Catching her breath, she pushed herself up and held out a hand to him. “No, it’s not. We need to get back to base camp so
you can rest.”
Wyatt grumbled under his breath but let her help him to his feet.
Walking back to their canopy campsite took twice as long as the trek to the cliff, with Wyatt swaying like he’d had a few
too many cocktails. When his vision blurred, they had to pause as the sand swam before him. Even with his increasing dizziness,
Wyatt insisted on pulling the Yeti back himself, his chivalry charming in a caveman kind of way.
The inky carriage of night raced across the horizon, drawing trails of indigo and darkening the sky. When they reached their
shelter, Wyatt collapsed inside, relief evident on his face. Piper brought over the bag of Oreos, a water bottle, and two
of their last few Advil, watching Wyatt until he’d swallowed them both down.
She sat next to him and patted his knee. “I’d say you’ve earned a cookie.”
Ripping open the plastic wrapping on the bag of cookies, she handed one to Wyatt. He ate his cookie in one bite and presented her with a wide chocolaty smile to make her laugh. It worked. She mimicked him, baring her chocolate-covered teeth with a giggle.
Wyatt joined in with her laughter, then winced. “Ahh, it hurts to laugh.”
He rubbed his temples with his fingertips, then lay down with a groan. Piper gently slid his head into her lap.
“Here, let me.” She replaced his hands with her slender fingers, rubbing soothing circles into his temples.
His shoulders relaxed. The water and humidity had turned Wyatt’s hair into unruly waves, reminding her of high school, when
his flop of hair constantly fell in his eyes. She relished running her fingers through his soft curls, careful not to press
too hard on the top of his scalp, where he’d hit his head.
“Comfortable?” she asked.
“Never been better.”
Piper chuckled. Given their current situation, that statement had to be sarcasm, but to prove he meant it, Wyatt found her
hand and tugged her face down to his.
Piper fastened her lips to his, the sensation of the upside-down kiss sending her into orbit. She’d missed the feeling of
kissing Wyatt anytime she wanted, of the easy affection that once existed between them. Deepening the kiss, Wyatt clasped
her hand tight in his, keeping her locked to his lips.
With a groan, Piper pulled away before she wanted to. Wyatt needed to rest, not act out a scene from Spider-Man .
Reluctantly, she shifted his head out from her lap, not wanting to leave but unsure what else she could do to help. “I should
let you rest. Do you need any more food or anything else?”
“Just you.” Wyatt put a hand on her arm, stopping her from moving too far away. “Please stay. Maybe you can read to me?”
He caught her gaze with a familiar look that held more meaning than she could absorb. Tears glittered in his eyelashes like diamonds caught in cobwebs. She couldn’t say no to that. She didn’t want to.
Piper located the paperback romance novel she’d discarded by her bed, its pages distorted from the rain and salt air. “I thought
you said this book wasn’t your thing.”
“It isn’t, but maybe I’ll love it, hearing it from you.”
Piper rolled her eyes at him but settled herself cross-legged, her back against a tree trunk, her knees grazing Wyatt’s shoulder
and hip. He rested an elbow on her knee. Now that they’d crossed the line of something more, they both wanted to stay in constant
contact.
“You can read wherever you left off,” he told her.
“I’ve actually finished it, but I don’t mind starting over.” She began at the first line, introducing Wyatt to the world of
ball gowns, dances, Lady Arrieta, and her mystery pen pal. Reading to Wyatt unleashed an avalanche of nostalgia behind her
rib cage. This had always been their tradition. Something that made them, them.
After an hour, it became too dark to read the words. Piper closed the book, peeking at Wyatt in the fading light.
His eyes fluttered open. “Hey, it was getting interesting.”
She smirked at him. “I told you it was good. If you’re lucky, I’ll read more to you when we have daylight tomorrow. How’re
you feeling?”
“I think the Advil’s helping.” He sat up and stretched. “Promise me the Duke comes back for Lady Arrieta. He loves her so
much. I want to see them get a happily ever after.”
Piper stiffened. “That’s the part that makes no sense to me. Why would he walk away from her if he truly loved her?”
“Maybe that’s exactly why he left.” Wyatt’s gaze captured hers in the growing dark, his eyes beacons of reflecting light.
Piper set the book down, folded her legs into her chest, and wrapped her arms around them, a physical shield against Wyatt. Against the awful memories invading her brain like an army. Kissing Wyatt had cracked something open inside her, resurfacing old feelings of love and digging up long-buried pain.
“Is that why you broke up with me?” Her words shot out like a cannon in the dark. Their high school breakup had shocked her,
and knocked the wind from her lungs. By the time she’d recovered, Wyatt had vanished without a word. If they had any chance
at moving forward, she needed to know why he’d left like that, why he’d walked away from her so completely.
“It’s complicated.” He tugged on his ear.
That wasn’t good enough. She couldn’t accept half-truths any longer. “Then uncomplicate it for me. Please, Wyatt. I need to
understand. It’s time we talk about it.”
He blew out a deep breath. “I guess I was trying to protect you.”
“Protect me! From what?”
“From me.”
Piper shook her head. “Why do you always cast yourself as the villain in our story?”
He shrugged unhappily but didn’t elaborate.
Piper leaned forward. She was so close to the truth. “What changed? Tell me what happened. Please.”
Wyatt stared at the ground for some time before he spoke, his voice low and tortured. “I overheard your parents talking about
me. Saying that I was a ‘dead-end road’ they ‘didn’t want you going down.’ They were going to insist you stop communicating
with me once I left for boot camp. They would’ve withheld your tuition if you didn’t break up with me.”
Her brow furrowed. “But why would they say that? They’d known you for years! They liked you. It doesn’t make sense.” But as she said the words, she recalled her parents’ concerns about her spending too much time with Wyatt, how they didn’t want her to tie herself down. How he wasn’t heading in the same direction. The “right” direction.
“I guess it was one thing for us to be friends, but being involved with me romantically was not part of their plan for you.
I confronted them. You overheard some of our argument that morning. I was hurt, but I also understood where they were coming
from.” He looked up and met her gaze. “Piper, I barely graduated high school, and I wasn’t going to college. I had nothing
to offer you, and I knew it. You were going to be a doctor and go off and do all these amazing things. Us together would never
have worked.”
Little pieces of the puzzle snapped into place, but it wasn’t enough for her to see the full image yet.
Now that the floodgates were open, Wyatt continued filling in the gaps. “Selfishly, I wanted to keep you all to myself, but
I didn’t want to hold you back. I wanted you to have the best life possible. And to do that, I had to help you move on.”
That was it. The last puzzle piece.
“So, you broke up with me.” Her voice cracked, the bite of tears pricking her throat. The memories were old, but the pain
stung fresh as her sunburn.
Wyatt nodded, his head in his hands.
Anger pierced through her pain, her nostrils flaring. “So, let me get this straight. You heard my parents saying those awful
things, and you immediately gave up on us? Threw it all away. Why didn’t you at least talk to me? Tell me what they said?”
Wyatt’s face crumpled like he might cry now, too. “I didn’t want you fighting with your parents or throwing all your plans
away because of me. I wasn’t worth that.”
Piper’s heart beat a furious pulse in her ears. “But you didn’t even give me a choice! You decided what was best for me like
my parents did.”
“I did what I thought was right.” Wyatt reached for her hand, but Piper jerked it out of his grasp.
He hung his head. “I’m so sorry.”
“What hurt me the most was you dumping me as a girlfriend and a friend the same day. How come you never called? Never spoke
to me again?” She stopped holding back tears, letting drops fall wetly down her face. “You acted like our relationship meant
nothing to you.”
Wyatt’s face twisted in anguish. “It meant everything to me. I knew if I called you, I’d beg you to take me back. I’d tell
you how much I loved you, and it would have all been for nothing.”
Her hands trembled. “I waited for that call for years.”
“I wanted to. So many times.” Wyatt spoke over his damp eyes. “But then too much time passed to have any excuse good enough
to get you to talk to me.”
“Until we crash-landed on this island.”
He nodded. “Again, not how I planned on reconnecting with you.” He wiped his tears away with the back of his hand. “God, I’m
sorry, Piper. For being an idiot. For hurting you back then. For getting us stuck here now. For everything.”
The fight leaked from Piper like air out of a day-old balloon. “You broke my heart.” The simple statement spoke volumes.
“I broke my heart, too.” Raw pain colored his words.
Pain that matched her own. A new fat tear rolled down her cheek.
Wyatt reached out and pulled her to his chest. She resisted at first, but he wouldn’t let her go, repeating “I’m sorry, I’m
sorry” over and over in her ear until she gave in to his embrace. He held her a little too tight, as if she’d slip through
his grasp like sand if he let go, but she welcomed the crush. She locked her arms around his waist, burying her face in his
warm neck, sobbing until she had no more tears left.
Wyatt’s tears mixed with hers, but it was a cleansing cry— gut-wrenching memories reframed with this new information. Wyatt trying to do the right thing. Wyatt acting out of insecurity and love.
When their tears dried, Wyatt shifted them to the ground, still holding her close. They clung to each other in the vast, dark night, having found their way back to one another at last.