Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
M y eyelids slide open when thunder rattles the hut. Sitting up, I blink in the dark, but there’s no Marcus. I don’t remember falling asleep and am unsure how long I’ve been out. Scooting off the raft, I scramble to my feet, reaching for the wall when I lose my balance. Last I remember, he went outside so I could change. Surely he’s not still sitting on the tiny deck. But maybe he had second thoughts about coming with me and left. I wouldn’t blame him.
On my way to the door, I stumble over his shoes and take a shaky, relieved breath. He’s still here. I open the door and scan the deck, ramp, then the horizon before spotting him far down the beach where he stands knee deep in reckless waves. He’s shirtless, his skin red and glossy from the cold rain, hands clasped on top of his head as he watches the chaos of the ocean.
Despite being dry and warm, I rush down the ramp, across the beach toward him, rain pelting my face and bare legs. His back is tense, the muscles holding in whatever he’s wrestling, and I pause, not sure if I should keep running toward him or give him space. Maybe he needs it. Maybe he’s second guessing leaving everything behind for me.
My fear about his thoughts pushes my voice up and out, and I call his name over the wind. His head snaps over his shoulder, his hair plastered to his forehead, rain dripping from his eyelashes.
“You don’t have to come with me.” I shake my head. “I can?—”
He turns toward me. “Don’t do this, Mei.”
I swallow, wrap my arms around myself, already soaked again. “Don’t do what?”
“Try to get rid of me.”
I shake my head. “That’s not what?—”
“I’m here because I choose to be here. I wanna be here. With you,” he calls over the crashing waves.
“I’m just saying, you don’t have to walk away from your life because of me. You’re not obligated to do any of this.”
“Obligation? That’s the first word that came to mind?” He looks away, his jaw pulses.
“You think you have to protect me,” I call, “but you don’t. It’s not your job.”
“Oh. Right.” He nods, his stare holding me in place. “I’ll just have to be okay with whatever Nick did to you. Because he’s practically your family and all that. Yeah—sorry. Sometimes I just forget how great he is when I’m looking at all the black and blue love he left on your face.”
I sort through responses, but he goes on.
“Why did you leave?” He squints through the rain. “We could’ve worked through anything. I know I was frustrated and said things I shouldn’t have that day at the clubhouse, but we could’ve figured it out. Then you wouldn’t have gone back to Nick, and we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“I didn’t go back to him, Marcus. After your grandma walked in on us, I was afraid I’d ruined everything for you. I was so embarrassed. So I ran home. I was planning on calling you, but Nick was waiting at my house. And he knew about you. He threatened to hurt you if I ever talked to you again or if I didn’t go to L.A. with him.” I blink back tears. “I told Baba I didn’t want to go, but that wasn’t an option. I knew deep down something bad was going to happen, but I was trapped.”
He watches me through the mist caught in the tension. “Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice is raspy. “Because if I’d known what was happening, I would’ve done anything to get you away from him. And it has nothing to do with obligation, Mei. I called and texted after you ran, but you never responded, and I thought that meant you wanted out. That you were done with us.”
Pain pulses through me, hot and sharp. “I wanted to call you. But what was the point? I knew I couldn’t have you, so why drag you into my life any more than I already had? Why torture myself with things I couldn’t have? You would’ve gotten hurt.”
He throws his hands in the air. “Getting jumped would’ve felt massively better than wondering if maybe someday you’d talk to me again. And the worst part is, if I hadn’t come looking for you after prom and found you at Guo’s, you would’ve disappeared, and I never?—”
He breaks off when my hand clutches my chest, a command to keep breathing after hearing the word “prom”. Because of course he went to prom. Of course he continued living his life. Why should I be so shocked? Hurt? I did this to myself by running, and my feet ache to take me away from images of Marcus with another girl.
He swears under his breath. “I got asked, Mei. I said yes.” He lays the words right between us, watches my face and the tears rolling down it. “Maybe I thought I was ready to move on like I thought you had. Maybe I liked that someone was running toward me instead of away from me. Or maybe I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me. I don’t know. But whatever I thought, Nick was hurting you while I was making up conversations with you in my head to make myself feel better that you were gone. It’s so messed up.”
The air between us swells, his face shiny with rain, and I search for responses, but he throws a question across the sand toward me and my brain skids to a stop. “What did you do with your feelings for me?” The waves roar and surge, but he keeps his eyes on me, his body rigid. “Was any of it real, or did I just imagine it all because that’s how I wanted you to feel?” He swears into the mixed-up sky, wipes his hands down his face before looking back at me. “Just give me something—anything! I didn’t think I’d be anywhere near you again, and now that I am, I can’t hold in what I’ve wanted to say for weeks because keeping it inside hurts too much. I’ve been trying all day, and I just can’t. I have to know where I stand with you.” A surge of waves slams into him from behind and he wobbles, sidestepping to stay standing. He jumps onto a large rock, wipes rain and salt spray out of his eyes. “You messed me up day one, Mei,” he yells as the clouds bump against each other and send down more rain. “When you left, I tried not to be messed up. Didn’t work. And even though my dad’s a total liar, he was right about girls, but I wanna be messed up by you. It’s a billion times better than being messed up without you.” His voice trembles. “I’m so crazy happy that you’re safe and right here in front of me and that we’re out of San Francisco together. More than anything, I wanna erase all the pain Nick left on you, but I can’t. I can’t take it away or change it and I’m not sure what you need me to do now. Or be. I just don’t know how you feel. And I need to know.”
My heartbeat competes with the wind and waves. The rain slows, and I step closer to the frantic water, hand on my chest. “You want to know where my feelings went?” I say, honesty pouring out of me, scattering the storm. “They’re all right here, because I shoved them so deep inside, no one could ever find them or take them from me. They’re mine and I’ll keep them forever even if I shouldn’t.”
“Why shouldn’t you?” His voice is weary, cautious.
“Because I’m a disaster. Your life was so good before you met me.”
“No.” He hops off the rock and wades through the water toward me, stopping a few feet away. “Nothing mattered after you left because all I wanted was you, and I still do. I want you to keep messing me up. I want you in my life, and I don’t care about Nick or where we come from or what we should or shouldn’t do.” Rain trickles down his face from his wet hair as he moves closer. “So what do you want? What do you feel, the good and bad? Don’t shut me out again—I wanna know it all.”
I shake my head to the sand. “I feel too much.”
He’s in front of me, his warmth an inch away. “Tell me. Please,” he whispers, and I hear him despite the chaos around us. “What do you want ? ”
I look up, waves tugging at my ankles, but I resist them, held up by the intensity building around us, “I want you. That’s it. All of my feelings just mean that, nothing else.”
“Do you want whatever comes next with me, too? Because I don’t know what it is.”
“Yes.” I grit my teeth to stop their chattering, blink at the sand, then back up at him. “I want everything with you.”
Wind whips between Marcus and me, blowing apart the tension and uncertainty. The frustration in his eyes drifts across their surface like clouds and disappears, leaving only blue.
“Then it’s you and me, Mei. I knew it the night I met you. Whatever happens next, we leave everything that happened behind us. Two days ago, I thought it was all over, so I’m not giving anything a chance to hurt you or ruin us again.” Rain quivers on his lashes, slides down his nose.
My body trembles from the cold rain soaking through his hoodie. My bare legs and feet are numb, but my insides stretch toward Marcus’s warm light. He’s standing in the turbulent ocean under an angry sky, in front of me. A place I never dared to dream he’d be again. I thought I’d only have memories before Nick’s darkness smothered them and whatever was left of me. But we’re here somehow, the sand insistent that we stay right here regardless of the storm or misunderstandings or freshly reopened wounds. The wounds will heal, and Marcus’s eyes tell me we will, too. I grab onto his belief.
He blinks away the crying sky that seems lighter now that the storm between us has calmed. His hand slides around the back of my neck, and his nose brushes mine. His lips are so close, unspoken words hover between us.
“What are you thinking right now?” he asks, still holding me tightly.
My hands smooth up his bare chest, over his shoulders and down his arms, gripping his forearms. I dig my numb toes into the sand to keep me steady. “I was just thinking …we’ve been in some crazy situations together, but this might be the most insane. And coldest.” There’s no way I’m admitting my real thoughts out loud, because being this close to him is making them run wild.
“You sure that’s it?” he smirks, easing closer.
I open my mouth to respond, but lightning slits the sky and thunder crashes. I shriek and run toward the hut. “Hurry!” I yell over my shoulder as Marcus sprints out of the water behind me. “The last thing we need is to be struck by lightning!” A wild, shaky laugh bursts out of me, and when he reaches me, his fingers slip through mine. We sprint through curtains of rain to the hut where he pulls me up the ramp and shoves open the door with his shoulder.
We bust through into damp, drafty darkness, and the wind slams it closed behind us, shutting out the storm. We stand in the middle of the hut, catching our breath before he pulls me to his chest, wrapping his arms around me while we shiver against each other, creating a puddle beneath us. His fingers thread into my wet hair, his palm cradling the back of my head as I tremble in the cold and heat colliding between us.
His hand slowly smooths over my back, pressing me to him as we stand in the dark, motionless, silent. He lowers his forehead to mine, our noses touching. “Hey,” he whispers.
“Hi.” I meet his eyes, glossy in the dim light.
He inhales, deep and slow, then presses his lips to my forehead. “I said a lot of things out there, but in case you missed it when I said it before, I need to tell you again. One very important thing. Like…the very most important thing I could ever tell you.”
“That you’ve been recruited to go to Mars to practice intergalactic horticulture.”
“So close,” he whispers, sending goose bumps over my body.
“That prom was a total disaster without me.”
“Definitely. But irrelevant.”
“That you’re really a Twizzlers guy?”
“No, never, and I love you,” he breathes, taking my face between his hands.
I clutch his wrists and close my eyes, his honesty painting bright colors all over my heart against this gray, weathered backdrop. “I love you, too,” I whisper against his lips, not for the first time since we met but definitely for the first time in this second chance. “For three months and twelve days, actually. No end in sight.”
He groans. “I wanna kiss you so bad right now.”
“I need you to kiss me so bad right now.”
His lips crash against mine, salty and cold, but opening to the heat steaming from him, wrapping me in it.
I clutch his back, urging him closer so this day doesn’t have another chance to take him from me.
“I missed you,” he breathes when we surface, but he dives back in before I can respond. Heat flares inside me as the kiss mimics the intensity of the storm just outside the slats—fierce, rolling, electric, surging. “I never wanna spend another second away from you. Like…” He kisses me deep and lingering, like he’s gathering all the pieces of me. “I wanna be…” His mouth moves to my eyes, my forehead. “So close to you…” His lips urge mine until I’m practically climbing him. “No space between us ever again.,” he whispers before turning me and pressing me against the door. But his weight squeezes out a memory of Nick I hurled into the back of my mind, hoping it would evaporate. I mentally kick it down as it rises, but it pounds at me like a jackhammer, sending chunks of memory flying through my head: Nick’s weight on me, darkness, my frantic pulse roaring in my ears, rough hands. My fists clench to squeeze the images out but my body jolts, then stiffens, and Marcus jerks back, his hands flying up at his sides.
“I’m sorry. Mei, I didn’t—” Thunder cracks, and the room flashes white. He curses, taking another step away from me. “I didn’t think. I’m so sorry.”
A chill rolls over me, drifting from the distance between us.
“I’m so sorry, Mei,” he repeats, raking his hand through his wet hair, talking to the ceiling. “I shouldn’t have…this whole thing. It’s all wrong—timing, weather, this place.” His words and body are distant, even inside this tiny hut, and my tears drip, mixing with the rain sliding down my face. “Besides, we’re soaked, you’re freezing. Everything’s salty and covered in tetanus.” His attempt to lift the moment gets whipped away by the wind howling through the cracks. “And you’re hurt. And I didn’t think about that. In the moment.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, angry at myself for letting Nick slip between us. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just…yes—cold. My teeth are chattering. We’re soaked.” None of it is a lie, but I need a minute to gather myself. I need to figure out what just happened in my head and body. I don’t want to relive any of it, especially not with Marcus watching. If he knows the whole story, he’ll keep his distance. He’ll be afraid of me forever.
He’s pulling on a dry shirt, shaking out his wet hair, talking to everything in the room but me. “Doesn’t look like the storm’s letting up anytime soon. Since you’ve soaked my favorite hoodie, here’s my second favorite.” He holds it out and I take it from him. “I’m gonna step out to change out of these shorts so you can change too. Then…I guess we’ll just…get some sleep, yeah?” He grabs a pair of sweats from the pile of his clothes on the raft and heads toward the door, avoiding my eyes. “I mean, we’ve got a perfectly good raft and at least if it floods while we sleep, we’ll float.”
He steps outside and I quickly change into the dry hoodie and drape the wet one over a stool. A few seconds later, Marcus cracks the door to ask if it’s safe to come in, then steps back inside, tossing his wet shorts on the counter before easing onto the raft, stretching out on his back. His feet hang over the edge and I crawl onto the raft and settle in beside him, staring at the ceiling through the haze of discomfort and gloom, wondering how to rewind time and erase my panicked reaction to his closeness. He’s not Nick. He would never hurt me.
“You okay?” he asks softly, his hands splayed on his chest. “Your bruises look painful.”
“I’m okay. Really.”
He nods, and itchy silence settles in the space between us before he talks again. “I wish I could wipe them off. Erase all your bad memories.”
Frustration burns through me. I hate that I let Nick in when we were so close to being back to normal.
“Do you wanna talk about it? About what happened? With Nick?” His voice eases toward me in the gray light.
I want to tell him. He deserves to know that my reaction had nothing to do with him. I wish I could open my head and show him everything, so I don’t have to say the words out loud. I want to open my chest so he can see how big my feelings for him are. But then he might see the leftover darkness lurking there. It could change the way he looks at me, and if I’m being honest, I’m not sure how he’ll react. We’re both better if everything stays locked inside me until it eventually goes away.
I shake my head, staring at the ceiling. “Can we just push pause on this conversation? For now?”
“Yeah. Yeah—definitely.” He clears his throat. Wind rattles the hut and rain slashes at the windows, sending ripples through the tension until Marcus slides his left hand toward me, his fingers gathering mine and weaving through them.
I close my eyes, focusing on the heat between our palms, the relief easing through me from this one touch. My mind unwinds, but the wind shoving through the cracks in the hut gets in my head, flinging the events of the last twenty-four hours against my skull until I roll into Marcus, burying my face into his arm like I can hide there.
He shifts and winds his arm around me, pulling me against him until we sink into the middle of the raft. I breathe in fabric softener on his shirt as I battle the thoughts, trying to pull me far from Marcus. But when his voice rumbles through them, I cling to his words:
“I love you, Mei.”