Chapter 15
Alice
Ididn’t see Emily today.
She wasn’t waiting for me when I got off my whale watching tour. Her car was gone from the motel parking lot when I biked there, and no one answered the door to her room when I knocked.
Which is fine.
Just because we’ve spent every free second of the last month and change together, doesn’t mean she’s obligated to continue doing so. It’s actually better if she left. She’ll probably avoid being collateral damage of my eventual confrontation with Ilya if she leaves now.
I cross my arms on the sticky wooden counter of Wayne’s, laying my head down and closing my eyes, like it’ll help calm my spinning thoughts. It’s not fair for me to be upset. She’s not mine, and I’m not hers. There’s no future between us, so what exactly am I grieving right now?
I don’t even have a phone to call her. This isn’t a relationship, it’s my last ditch effort to live a life cut short and for Emily it’s probably a random summer fling with one of the few age-appropriate people in this tiny town she’s stuck in.
“Another one?”
When I pry open my eyes, Genevieve is at the other end of the bar, trying not to look concerned.
We’re the only ones here, and in the hour since I’ve arrived I’ve already consumed three Blackberry Bourbon Smashes, which Gen introduced me to during my first week living here.
The idea of a bar this decrepit having fresh blackberry, lime, and mint is ironic to the point of comedy, but Gen loves craft cocktails.
I’m pretty sure she picks the blackberries herself.
“Sure,” I groan, picking up my glass to suck the watery remnants of drink number three down as she starts making me a fresh one.
One would think that consuming rattlesnake venom regularly would make me less susceptible to the effects of heavy drinking, but different toxins affect the body in different ways.
I have not created a tolerance for this kind of poison.
Gen doesn’t ask me what’s wrong, and I’m thankful for it.
She’s not my friend. Even as a child, I didn’t complain and gossip with the few friends I did have.
Both my parents taught me early on that any information you give someone can be used against you, emotionally or physically.
The only people you can fully trust, they told me, were family.
Sometimes I wonder if they isolated me intentionally. If they hoped that making them my only confidants would so drastically narrow my worldview, I wouldn’t question the path laid out before me.
I wish I didn’t think such terrible things about my mother.
She’s gone, and I want to preserve the memory of her brushing my hair and singing me songs and taking me to stare at the ocean so I could see where the sirens live.
But she married my father, and they loved each other, at least for a significant part of my childhood.
She was proud to be the beautiful prize on his arm, and raised me to want the same.
Дядя Mikhail never told me why my father killed my mother, only that he did.
And after Ilya’s final words to me, I knew better than to question whether it was true or not.
Maybe, in the end, she wanted something my father couldn’t or wouldn’t give her.
Or she asked one too many questions, pushed too hard.
The only people I’ve ever confided in are my parents. They’re the only ones who have known my secrets.
Until a month ago.
“There you are.”
The relief that floods my nervous system is instantaneous, and I really do hate myself for it.
Emily’s voice is calm and sure, and I delude myself into believing she’s also relieved to see me.
I don’t pick my head up to look at her, though, mostly because I’m having a little trouble remembering which way is up with the room spinning like this.
She slides onto the stool next to me as Gen places my drink in front of me, and suddenly I have the motivation to sit up straight.
“Where have you been?” she asks, her shoulder knocking against mine. I purposefully stare down at my drink, feeling pathetic and surly and all sorts of complicated emotions that only bourbon will fix.
“Here,” I reply curtly, sipping the sweet, smoky drink from the little straws. From the corner of my eye, I see Gen flash four fingers toward Emily. Traitor. I knew she wasn’t my friend.
“Why here?” Emily asks, and after a few spinning seconds, there’s a glass of water in my hand instead of my rocks glass.
“Why not?”
I know I’m being childish, the thing I hate being accused of most. But all my feelings are tied up and I can’t parse them out, can’t work my way through them. I keep feeling them, and it’s fucking awful.
“You weren’t at your apartment…” Emily trails off, and I hear a hint of worry in her voice. But I still don’t turn to face her, because I’m making a point. What point, I’m not really sure. I’ll remember eventually.
“You weren’t at your motel,” I shrug, spinning the ice cubes in my water with the straw, suddenly realizing I want my drink back. But I’m pretty sure Emily’s got it in her hand.
Gen will make me a new one. Where’s Gen?
“She’s taking a break out back,” Emily answers, which means apparently I asked that question out loud. Water is starting to sound like a good idea. “Did you come to my motel earlier? I ran down to Gold Beach to pick up a new battery adapter for the ROV, I must have lost track of time.”
Great, now I feel even more pathetic. She was only running errands, and my brain leapt immediately to the worst possible reason for her absence.
Well, second worst. I refused to contemplate the possibility that Ilya had already gotten to her.
“Doesn’t matter,” I slur, reaching for the glass in her hand and pulling it back to me. She lets it go easily, and I didn’t even have to touch her hand to get it. Very proud of myself.
The taste of blackberries and smoke doesn’t block out Emily as much as I hoped. I can still feel all her warmness next to me. Smell her cologne, resin and black licorice. Makes me want to taste that instead.
“Hey, look at me,” she says, her voice soft and demanding all at once. Why does that make tears well at the corners of my eyes? Why does she make me want to listen?
She drags her thumb against my turned cheek before slipping her fingers into my hair and gently turning my face. When I meet her gaze, she’s not nearly as calm and collected as I thought she was. There’s a frantic look in her eyes, edging on something that will shred her to pieces.
“I’m sorry if it seemed like I left. I should have called and left a message at the ticket booth.” The words are genuine but rushed, like she’s trying to force me to hear them before I run away from her. “I wouldn’t leave you here.”
“Without saying goodbye?”
The words slip from my lips before I can reel them back in.
Why would I say that? How could I demand such compassion when I know how this will end?
It makes me cruel, perhaps as bad as my father and Ilya, to manipulate her like this.
To force this level of intimacy when our closeness may well be her demise.
Emily wipes away tears I can’t hold back as she stares into my eyes. She’s so pretty. Skin so smooth, lashes so dark, jaw so strong. There are little gold flecks in her irises that I usually only see in the sunlight. But I’m so close to her right now, I can see everything.
“Maybe we…” she stutters, something shifting in her expression. Stronger, more resolute, more desperate. “What if we didn’t have to say goodbye?”
Is this heartbreak? I thought I knew what that felt like. When my father told me my mother died. Learning his role in her death. Ilya’s words to me that night. I thought those all broke my heart into the pieces that rattle around in my chest now.
But this feels different. Knowing something is just out of reach. Learning something is possible, but not for you. Seeing the thing you want most want you back, and having to deny yourself of it.
“Your research will be done in a few weeks,” I say, a weak excuse.
I want her to stay, or to take me with her, but I’ve already knocked over the first domino that will eventually bring Ilya to my doorstep.
He will hunt me to the ends of the Earth, because his pride demands it.
And I’ve spent so much time finding a place where the fewest number people possible will get hurt in the ensuing chaos.
I can’t keep her here, and I can’t go with her, bringing more innocent bystanders into the line of fire.
“We haven’t found the jellies yet,” she argues softly, her voice cracking slightly. “You could come with me, help me find them. You could keep teaching me how to be brave.”
My chest constricts, and I realize I’m not really breathing. Not deep enough. She’s so beautiful and smart and strong and kind, and I’m going to be the reason she’s wiped from the planet.
“I can’t go with you,” I say, even though I want nothing more than to turn back time and stop myself from making that first call, dropping that first hint to my father’s enterprise that I might be alive.
I wanted revenge, I wanted to have the chance that one day I might not have to live in fear, or die trying.
Now, I’d give anything to be the invisible woman following Emily around the world.
“Please, Alice,” she begs, which only makes things so much worse. So much harder. “I know there are probably things you haven’t told me, about why you’re here and what happened to you. And there’s so much I haven’t told you. But we can figure this out. I can protect you.”
I laugh. So hard that my belly aches, and more tears fall from my eyes. So many that my tee shirt is dotted with droplets. She can protect me?
“You can’t…” I try to say through hyperventilated breaths, but Emily pulls me so I’m tucked under her arm.
“I can, Alice. From anything.”
I want her words to be soothing. I want to believe them. But they’re so patently untrue, and my guilt is morphing into something much more angry. Rageful.