Chapter 11
The next morning, Cassidy awoke to pale darkness in her room after a restless night of almost no sleep.
After Cassidy swept up the broken glass and removed all the knives in the kitchen, she locked herself away from Apricot.
She still cared about her friend but needed to maintain distance to protect herself.
This meant that, instead of going and clearing her mind on the island, Cassidy remained inside the villa to make sure Apricot did, too.
Every time Cassidy heard a noise outside the room’s glass door, she stopped breathing and listened hard for the sounds of footsteps or breaking glass.
Yet, it was worse once the storm hit, and she couldn’t hear anything through the torrential rain and crashing lightning.
While still lying in bed, she began scrolling.
Her social feeds were full of dark videos from last night’s headliner performance and selfies with captions gloating about how lucky they were to be on the island and to get to see a surprise show from Bad Bunny.
Cassidy knew it wasn’t luck, though. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she knew it wasn’t just by chance that Bad Bunny played.
Maybe Rose was right to suspect people she’d only just met of lying about their intentions.
Cassidy watched James’ video last night before the show started and knew that he predicted Bad Bunny would appear, but it was entirely possible he legitimately heard this as a rumor or had inside information before sharing the video.
Before leaving the villa the day before, James suggested that everyone make negative posts about the island.
Was that some sort of ruse? Did he intend to make everyone else look bad by posting something delicious like this when everyone else was complaining?
If that was the case, what purpose did it serve? None of it made any sense.
She checked the Island Xperience app and was unsurprised to see that there was still no statement about Ryan LeHane’s death.
If they didn’t acknowledge it within the first 24 hours, it was unlikely they would say anything about it until the festival was over.
Still, someone had to have seen her video—the real video—and tried to investigate it off the island, maybe even Ryan’s parents or friends who hadn’t heard from him.
Searching online for his name produced nothing.
Literally nothing. Querying “Ryan LeHane” produced no relevant hits.
The results felt to Cassidy like walking full-speed into the sliding glass door that led to the porch.
She thought that the Wi-Fi failed, but that couldn’t be it because there were still populated results for similar searches that included “Ryan” and “LeHane” separately.
She refreshed the search and got the same results.
She looked for his profiles on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, but found nothing.
It’s like he doesn’t exist anymore.
A chill ran down Cassidy’s spine and she shot up to a seated position in bed.
Her thoughts began to spiral, wondering what kind of conspiracy she’d fallen into the middle of, and quickly reined herself in.
Cassidy turned the phone screen off and threw it on the bed.
This was too much to deal with before even having a morning tea.
Sunlight broke through fell in photogenic golden rays into the living room, which last night was in complete disarray from Apricot’s mental break but now looked as tidy as the day they arrived.
The couch and loveseat set hugged around the small, barren coffee table.
All the chairs sat neatly pushed into the round breakfast table, complete with the salt and pepper set and the four woven placemats right where they belonged.
It looked like Apricot even scrubbed the perfume rivulets off the wall.
Cassidy was proud of her. For diving completely off the deep end the previous night, this was a much more mature rebound than she thought Apricot capable of.
Cassidy kept the TV off and moved about the kitchen in silence as she boiled water for tea.
Nothing in the pre-stocked cabinets was appealing, and she wondered what the restaurants on the island offered this morning.
She reached into her cami’s bra for her phone and when she didn’t find it there, she winced at the reflex.
She could just explore the island and find food later after Apricot woke up.
When the kettle started to boil, Cassidy was careful not to let it scream before taking it off the stove out of respect for her sleeping friend but turning toward the living room she shrieked and dropped the mug.
A shadow stood on the porch outside the door. Not the shadow of a child, though. This shadow bore a recognizable curvaceousness that Cassidy knew to be Daisy’s silhouette.
Boiling water and blue bits of ceramic exploded against the tile, scalding Cassidy’s feet. She looked down just for a moment to witness the destruction, but when she looked up again, the porch sat empty except for the glorious golden glow of the sun.
Apricot ripped the bedroom door open. Her makeup remained from the day before and smudged eyeliner and mascara turned her into a glitter-bombed raccoon. Fear and anger mixed on her face as she stared at Cassidy standing in the kitchen.
“What the fuck?” Apricot asked.
“I swear I just saw Daisy standing on the porch.”
Just as curtly, Apricot asked, “who’s Daisy?”
The two women stood staring at each other for a long moment.
Eyeliner stuck to the base of Apricot’s eyelashes and the glitter on her cheeks wasn’t going to come off without a fight, but she looked present.
Cassidy looked for a sign of humor or confusion, anything to explain Apricot’s response.
Fear rooted her in place, preventing movement or even a deep breath.
“Our friend? Daisy? The one who flew here with us?” Cassidy said, speaking the words as she would to an animal she feared would bolt or attack.
“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
Apricot’s eyes flicked, seemingly searching Cassidy’s face now. The same chill Cassidy felt earlier in bed ran down her spine again.
“Are you okay?” Apricot asked. Her eyebrows came together in concern, but the question was one of irritation.
“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll just text her myself,” Cassidy said, trying to sound casual and calm. Apricot gave Cassidy a visual once-over that Cassidy resented but dropped the subject.
“Okay, well I’m gonna go change and we can go.”
Apricot retreated to her bedroom, and Cassidy focused on staying upright and breathing steadily.
“Oh, wait, is this like a mutual acquaintance that we met last night or something?” Apricot called from her room while Cassidy braced against the kitchen counter.
“I got so fucked up at the show last night I barely remember it at all. I think I even made out with some rando just so I could text Rob about it and make him jealous. Don’t tell her I don’t remember her, though, that would be super embarrassing! ”
Cassidy bolted to her room. She searched through a mess of blankets to find her phone and sent a harried group text to James, Edie, and Rose.
Apricot doesn’t remember Daisy this morning and thinks we went to the show last night but we didn’t. Can we please meet up? I’m really worried. Also, Ryan LeHane has disappeared from the internet entirely. What is happening?