Chapter Nineteen
Jules
Breakfast is porridge and honey, served with fruit and black tea.
Mary offers the tea in a plastic cup. “I don’t know how we survived without the teapot. It’s amazing. We’re already done boiling today’s water, and to have those tubs…” She looks to the five-litre bottles stashed in the shade.
I subtly gauge Mary, but she doesn’t seem at all perturbed by what she saw just now. Neither does Charles.
“Where is everyone?” Mathieu asks, accepting a cup from her too. “Doing a run to the yacht?”
“Nah, they’re off working on projects,” Charles says. “I don’t think anyone else can do that run but you three. We’re not as strong swimmers. You mentioned last night going on a run today?”
Mathieu rolls his shoulders. “We did?”
Is he sore too? My muscles have stiffened during the night.
Not that waking up was unpleasant. I can’t believe that they changed my underwear.
We’re on an island, and they went to the effort of cleaning me after I passed out on them.
Was it Mathieu or Cillian? Both? I can’t ask. Not without combusting.
“Weren’t you and Cillian talking about bringing over the rest of the food last night?” Charles adds.
The moment when that was said is seared into my brain.
Mathieu’s fingers feather over his ribs. His smile loses the dimples. “Ah,” he says. “Yes.”
“My shoulders are spent,” I say quickly. “I can’t handle that swim again today.”
I wait for a remark about lying around all week, and then calling it quits after one day of work.
But Darren’s not here. What I get instead is Cillian’s intense gaze, and the certainty that he’s furious all over again about me swimming over while he wasn’t looking…
twice. I’m tempted to turn traitor on Mathieu and point out he was an accomplice the second time.
“He has to say that, or else Cillian will tie him to a tree,” Mathieu jokes.
Wouldn’t it make the most sense if Cillian cleaned me? He’s very attentive about practical things. But then again, Mathieu is very sweet. And very experienced. My lips are still tingling from his kisses.
“Maybe you can help me and Charles build our shelter?” Mary asks. “Charles scouted out a nice spot.”
“Babe.” Charles puts a hand on Mary’s shoulder. “He just said he’s tired,” he says in a curiously magnanimous tone. Mary’s brows shoot up. I think she’s offended by the notion that Charles is protecting me from her.
Charles spots that he’s made a mistake. “But I’m sure you have something sensible in mind,” he adds quickly.
“Yes,” she says. “I do. He’s going to hang out with me, and we’ll entertain ourselves while you build everything.”
Charles nods. “Excellent plan.”
I grin. “I can do that.” I have a notebook that I’m hoping will dry in good shape. I want to take an inventory, but I have the entire day.
Charles and Mary head off first, Charles looping Mary’s arm over his shoulder so she doesn’t put any weight on her twisted ankle, and I’m left with Cillian and Mathieu.
There’s a charge in the air. Something sweet and crackling.
I think of Mathieu kissing me. Of Cillian admitting he was thinking about fucking my thighs.
“I can give you a massage,” Cillian says.
That shivery awareness spreads, my skin becoming sensitive against my clothes.
He meets my eyes and rubs a hand over his jaw, a muscle fluttering. His exhale is slow and controlled, but not calm. “Your shoulders.” He drops his hand. “Seán’s mom is a masseuse, and I’ve picked up a thing or two.”
“That would be nice.”
Cillian sets his empty cup aside. He crooks his finger, gesturing for me to turn around on the log. I straddle it, which leaves me facing Mathieu, as Cillian sits behind me.
Cillian sets his hands on the top of my shoulders; they’re large and warm. He presses down, barely touching sore muscles. My erotic mood cracks.
“Urgh.”
“You have knots on both sides up here,” Cillian says, the grit and tension vanishing from him. His fingers flex, and I feel, intimately, those knots. “Mathieu, can you grab the painkillers?”
“I’m not using up the painkillers because of sore muscles.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
Mathieu retrieves them.
“You’re in worse shape than you keep pretending,” Cillian says.
“Thanks.”
He mutters something that sounds like a curse. I twist to glare at him. He’s already looking at my face, calm but stubborn.
“I’m in charge of first aid,” he says.
I can’t argue against that. “Someone could get hurt and need them. Muscle soreness will pass.”
“I understand where you’re coming from, but this is why we have painkillers.
The med kit is well-stocked. Willow and Mary both have their own painkiller strips.
And look.” Cillian draws my attention to what Mathieu is offering.
It’s not a strip of painkillers, but a bottle.
“Seán’s uncle lives in America. He always brings back painkillers for us.
We’re working with a hundred pills, not twelve. ”
Cillian reaches around me to take the bottle and twists off the cap. The bottle is full. He shakes two pills out onto my palm. “Doesn’t even make a dent in our supply.”
Seeing that there’s plenty left, I’m happy to swallow the pills down.
“I know you’re looking out for the group, but you’re a member of that group too.
” Cillian hands the bottle back to Mathieu.
“Can you pass me the oil? It’s in a brown plastic bottle, should be in the side pocket.
Jules, if you don’t mind taking your shirt off?
You’ll get more out of this if I can rub your skin. ”
I take off my shirt. I have a horrendous farmer’s tan dividing my arms, and I can feel the sunburn across my face. I shouldn’t be so embarrassed. Everyone’s burnt. Everyone’s skin is in desperate need of care…except Mathieu, who’s turning into some sort of golden god, skin evenly tanned.
Cillian sets his oil-soaked fingers against my sore back.
“Seán’s mom is Niamh?” I ask.
“That’s right. Have you met her?”
“At Seán’s graduation last year. You were there too. In the Rocher Hotel. Do you remember?”
Mathieu sits back down, sipping his tea. He watches Cillian’s hands working against my muscles, rolling his own shoulders.
I open my mouth, but Mathieu shakes his head and mouths, “You first.”
“I remember,” Cillian says. “I forgot you were there. I don’t think we talked.” He slides his hands down the inner slope of my shoulder blades and pauses there to focus on a mass of knots.
“I was dating Darren.”
“I just mean ‘talk’.”
Cillian had been wearing a crisp white shirt, the sleeves folded up to show off his tattooed forearms. And his hair, those gorgeous black waves, had framed his handsome face like a dark halo. The walking embodiment of sin.
“It’s rude to talk to attractive people when you’re in a relationship.”
Mathieu chokes on his tea. Cillian’s massage stops.
“What?” I realise I’ve just admitted that I find Cillian attractive. But surely that’s obvious at this point? Besides, everyone finds him attractive.
“If you’re dating someone you can’t talk to attractive people? At all?” Mathieu asks.
“Ideally not.”
Mathieu looks scandalised. “So if we were to start dating, you’d pretend Cillian doesn’t exist?”
“I wouldn’t pretend he didn’t exist. That’s not realistic. But I wouldn’t…engage? Beyond being polite.”
There’s a beat of silence.
“So,” Cillian says, “the reason I knew all of Seán’s other friends better than you is because you purposefully avoided talking to me.”
“I was never rude to you.” A defensive note creeps into my voice.
“You weren’t rude to me either.” Mathieu’s eyes narrow. “But you never wanted to hang out with me individually. And you’d always avoid sitting right next to me, no matter the setting.”
I tense. “I was dating Darren. It wasn’t to be—I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.”
“Let me guess,” Cillian says. “Darren would pitch a jealous fit whenever you talked to anyone attractive.”
Anger stirs in my gut. Mathieu’s look mirrors the distaste in Cillian’s voice. I know, retrospectively, that all the biting annoyance between Darren and me by the end was crap. But it wasn’t always bad. He wasn’t always this mean, cynical version of himself.
“Is that what would happen?” Mathieu asks.
I stand, yanking my T-shirt on. The fabric clings to the wet oil on my skin. “I’m not stupid.”
Mathieu’s eyes widen at the vehemence in my voice. “Nobody is calling you stupid. I’m not. I think you’re the opposite of stupid.”
“Right.”
Mathieu exchanges an alarmed look with Cillian, who’s sitting with his hands turned up, oil dripping from his fingers.
“I think Darren’s stupid,” Cillian says. “And I’ve seen enough to know he was a shit boyfriend.”
And I was stupid to stay with him for as long as I did. Two years. The moment in the sky comes back to me like an omen. The one of Darren giving the eulogy at my funeral, calling me bossy and annoying and superficial. He knows me better than anyone else.
The feeling I got when I missed my chance to start college right away washes over me. The overwhelming dread that I’m falling behind. That I’m missing out. That I’m wasting my time. Life can end any minute—my parents taught me that.
I’m twenty-two and have nothing to show for it, and my ex, who hates me, is going to be the one giving my eulogy.
“Thank you for the massage.” It takes everything in me to speak normally. “It helped.”
I leave camp.