AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sixty pounds?” I wrinkle my nose in disbelief.
“Yeah! He became a celebrity in New Zealand.”
“You’re making this up.”
“No I’m not! He was on TV. They wrote children’s books about him. He visited the Prime Minister.”
I want to kiss her again right there, with her defenses low and her oxytocin high from contact with the lambs.
But I wait. Patiently and strategically.
We walk down to the beach next. Not Moon Beach, because I don’t want her thinking about Leo when I need all her attention focused on me.
Instead I take her down to the east side of the island where the waves have hollowed-out caverns in the limestone. We walk through the caves, stalactites hanging down like pale stone icicles and seawater seeping into pale green pools in the rock.
I brought a backpack full of food stolen from the kitchen: oranges, bread, cheese, and two bottles of the local beer. I knock the caps off the beer, handing one to Anna.
She takes it from me. I peel an orange and hand that to her as well.
“Dean,” she says, and I know immediately from the tone of her voice that she’s going to say something about Leo. “This has been really nice, but I?—”
I interrupt her. “I know you like spending time with me.”
“I do,” she admits.
“And I know you have feelings for Leo.”
She doesn’t reply to that but sits quietly in the dim green light of the cave that makes her eyes look blue-green too, like arctic seawater.
“He had his whole life to love you, Anna,” I say fiercely. “He never did anything about it. I wanted you the moment I laid eyes on you.”
Anna is silent, biting the corner of her lip. She holds the peeled orange in her hand, untouched.
“I can’t stop how I feel about him,” she says quietly. “I’ve tried.”
“I’m not trying to stop you.”
That’s a lie. I plan to slice through every tie that binds her and Leo together, one by one. But I have time to do it. For now, all I need is for Anna to let me in, just a little.
“All I want is a chance. To see if you could maybe feel something for me, too.”
She presses her lips together, and I think she might be about to shake her head. So I grab her by the hand and pull her up from where she’s sitting on the soft, chalky limestone.
“Here,” I say. “Come look at this.”
I pull her deeper into the cavern, to the place where the seawater pours in from the ocean as the tide comes in. It’s dark here, almost fully dark. Unconsciously, Anna’s fingers interlock with mine.
“What are you showing me?”
“Just wait . . .”
The water pours in with each set of waves, cold and dark.
And then, as the incoming waves churn against each other in the dark recesses of the cavern, the pools begin to glow. The light is faint at first, just threads of turquoise in the black water. Then the color spreads, until the entire pool is illuminated with vibrant, shifting, moving light. Organic and surreal. The light reflects off the cavern walls and glimmers on Anna’s smooth skin.
She stares at me wide-eyed. “What is that?”
“Dinoflagellates. They’re bioluminescent.”
