Page 112
Micah crawls off me only when my body stops twitching. Without speaking, he retrieves a can of beans from his pack—beans he stole the night before, along with a few more he could carry in there. It won’t be enough to last us through winter.
He makes the can of beans, and we share it between us, eating with our fingers. It’s enough to satiate me, even though it sits like coal in my stomach, and I almost vomit it right back up.
He lies down beside me, and at least the temperatures have increased and the snow is blowing in a different direction. He won’t look at me, won’t speak to me. I think he utterly hates me. My teeth chatter again, so he pulls me back into him, where I instantly melt.
A beat of silence goes by. “You were so strong today,” he tells me.
My eyes shoot open at his unexpected compliment and happiness bubbles up inside me. I hate how much I love his acclamations. It’s quickly followed by a feeling of dread. Tomorrow will come—and tomorrow scares me. Just like every day on this island scares me. Just like Micah scares me, and how my feelings for him scare me.
“Micah?” I whisper.
“London.”
“What happens now?”
His body shifts and his leg presses into me. “I don’t know, but right now, it’s time for you to go to sleep.”
I want nothing more than to drift off into emptiness, knowing Micah is safe beside me, but I still can’t feel my extremities. “I can’t feel my feet,” I whisper to him, not that he can do much about that.
I’m wrong.
He shifts to the other side of the bed, takes hold of my legs under the blanket, and removes my socks. I scramble up on my elbows to get a good look at him, trying to catch what look he has in his eye right now. He doesn’t meet my gaze, but he rubs my toes, massaging each one until feeling comes back to them.
“You lied to me, Micah,” I finally tell him, as he does all he can to avoid eye contact with me.
His eyes flicker up. “What do you mean?”
“You said you never once pretended to be anyone other than yourself, but you did. In English class, you and Maison switched personas. You were watching me the same way Maison looks at me.”
He focuses on my feet, moving his strong fingers to the arches, digging in, bringing feeling back to them. “That was all me, London. That was me, looking at you for the first time. I was checking you out. It was the first time I really saw you.”
Heat rushes through me as I think about him walking in, seeing me, then side-glancing and smiling. I lay down and don’t speak as a roller coaster of emotions flood through me.
The duplicity of my thoughts —
Micah, Maison, Maison, Micah.
My emotions shift rapidly from bliss to terror and rage within seconds. Hunger, thirst, and feelings of lust and love that only dreams are made of.
I love him. And I hate him. I love both of them.
And Micah doesn’t love me back—he made that perfectly clear.
But right now, at this moment, I’m exactly where I want to be. I’m next to the strongest guy I’ve ever met. Who’s selfless, protects others, and is showing me how strong I am. How to protect myself at all costs, to protect myself from him. I despise him beyond measure for how he makes me feel, and I love him so fully, my bones ache. It’s all I can do to not burst into tears as he continues rubbing my feet for nearly an hour.
I’m scared of losing him and scared to keep him. I’m just plain fucking scared.
He’s right here, yet he’s not mine.
Micah Matai is officially too much for me to handle.
Chapter Twenty-One
Day Forty-five
I realize this morning that I lost track of time here. The tree foliage suggests mid-November. As I write this, things on this island have digressed to the point I’m not sure how we are going to come back from. I’ve not written since Naomi tainted my journal by reading it. I hate to admit how scared I am to write again. Writing makes it real. I’m also scared of what I will admit to myself. I’m not the same person I was when I landed here, and I’m not sure who I’m turning into. Since writing my last entry, I’ve fallen deeply in love, nearly killed someone, and helped cut flesh from bone. The last two days have been the hardest of my life. What frightens me the most about this island is the darkness within people. Micah is not the enemy, but he scares me the most. He’s strong but fragile in so many ways, and I worry his darkness will consume him if I’m not here to bring him back. Please, for anyone who may read this, make sure the world knows that Micah is the true hero on this island, and not the cause of what happened here. Because… I think this pretty little island is going to kill me.
When I woke up this morning, I choked on the cold, crisp air that filled my lungs. We are in a freeze, but Micah doesn’t think it will last. And when the snow melts down a bit, that’s when we really need to hunt—although frost still clings to the trees’ tips and branches. It’s utterly frightening knowing such a simple element can turn my fingers blue and cause me a slow and painful death.
