Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 113051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
“Still wish I had my phone,” Lauren says.
“And that’s why we always back up to the cloud,” Wes says.
About half the students groan about not backing them up, and everyone starts griping amongst themselves.
Wes turns to me. “Don’t worry, I have your phone. I’ve had it for a long time.”
Realization dawns on me. “Oh, so that’s why my grandmother’s picture changed.”
“I didn’t get it right?” he asks. “Sorry, I tried. I knew you had your grandmother as your wallpaper when you first got here because I asked you about her, but I wasn’t sure the exact picture. There were a lot of things that were challenging to keep up the ruse.”
“Like my sneakers,” I tell him. “That’s why you snuck them into my room.”
“You ruined them on a hike,” he says. “I had to get you new ones, but they didn’t arrive on time. The perils of having to take a boat to get your mail.”
I remember now. Wes and I had gone hiking and foraging for the excandesco, and we got caught in a downpour. We had to hunker down in a fallen log for hours before we were able to continue through the mud.
“And my Miss Piggy shirt?” I ask.
He gives me a sheepish look. “It, uh, ripped one night.”
Oh. I see. In my mind I have the vague memory of us having sex, him ripping it by accident, then tearing the rest of it up to secure my wrists together.
“I have to admit, the hardest part for me was getting your hair color just right,” he says, a sobering look in his eyes.
“You dyed my hair?”
He nods, brushing a strand off my face. “I had to. You decided to go back to your natural color when you were here. Everly bought the dye, tried to match it. I think maybe I left it on for too long, I don’t know. I’d never dyed anyone’s hair before.”
I stare up at him. “You dyed my hair as I was dead?” I picture my corpse, Wes rubbing the dye into my strands. “I can’t tell if that’s creepy or romantic.”
“It can be both,” he says. Then he cups my face in his hands. “I know that you don’t remember everything. I know it will take a long time for everything to make sense. And maybe it will never make sense. But I will wait however long it takes for you to trust me again.”
He kisses me softly, sweetly, and pulls back, resting his forehead against mine. “I love you, Syd. I love you with all my being. And you don’t need to love me back. I know that we were broken up before. I know that this new you doesn’t know me like the old you did. I know—”
“You don’t know half the things you think you do,” I interrupt him, my heart expanding in my chest, blossoming and blooming at his words. “Neither do I. But my soul does. My heart does. It always has.”
I run my hand over his face, relishing the feel of his beard, the softness of his lips, the drugs finally out of my system.
“I love you, Wes,” I tell him, and in every essence of my being, every part old and new, deep within every neuron, I know I never stopped.
Then I kiss him, and he holds me tight, and I realize that some connections in life can’t be severed, not even by death.
Someone claps.
Then, another person claps.
Sarcastic golf claps, but still.
And Hernandez says, “This is all well and good, but are we actually going to get out of here, or do we have to stay here and watch you make out?”
We break apart. We didn’t pick the best time for this, did we? One moment of intimacy amidst a world of chaos.
“Well,” Wes says, clearing his throat. “What do you all say? Should we get on the boat and get the fuck out of here? Or do you want to stand on the dock and watch the lodge burn?”
Munawar puts up his hand. “I vote for the burning of the lodge.”
“Me too,” says Lauren.
“Me three,” says Janet.
So we all stand there on the dock and watch as the lab and the north dorm burn down. Soon, the fire spreads to the main lodge, then the dining hall. Miraculously, all the surrounding trees survive, their waterlogged trunks and full foliage unable to catch fire, while the wood of the buildings goes up like tinder.
Perhaps the lodge had wanted this all along.
I always thought it was like a sentient predator, waiting to pounce.
But maybe the lodge was never trying to harm us.
Maybe all it wanted was to be set free.
CHAPTER 33
“Good morning, sunshine.”
I blink, waking up to the sun streaming in through the window of the hatch.
“Sun,” I croak, shielding my eyes. “My god.”
It’s been a week since we sailed away from Madrona Lodge, and there hadn’t been a single day of sunshine on the entire journey from the Brooks Peninsula all the way down to Tofino. To say the sun feels like heaven shining down on me right now is an understatement.