“What was it like?” I ask.
“Lena,” warns Cade, prepared as ever to put miles of brick wall between us.
But this time I don’t stop at his comfort zone. I want to know what it is like to make love to someone, and he is the only person I can ask.
“Tell me in case I never know,” I plead, then watch as a heavy breath rises and falls in his chest.
“I can’t describe it like your books.”
“Describe it like you then.”
Cade seems to think about this a moment because he pulls his whittling knife and a solid chunk cut from a branch out from his bag.
“It was nerve wracking. All my friends had already done it, and I guess we felt like we were behind and had better get it over with. So I saved up my lawn mowing money and rented a room for after the dance.”
“Your parents let you stay overnight?”
Cade laughs. “My parents didn’t pay attention to anything I did. Not unless I was out on the court. Come to think of it my Dad probably would have given me a pat on the back.”
“So you lost your virginity in a hotel room?”
Cade’s whittling at a steady rhythm now, turning the branch into the beginnings of a small wooden deer.
“Yup. It wasn’t very romantic, and it didn’t last very long.”
“Because?”
Cade lets out an exasperated breath and pauses his knife. “Sometimes I forget you were a child when we got here.”
“Fourteen is not a child,” I reply, refusing to feel ashamed because I have questions. It’s not like we finished school. I have the math skills of a 9th grader and the sex education of one as well.
“Because I was excited, Lena. It was my first time and it felt...” he pauses, and I realize I am craning my neck forward to hear his every word.
“How did it feel? I ask, knowing I’m pushing him and at any moment he may decide to shut the conversation down and ignore me for the rest of the day.
“It felt the way they describe in your books.”
My mouth forms the O shape, remembering the clawing, urgent, passion that draws the characters to one another.
“Do you wish you could still?”
“Of course,” says Cade, casting his whittling aside he stands. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Lena, okay?”
I nod even though I know he can’t see me. For the rest of my bath Cade waits at the mouth of the cave. He stands with his back to me and his arms folded across his chest. I wonder if he’s thinking about the girl from home as he watches the forest outside. It’s a lush and beautiful paradise, but he has had other versions of paradise and for the first time I consider if it is worse to have love taken from you or to never have the chance.
Nine
I hate to admit when he is right, but I feel so much better after taking that bath. The island is humid, and the sun can feel unbearable at times, but right now with my skin still moist from the pool and my long auburn hair dripping at the ends, what little breeze the forest offers feels like a kiss leaving goosebumps in its path.
We agreed to go across the center of the island, then follow the shoreline back to our camp. The problem is we have no idea how far that really is? Hundreds of miles? Or does it just feel that way because we’re scaling rocks and fighting tough elevation along the way? My stomach grumbles. Life at camp is always tinged with hunger. There is never quite enough to feel full, but no one starves, no one goes hungry, and if we are tired from hunting, gathering or caring for the camp we rest when needed.
It isn’t like that now. We’ve rested one day and already it feels like too much. Cade says we aren’t up against the clock, but Christa is. Without a calendar the days at camp run together. The baby could come in one month or two. We don’t know and I can’t ignore that nagging feeling that it is coming sooner than we want.
A rustling in the bushes behind us draws both our attention and before either of us know what is happening a small animal hightails it across the path. Long black feathers and a distinct hopping motion have Cade and I looking at one another like we’ve just seen a ghost. The ghost of real dinner.
“Was that a—”
“Chicken?” I finish incredulously. It is not impossible for there to be chickens on this island. There are signs all over the place that people have inhabited this area before, but in 7 years we have never seen this type of bird and we are not about to let it escape.
A wicked grin splits across Cade’s face. “If I catch it, I get all the dark meat,” he wagers, but I am already sprinting down the path following close behind the chicken. The shrieking and deep throat rattling sounds emitting from the chicken almost make me feel bad. Almost. But then I remember a childhood tearing into warm, salty chicken thighs and I launch at the bird, scrambling to my feet when it hops just out of reach.
“Nice try,” calls Cade, his boots flying past me in the mud as he takes his own shot at the bird. He doesn’t fare any better than I do so we agree to split up.
“You hide over there and I’ll chase it toward you,” I instruct, pointing to a grove of trees fifty feet from us. Years of hunting the docile birds near camp created the allusion that catching the chicken would be as easy as reaching out for it. It is not though. This bird knows better than to trust us, and the thought alarms me. What risk have humans posed to it in the past? Why does it know to run?
I have to pick up the pace to get in front of the chicken but when I do it balks and quickly turns on its heels to run the other direction. I’ve chased a chicken once before. It was the night I slept over at my friend Gracie’s barn. Her grandmother warned us not to mess with the chicken’s, but at ten a warning like that is almost a directive to do the opposite. We thought it would be funny to spook the chickens, what wasn’t funny was when three of them slipped right past us and out of the coop. After fifteen minutes of chasing them around the garden unsuccessfully Gracie’s grandmother came out and taught us how to corner them, grab them by the legs and flip them upside down.
That was my plan now. It was just more difficult because there were no real corner’s in a forest. I can’t see Cade hiding in the trees, but I know he must be there. If I can just get the chicken to back up against a boulder the two of us can confine it enough to go for a leg. I’m running with my eyes fixed on the bird ahead of me and nothing else when something quick moves into the path in front of me and I have no time to stop. My body collides with something hard and I scream hitting the ground with a heavy thud.
I raise my hand to block out the sun and peer up at the object in front of me. Only it is not an object, it's a person. He stands above me with dirty blond hair cut short above his shoulders, his face is scruffy and a little worn around the edges, but his eyes, deep blue, beneath a furrowed brow are unmistakable. Ky is older now, and he has more facial hair, but I know him, and from the way his eyes travel my face he knows me too.
Just as I open my mouth to say something Cade crashes through the bushes. He pulls up short when he spots Ky, and his eyes fly to mine. I don’t know what to say, no one does. The two stand fists clenched at their sides, ready for battle while the chicken runs a circle around us balking and shrieking the whole time.