Second Chance on Honeymoon Island

01

For our graduation trip, the three of us planned to island-hop out to Honeymoon Island.

But only I made it onto the island.

My boyfriend, Sebastian Vance, texted me. He said Katherine Dickerson was having an allergic reaction to mosquito bites.

He told me to wait on the island a little while, that the two of them would come over soon.

But I waited until the last ferry back had left, and still there was no sign of either of them.

I was stuck in the dock waiting area, feeding poisonous mosquitoes all night long.

It wasn't until dawn that I caught a boat back to Maui.

A message popped up on my phone. It was Sebastian, blaming me.

"You're still on the island? You're a grown woman. How can you not have a single ounce of flexibility?"

Sitting on the speedboat back, I rubbed my eyes, already swollen shut, the backs of my hands covered in red, angry welts.

Not far off, in the morning light, a dolphin's dorsal fin sliced across the surface of the sea.

I was tired.

This script, where I waited forever for a promise that never came true, I didn't want to play it anymore.

By the time I got back to the hotel, it was almost ten in the morning.

My clothes, blown by sea wind all night, clung to me damp and cold.

My hands wouldn't stop shaking, but I still managed to hold the key card stiffly and swipe the door open.

Katherine's laughter drifted out from inside.

"Sebastian, does this one make me look fat?"

She was curled up on the couch, wearing Sebastian's jacket, holding her phone up high in front of his face.

Sebastian leaned in close, one arm draped over the back of the couch, looking down at her with a smile at the corner of his mouth.

I knew that jacket.

Before we left, worried the island would get cold at night, I'd tucked it into his suitcase myself.

He'd said I was making a fuss over nothing.

But now it was draped over Katherine, the cuffs hanging down like a pair of soft hands, shielding her from every gust of wind.

I stood in the doorway.

The sand in my sandals dug into me, grinding at the soles of my feet until they ached.

Katherine saw me first, her eyes lighting up at once.

"Selma Henson, you're back."

She waved at me, her voice light and breezy.

"Come help me pick a photo. Sebastian's terrible at taking pictures. No wonder he never posts any of you on his feed."

Then, as if realizing that hadn't come out quite right, she quickly stuck out her tongue.

Sebastian looked up at me, the same seriousness as always in his eyes.

"Why are you only getting back now?"

My throat felt like it was stuffed with a sponge soaked full of seawater. I wanted to say something, but it got stuck.

"Why didn't you think to call me yesterday?"

My hand tightened around the strap of my luggage.

"You said you'd be quick."

"You still should've been flexible."

"The last boat left, and you couldn't ask a local? Couldn't figure out how to stay on the island? A grown woman, and you had to just wait like an idiot until dawn."

Katherine spoke up softly beside him.

"Sebastian, stop it."

She said stop, but her eyes went to the backs of my hands.

The red welts crowded across my skin, some of them scratched open from last night, oozing faint traces of blood.

Sebastian saw them too.

He paused, then came over and gripped my wrist.

I thought he was going to ask if it hurt.

But he laughed.

"Bitten up this bad? You really are hopeless. Couldn't you have moved out of the way?"

There was that familiar, affectionate disdain in his voice.

The same as so many times before.

He said I was stubborn to a fault.

Said my brain didn't know how to turn a corner.

Said I was lucky he was the only one who could put up with me.

I used to think that was him favoring me.

Only now do I see that favoritism is sometimes just a rope.

He'd loop it around my neck and pull, just a little, and I'd start to wonder whether I was the one in the wrong.

Katherine picked up a small tin box from the table.

"Selma, don't be angry with Sebastian. He spent forever hunting for this yesterday."

She held out the bug balm to me.

A little green tin, its lid already pried loose.

"He said you'd definitely get bitten, so he told me to keep it for you."

I looked at that little tin.

Something lodged in my chest.

So he knew.

He knew Honeymoon Island was full of mosquitoes.

He knew I would wait.

He knew I would be bitten.

And he still didn't come.

Sebastian reached over, took the tin, and pressed it into my palm.

"All right, quit sulking. He bought you the balm, what more do you want?"

The metal tin was cold.

Against my palm it felt like a hard little block of ice.

Suddenly I thought of six months ago, when he'd sent me the travel guide for Honeymoon Island.

White-sand beaches in the photos, glassy water, a dolphin someone had caught on camera.

He'd said,

"Let's go here for our graduation trip."

I asked why.

He ruffled my hair.

"You'll find out when the time comes."

Later I happened to see his search history on his phone.

Honeymoon Island proposal ideas.

Dolphin sunrise proposal.

That day I sat in the library and stared at the screen, smiling for a long time.

The afternoon sun fell across the pages, and I couldn't take in a single problem.

I thought that was our future.

So yesterday when he told me to wait, I really waited.

From the sun high overhead until the sea turned black.

From the last tourists drifting away until the ticket booth went dark.

I sat in the waiting area hugging my backpack, watching my phone's battery tick down bit by bit.

Mosquitoes hummed against my ear.

I texted him.

First message: Sebastian, where are you guys?

Second message: The last ferry's about to leave.

Third message: I'm a little scared.

He didn't reply.

I pressed the phone to my chest and heard my own heartbeat slow, one beat after another.

Like a lamp the sea wind had put out.

Now he stood in front of me, telling me to stop sulking.

I looked down at the bug balm in my hand.

My nails dug into my palm.

Katherine was still smiling.

"Selma, why don't you shower first? We wanted to go check out the night market later."

Sebastian patted my head too.

"Stop dragging out the schedule."

I looked up at him.

"Sebastian."

He gave an impatient "Mm."

I'd meant to ask him whether he'd ever once thought, yesterday, that something might happen to me out there alone.

But the words got to my mouth, and I swallowed them back.

I stepped past them, pulled open my suitcase, and dug out clean clothes.

Just before the bathroom door shut, I heard Katherine lower her voice.

"Is she angry?"

Sebastian said,

"She's always like this."

The running water covered the rest.

Hot water fell on my skin, stinging the swollen bites.

I leaned against the cold tile and slowly sank down.

My tears mixed with the water.

No sound.

I just understood, all at once.

Sebastian's promises weren't ones he'd never keep.

They only expired for me.

And the proposal I'd waited a whole night for on Honeymoon Island had left before dawn, along with the last ferry.

At four in the afternoon, Sebastian woke me.

"Come on, get dressed, we're going out to eat."

I'd only slept a little while, and my head was still heavy.

When I opened my eyes, the curtains weren't drawn tight, and the island light squeezed in through the gap, sharp enough to make my eyes ache.

"I don't want to go."

Outside the door it went quiet for two seconds.

Sebastian pushed the door open and came in, holding the half bottle of water I hadn't finished that morning.

"Didn't you say you wanted seafood? I booked that trending restaurant. Call it making it up to you."

Compensation.

The word came out of his mouth so lightly.

Light as one of those free postcards on the hotel desk, the kind a breeze could knock to the floor.

I looked at him.

"I'm allergic."

"Then eat something plain."

He kept his eyes on his phone.

"Katherine's wanted to go for ages. The table's hard to get. Don't spoil it."

Because I wanted to see just how far a person could take his bias.

The restaurant sat by the water, and the sunset turned the tables orange.

The waiter set down one plate of seafood after another.

Spicy crab boil, salt-and-pepper shrimp, curried clams.

Chili oil floated on the broth, the heat of it stinging up into my nose, and my stomach turned.

The welt on the back of my hand still burned.

I hadn't seen a doctor, but I knew I couldn't touch any of this.

Katherine, though, was delighted.

"Sebastian, you remembered I love this."

Sebastian handed the menu back to the waiter.

"Add an order of the spicy seafood soup."

Katherine picked up a shrimp and set it on Sebastian's plate.

"Sebastian, my hand hurts."

She held out the back of her hand.

Two faint red dots on it.

Sebastian took the shrimp at once, bent his head, and started peeling it for her.

Practiced. He even pulled the vein out clean.

Katherine looked over at me, her smile all innocence.

"You're not jealous over one shrimp, are you?"

I didn't answer.

Sebastian put the peeled shrimp into her bowl, then turned and saw the empty place in front of me, and his face darkened.

"Why aren't you eating?"

"I can't eat this."

"Here we go again."

He tossed his wet wipe onto the table.

"I bring you out for a nice meal and you sit there sulking. You're still holding on to that little thing from yesterday? What's the point?"

My fingertips stopped at the rim of the glass.

"That little thing?"

Sebastian looked at me like I was someone making a scene over nothing.

"You dragged the whole day off schedule, Katherine didn't say a word about it, and you're the one acting hurt."

Katherine tugged lightly at his sleeve.

"Sebastian, don't be like that. Maybe Selma just isn't feeling well."

His tone didn't soften.

"She's always like this. Someone coaxes anyone else and it's fine, but she has to have everyone circling around her."

I called the waiter over.

"Could I have a glass of warm water, please."

The waiter nodded and left.

Sebastian stared at me, his brows knotting tighter.

He was probably used to me explaining, used to me arguing, used to me laying out every grievance one by one and waiting for him to rule who was right and who was wrong.

But this time I didn't.

I just took a sip of the warm water.

It was bland.

Going down my throat, it felt like it washed away the last of that leftover hope too.

After dinner we went back to the hotel, and Katherine complained the whole way about being tired.

We'd barely reached the room when she followed us in, wrapped in a blanket.

"Selma, the AC in my room seems to be broken."

She stood in the doorway, her eyes lowered at the corners.

"My allergy from yesterday still hasn't cleared up. I'm a little scared sleeping alone."

I looked at Sebastian.

He was undoing his watch, and glanced up at that.

"Then you sleep here."

I froze for a second.

"She sleeps here, so where do I sleep?"

Sebastian looked like the question had never crossed his mind.

A few seconds later, he said:

"You take Katherine's room."

Katherine murmured at once:

"That doesn't seem right."

She said it wasn't right, but her feet had already carried her in, and she sat down on the sofa.

Sebastian looked at me, his tone matter-of-fact.

"Katherine's been timid since she was little, and she's not feeling well. You've always been independent. What's one uncomfortable night?"

I looked at that big bed.

The couple's mugs, mine and Sebastian's, were still sitting on the nightstand.

One blue, one white.

Before I left yesterday, I'd poured half a glass of water into the white cup, meaning to use it for my medicine when I got back.

Now the cup was in Katherine's hand.

She took a sip and wrinkled her nose.

"It's a little cold."

Sebastian took it, poured it out, and refilled it with hot water for her.

Something in my chest went hollow.

Then, slowly, I smiled.

So it turned out that my being understanding was just their reason to move me out whenever they liked.

So it turned out my place, too, could be given away with a single sentence.

Sebastian saw me smile and it only irritated him.

"Don't be snide."

I didn't say anything.

I walked to the wardrobe and took my clothes out one by one.

I unzipped the suitcase, softly.

Katherine watched me.

"Selma, are you really going? I can put up with it, you know."

I put my toiletry bag inside.

"You don't need to put up with anything."

The smile on her face paused.

Sebastian stood where he was, as if it hadn't occurred to him that I would actually leave.

"Selma, is this necessary?"

I zipped the case shut.

"Yes."

His face darkened.

"It's just one night."

I looked up at him.

"Sebastian, last night was one night too."

The room went quiet, and as it happened, I no longer wanted to hear any more excuses.

Later in the night, I ran a fever.

Toward dawn, my dreams were all the ferry-waiting area on Honeymoon Island.

The lights were off, the sea wind blew in, and the plastic chairs were cold as ice.

I sat there hugging my backpack, watching one ferry after another pull away from the shore.

The wake at each stern flashed white, then was swallowed by the dark.

Someone was calling me.

"Selma, open the door."

I opened my eyes. My forehead burned so hot it ached.

The knocking outside came fast and bright.

"Selma, hurry up, we're going diving today."

It was Katherine.

I braced myself on the bed and sat up. The room swayed in front of me.

By the time I reached the door, the floor felt soft under my feet.

The door opened, and there was Katherine in her swimsuit, a sheer cover-up over it, her hair pinned up prettily.

Sebastian stood behind her, a waterproof bag in his hand.

He saw me and his brow creased again.

"Why aren't you ready yet?"

I held onto the door frame.

"I have a fever. I'm not going today."

The anticipation dropped off Katherine's face.

"But diving is so hard to book."

I looked at Sebastian.

"This wasn't on the itinerary before."

His eyes flickered.

"We booked it last-minute yesterday."

Yesterday.

Which was when I'd been alone on Honeymoon Island waiting for them.

They'd been in Maui booking today's dive.

My throat tightened.

"I want to rest at the hotel."

Sebastian's face went dark.

"Selma, can you not make a scene?"

"The thing on Honeymoon Island already wrecked a whole day. Now you're not coming today either. We came here to have fun, not for you to put on airs."

I raised a hand and touched my forehead.

My palm was burning.

"I really don't feel well."

Sebastian glanced at the red swelling on the back of my hand.

"Katherine had an allergic reaction yesterday too, and she was fine after resting a bit. Stop using your health as an excuse."

Katherine said quickly,

"Sebastian, why don't we just skip it? I'll stay with Selma."

But as she said it, her hand tightened around the strap of the dive bag.

Sebastian, sure enough, felt sorry for her.

"You've been looking forward to this so long. Why should you miss it?"

He turned to look at me.

"She's being this understanding, and you still want more?"

I stepped back.

"Then you two go."

Sebastian gave a cold laugh.

"Here we go again. You put on that face because you want me to beg you, is that it?"

I looked at him.

He hadn't always been like this.

Freshman year, when my club rehearsed late into the night, he'd wait downstairs with his bike, a warm cup of coffee tucked in the basket.

He said I took everything too seriously, that if nobody kept an eye on me I'd run myself into the ground.

Sophomore year, when I had a fever, he carried me on his back to the campus clinic, cursing me the whole way for being an idiot.

Back then, "idiot" meant he ached for me.

Now, "idiot" just meant he was sick of me.

When Sebastian saw I wasn't moving, he pulled the door open himself.

"Suit yourself."

The door shut.

Katherine's soft voice drifted in from the hallway.

"Selma's not really upset, is she?"

Sebastian said,

"Don't worry about her."

The footsteps faded.

I leaned against the back of the door and slowly slid down to the floor.

The carpet was rough, scraping against my knees.

My head throbbed, and my stomach kept turning.

I dug out my phone to book an Uber to the hospital.

But every page was in a foreign language, and I couldn't make out the resort's address.

I tapped a few times and hit the wrong thing each time.

In the end I made it downstairs with a hand on the wall and reached the front desk.

The clerk on duty was a young woman, her badge reading Fox.

When she heard me ask for a nearby hospital in Chinese, her head came up at once.

"You're Chinese?"

I nodded.

She looked at my face, then at the red rash on my arm.

"You can't go by yourself like this."

"I can manage."

The words were barely out when my legs went weak under me.

She came around the desk and steadied me.

"I'll go with you."

I froze.

"You're still on shift."

She said a few words to a coworker and picked up her bag.

"Let them dock my pay. We're all a long way from home out here. People should help each other."

She said it lightly.

But it landed in my ears and left a small burn there.

A stranger's hand held me up, her palm warm.

She got us a cab, handled the registration, translated for me.

The doctor said it was an allergic infection from an insect bite, told me to stay off seafood and spicy food and to get on an IV.

I sat in the infusion area, the needle pushed into the back of my hand.

The fluid trickled into my vein, drop by drop.

Cold.

My phone buzzed.

I thought it was Sebastian.

The screen lit up. It was a notification from my social media feed.

Sebastian had posted an update.

In the photo, Katherine stood in a wetsuit at the edge of the glittering blue water, flashing a peace sign.

Sebastian's caption read,

"The scaredy-cat's first dive. Not bad at all."

I stared at that photo for a long time.

He'd taken it well.

The light, the angle, her expressionall of it, well done.

Katherine replied in the comments,

"Thank you, Sebastian, for looking out for me the whole time."

He answered with a smiley face.

The needle in the back of my hand suddenly stung.

A thin line of blood crept back up the tube.

Miss Fox pressed down on my hand at once.

"Don't move, it'll blow the vein."

I nodded and turned off the phone.

Outside the window, the sun was bright.

The hospital's disinfectant smell crept into my nose, sharp enough to make me want to cough.

I sat in a plastic chair in a hospital in a foreign country, swollen with rash, burning with fever.

And my boyfriend was on social media, recording another girl's first dive for her.

So this was what it was like when you weren't lovedeven being sick felt like an imposition on other people.

By the third IV bag, I opened my phone and blocked both Sebastian and Katherine at the same time.

When my finger pressed down, it didn't shake.

My eyes stung instead.

While Miss Fox was out buying congee, I leaned back alone in the infusion chair, staring at the ceiling.

The hospital's fluorescent tubes hummed, like the last echo of that swarm of mosquitoes back on Honeymoon Island.

I thought of the first day of freshman year, when Sebastian carried my luggage up to the fifth floor.

He'd hoisted the heaviest box onto his shoulder and looked back at me. From now on, anything heavy, you give it to me.

I thought of the night he failed to get into grad school, sitting out on the field saying nothing, and how I stayed with him from dark until dawn.

The next day he ran a fever, and I skipped three days of classes to keep watch outside his dorm.

I thought of graduation day, his arm around my shoulders as he said, our story is just beginning.

Tears slid back into my hair.

I closed my eyes.

I don't know how long I slept.

When I woke, there was warmth clenched in my palm.

Sebastian was sitting beside me.

His fingers were laced through mine, holding on tight.

I blinked, thinking I was dreaming.

He saw that I was awake and reached out to feel my forehead.

Looks like it's come down a little.

His voice was hoarse.

His clothes carried the salt smell of sun and sea, and his hair was a little messy.

He bent down to tuck the blanket around me, still murmuring.

Look at you, always trying to tough it out. You had a fever and didn't even say anything, had to carry it all by yourself.

I looked at him.

He said again Why block me? So petty. Katherine sent you a bunch of messages and you didn't reply to any of them. She's worried about you too.

I looked away.

Is a little thing like this really worth it? He squeezed my hand. I know you feel hurt, but you can't just block people over every little thing. Katherine and I grew up together. It's not like you don't know that.

When he spoke, there was a soothing patience in his tone.

Just like countless times before.

First he blames me, then he moves closer, using his warmth to smother my anger down bit by bit.

I looked at our joined hands.

This used to work.

Add me back first.

He leaned in, resting his forehead against mine.

Hm?

I pulled my head a little farther away.

He sighed.

Fine, you rest first. I'll go get you some hot water.

He let go of my hand and stood up.

At the door he glanced back at me.

Don't go wandering off.

The door closed.

I waited ten minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Forty minutes.

The hot water dispenser was right at the end of the hall.

I pulled out the needle, pressed the cotton ball down, and walked slowly to the triage desk.

The nurse looked up at me.

I asked in the bit of Thai Eunice had taught me.

The nurse couldn't quite understand, and a volunteer who spoke Chinese came over to help translate.

That boy you're asking about, the volunteer thought for a moment, about half an hour ago, a young girl came looking for him, and he left with her.

I stood in the middle of the hallway.

The lights overhead were still buzzing.

An IV stand was wheeled past, its wheels squeaking against the floor.

I went back to the room and folded the blanket.

The porridge Eunice bought was still on the nightstand, gone cold.

I picked it up and took two sips.

Then I gathered my things and went to the payment window to settle the bill.

Outside the hospital, the noon sun came crashing down, blinding and white.

I stood at the curb and opened my phone to book an Uber to the airport.

It was only after I got in the car that I realized I hadn't cried, not once, from start to finish.

There was only an emptiness in my chest.

Like someone had taken something from me, but I couldn't even remember what that thing had looked like.

When the plane took off, Maui shrank smaller and smaller outside the window. The coastline became a thin line, the hotel a matchbox.

I leaned against the window and finally closed my eyes.

No more waiting.