Chapter 16

C HAPTER 16

"Are you sure you don't want to yell at me?" I ask several minutes later. I think I'd feel better if he did, because then I could defend myself. Instead, he's been unbearably quiet since I doomed us to reenact Lost.

Theo is trapped on the small rock. His many attempts to climb back up have failed, so he's crouching with his back against the sheer cliff, staring at the horizon and most likely thinking about how badly I've screwed up. ("Lulu" and "Louise" aren't interchangeable, when you think about it.)

"I'm not going to yell at you," he says wearily.

"It might make you feel better."

"I can't emphasize enough how much it won't." He tips his head back to look at me, and his eyes remind me of smoke from a fire that's been doused in water. It scares me more than everything else combined. "You could bodge up everything, and I don't think I'd care."

I'm hit with another memory: Theo and me lying together in a bed in France, him whispering that he was afraid he'd give up on himself. His apathy feels just like that, and now I can't breathe.

"Do you want to try grabbing my hands again?" I ask. Last time he'd tried, my stitches had started to tear. As soon as he saw the trail of blood leak down my arm, he'd let go and resigned himself to life on the rock.

"Go back to the group without me and get some help," he says. "Don't bring Henry. He'll just gloat."

"And admit that I fucked up our rescue call?" I can't think of anything I'd rather do less. It's not just that, though. Theo is withering before me, and the thought of leaving him out here alone, perched precariously on an eight-by-eight-inch rock, makes my stomach riot with anxiety. I can't leave until he has some fight in his eyes.

"What did you wish for at the sunken gardens?" Theo asks suddenly. His dehydration-induced rasp makes me nervous.

"It's embarrassing," I warn.

"The best wishes usually are."

I clear my throat and prepare to humiliate myself. "I wished that meeting up with you in High Park wouldn't ruin my memories from our trip."

He's quiet for a painfully long time. Embarrassment threatens to burn me alive. I'm suddenly glad he's stuck on the rock.

"Feel free to pretend I didn't say that."

"Can I ask some follow-up questions?"

I close my eyes and prepare for the worst. "If you must."

"Why did you think that seeing me would ruin our memories?"

My breath hitches at the word "our." These days it doesn't feel like we share anything except for bad karma.

"When we were in Europe, I never thought of you as ‘the prince.'"

He laughs sharply. "I remember."

"All I have from that time is one Polaroid and a week's worth of memories." My hand goes instinctively to the ring hanging under my shirt. "I was worried that meeting ‘the king of England' on a royal tour full of pomp and circumstance would make those memories feel less real, somehow. I didn't want to lose the guy I thought I knew."

"No need for the air quotes. I am the king, unfortunately."

I shrug. "I'll believe it when I see the crown."

He laughs again, his blue eyes flickering to life. I take my first easy breath in at least three minutes.

"What's the verdict, Wheeler? Am I the guy you thought I was?"

He is now, but this isn't real life. "The jury's still out."

He nods slowly, his eyes locked on mine. "I wasn't searching for a phone."

Tears well in my eyes. A secret for a secret. We've played this game before. "What were you hoping to find?" I ask.

"Victoria's insulin. She never travels without it, and if she goes more than a couple of days between doses, she'll be in serious danger." His mouth twists with suppressed emotion, but his eyes scream for help.

My chest tightens. "I had no idea."

"She'll never admit when she's not feeling well, and I'm scared shitless for her."

"It's only been a few hours," I tell him, and hope it's true.

His throat bobs. "It's hard not to worry."

I push myself to my feet and pick up his shoes. "I'll find her and make sure she's okay, and I'll bring someone back to help you up."

"No," Theo says quickly. "I don't want to stay here alone."

I look around, confused about what he's suggesting. "I can try to pull you up again."

"No. You walk along the shore, and I'll swim next to you."

"It's too far," I argue. "You'll be safer here."

"Nah. I'll drive myself crazy if I'm stuck alone with my thoughts that long. I'm swimming."

"What if you get tired?" I call after him as he dives into the water. He backstrokes a few paces until I'm jogging to keep up with him.

"I guess you'll have to jump in and save me," he yells back. And it might be a trick of the sunlight, but I swear he winks.

It doesn't take long before Theo's request is put to the test.

"I'm tired!" he pants.

"You're doing a great chicken-star-rocket!" I yell back. The water looks cold, and I don't want to be cold.

A wave crashes over his face while he's in chicken position. "A what now?" he sputters when he can breathe again.

"Chicken, star, rocket." I mime the positions for him.

"Is that an American thing or a Wren thing?"

"It's what my swim coach called it when I was five."

"It sounds mental, but I like it," he muses. "I can picture a five-year-old Wren shouting ‘chicken star rocket' from the pool."

"Stop talking so much or you'll drown," I call back.

"What's taking so long?" he moans, and I wish I had an answer. The coast was to our left on our way out, and it's to my right on the way back. There's no way we could have gotten lost, but it feels like we should have reached our makeshift camp by now. I'm about to say this to Theo when I see smoke in the distance.

"Fire!" I shout. A new shot of adrenaline courses through me.

"I'll meet you there," he says.

I run while Theo swims, but I outpace him and reach the small, smoky campfire first. The group is gathered around it while Brooke tends to the flames. "I can't believe you made fire! Scratch that. I can't believe you convinced Reggie to let you make fire," I tell her. A lungful of smoke triggers a coughing fit, but I can't contain my smile. This is the first thing that's gone right all day.

I instinctively check the sky for rescue helicopters and am only a little bit devastated that it's still empty.

"We found water too!" Naomi hands me a bottle. "There's a stream that runs through the forest." I close my eyes and tip the water over my tongue. It's the best thing I've ever tasted—no contest. I drink until my empty stomach protests the sudden rush of liquid. I twist the cap on the bottle and hand it to Naomi. She's leaning back-to-back with Victoria, whose head is tipped against her shoulder. Victoria's face is pale. Like everyone else, she looks filthy and exhausted.

I kneel next to her. "Do you feel okay?"

She slowly lifts her head and looks at me blankly. "Why wouldn't I?"

I wither. She has a special way of making me feel like an idiot for asking a simple question. "Theo said…"

Her gaze hardens.

I trail off as I realize she doesn't want to talk about this. With me. In front of everyone. Maybe at all.

The rest of the group stares at me expectantly.

Henry leans forward. "Well?"

I move closer to the fire. The smoke burns my eyes, but the muscles in my shoulder unclench for the first time in hours. It feels unbelievable. "Theo's on his way. He should be here any second," I tell them.

Reggie sighs impatiently. "Did the phone work or not?"

I pretend to choke on another lungful of smoke to buy myself a few more miserable seconds before I have to drop the news. I got so distracted by the fire and the water that I momentarily forgot about the phone.

When I open my watery eyes, everyone is staring at me. I stare directly into the flames. I can't bear to look at any of them.

"That's a no," Victoria says flatly.

"You couldn't find a signal at all?" Naomi chews her lip anxiously.

"We did," Theo says as he joins the group. Water drips off him onto my shoulders. I scoot over to make room for him in front of the fire. He sits next to me and leans into the heat. "We found a signal. I tried to ring Louise, but my hands were shaking so badly they slipped, and I ended up calling Lulu instead."

Henry's jaw drops. Mine does too. "You don't have to—"

"Yeah I do," he says evenly. "I have to tell them what happened. I left Lulu a message, but I think she still has Henry's number blocked, so she probably won't get it. Then the phone died."

"That's not funny," Henry says.

I open my mouth to confess, but Theo cuts me off by putting his hand on my leg, narrowing the universe down to that single touch.

I stare at the fire as my eyes well with tears. Hopefully everyone will assume it's from the smoke.

The first day I met Theo, it was raining, and I had just sprained my ankle. He wanted to call me a cab to take me to the airport, but I'd refused to let myself be saved by Prince Charming. If I had let him, I probably would have made my flight in time.

Maybe I don't need to be saved, but it sure does feel nice.

"Tell me this is a bloody awful joke," Henry demands, and his sharp tone takes me by surprise.

Theo squares his shoulders.

"Can you do one fucking thing right?" Henry shouts. Theo's eye twitches, but otherwise he's frozen. The pressure of his hand on my knee increases, and as unreadable as he's felt these last couple of days, I recognize his plea immediately. This is some deep-rooted brother shit, and he wants me to stay out of it.

I don't. "You don't know what you're talking about," I tell Henry.

"Wren," Theo says sharply.

"He doesn't! We wouldn't have even found that phone if it wasn't for you. It's not your fault that his battery life was decimated because he didn't put his phone on airplane mode."

Henry scoffs.

"You should have some water," Naomi says quietly as she holds out the bottle to Theo.

"Make him get his own." Henry snatches the bottle from Naomi's hand. "We found water and made the fire, while Theo hasn't done a bloody thing to help. He says he doesn't want special treatment just because he was born first. Time to stop giving it to him." He unscrews the top and drains the bottle in one long gulp.

"You've always been an arse when you're drunk," Victoria says.

"How could he be drunk?" I ask.

"He found booze with the salvaged luggage," Victoria says.

Winston groans from his position flat on his back on the rocky ground. "Got any of that left?"

"Is there food down there?" Brooke asks Henry.

"Ask my brother, he's the one hoarding stuff."

"Am not," Theo protests, but Henry's accusation is a fuse that quickly burns through everyone's short temper. Soon nearly everyone is yelling over each other, slinging accusations in all directions.

I draw my knees into my chest and rest my cheek on them. I turn to Theo, who is slumped over with his head in his hands. Smoke curls in the distance between us. I nudge him. He looks at me warily.

Thank you. I mouth the words.

You too, he mouths back.

Naomi leans forward to be heard over the fighting. "Do you want to get out of here?"

"And go where?"

She grins. "I've got an idea."