Girl at Sea (34 page)

“I’ll be back,” Clio said. “And maybe slow down a little. Only tread as hard as you have to to stay up, okay?”

He slowed a tiny bit but not much.

“I’ll be here,” he gasped. “Try not to run into any jellyfish.”

Aidan didn’t drop the stone in the half hour it took Clio to retrieve the box. They took turns just leaning against it for a while until they had regained some energy.

By dusk, their kiddie-pool-shaped orange raft was bouncing somewhere off the twenty-one hundred miles of Italian coastline. It had a metal frame that needed to be snapped together, a tiny pump to supply the air. None of this was easy to accomplish while treading water.

The contraption was actually fairly sturdy when it was up. It kept them at least a foot and a half out of the water, and it had 295

a tented roof and many built-in pockets that they had already emptied of their contents—three flares, two very small paddles (some assembly required), six seasickness pills, a whistle, a signaling mirror, two pints of water, and a miniature first aid kit.

They’d sent up two of the flares, to no avail. The third was in Aidan’s hands. There was a tiny self-powered light on the inside of the raft that came on as soon as the roof was popped open. It gave the space a weak but intensely orange glow.

They lay inside silently, recovering from the ordeal. A thin layer of seawater rested in the bottom of the raft, just enough to keep them damp and cold. Aidan didn’t seem to care that he was lying in it. The Marguerite stone rested in it comfortably. Clio peered out of the tiny access flap at the white moon hanging over the ocean. She tried to focus on that and not the utter terror of the blackness that spread out in all directions around them.

From this angle, the whole world was dark water of unknown depth, with lots of things living in it. It was right below her now, just about a foot. She could reach her hand out of her tiny orange joke of a raft and touch eternity.

“It’s a really nice view,” Clio said, trying to sound cheerful.

“Want to see? The moon is amazingly huge and white over the water. If this was a hotel room, it would cost a fortune.”

“Not really,” he said. “It’s been about two hours.”

“Can you tell that from the sky?” she asked.

“I can tell that from my watch.”

“Oh,” she said.

Aidan wasn’t buying the cheerful act. She closed the flap with the zipper and shifted herself farther inside. Aidan reached into a pocket and took out a bottle of water and the seasickness pills.

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He popped two of them with a careful drink of the water, which he tightly resealed and set carefully back in the pocket.

Something bumped against the side of the raft.

“Did you just feel something?” Aidan asked.

“Let’s not talk about whatever that was.”

“Okay.”

“How long do you think we’ll be out here?” she asked.

“It depends on how soon they realize the boat was stolen.

We’re just hitting the time that they were supposed to get in touch. They’ll probably try the coms for a while.”

“So what do we do?” Clio asked.

“We don’t
do
anything,” he answered. “We wait.”

It was later.

How much later was unclear. Aidan had taken off his watch and thrown it into the water because they’d become so obsessed with looking at it. It was better not to see the hours tick by. Night on the ocean only gets bigger and darker, the moon looking down from higher and higher. At one point a fish landed in the raft.

The screaming that came out of the two of them when this unforeseen event occurred could easily have been heard on the coast of Italy, wherever that was. Clio tossed it back.

Now they were both lying in the pool of tepid water, arms loosely locked around each other. Either it had warmed from their bodies or they had simply gotten used to it. The waves had gotten a little higher, tossing the orange raft unpleasantly along.

Clio had taken one of the seasickness pills as well, but she wasn’t sure if it would really help. All that mattered was resting here, keeping as warm as possible. She could feel Aidan’s breath on 297

the top of her head as she kept her face pressed into the curve of his neck.

“I spy, with my little eye, something that rhymes with
pee
,”

Clio said.

“Is it
sea
?” Aidan answered.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I spy, with my little eye, something that rhymes with
potion
.”

“We should stop,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “You’re right. My bad.”

Something stirred Clio. It wasn’t a noise or a movement, just a feeling, maybe the subtlest of ripples in the water.

“Something’s coming,” she said, sitting up and balancing on one hand. The raft wobbled with the sudden movement.

Aidan sat up instantly. They opened the flap of the raft wider and looked around.

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just know it’s something.”

They kept looking until a small red light appeared in the distance. They watched it as it grew bigger and other lights clustered around it, and it finally became a shadow in the dark.

An extremely big shadow. A cruise-ship–size shadow, which was headed straight in their direction.

“It’s like . . . a cliff,” Aidan said. “A
cliff
is drifting at us. How do we get out of the way of that?”

He had a point. The sheer massiveness of the ship made moving in any direction a bad idea. Whichever way they went, the ship would be there too. There was simply no way that the raft could dodge this boat. It filled all directions.

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“I don’t think we do,” Clio said. “I think it either misses us or goes over us.”

Aidan turned to look at her.

“Oh, come on,” he said, his voice cracking in despair.

Clio shrugged. There came a point when certain realities were inescapable, simply too big to spaz out about. A cruise ship bearing down on them was one of those kinds of realities.

“Come
on
!” he yelled. “No! This isn’t fair!”

He reached for the tiny paddle.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Are we going to make it?”

“How am I supposed to tell?” he asked.

“Eyeball it.”

“Fine,” he said. “Fine. I’ll
eyeball
the cruise ship.”

The white menace came closer. They could see individual port windows now, hundreds of them, like the little eyes that flies have.

“Jesus, that thing is big,” he said. “That’s our boat five hundred times over. Okay. If we go to the right a bit, I think we
might
make it.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“I have no idea. You’re looking at the same thing I am. What do
you
think?”

It was bearing down hard now, getting bigger and bigger. Its massive anchor, easily the size of a Hummer or three, was in clear view.

“I think . . . maybe,” she said.

“Decide!”

“Right! Right!”

He paddled frantically. The tented kiddie pool responded by going in a circle.

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It didn’t really matter anyway, because as the ship came closer, it became obvious that they were clear of the side by thirty or forty feet. It was a staggering view, easily thirteen or sixteen stories of sheer white monster boat with a great, hulking bow that sloped out of the water and peaked at about the five-story mark. The lifeboats that dangled from the sides and looked so puny probably weren’t all that much smaller than their boat.

“Back!” Aidan said. “Scream!”

They screamed. They flashed the lights. They waved their arms.

A man in a large, cone-shaped hat was leaning over one of the lower decks, waving at them frantically.

“He sees us!” Clio said. “He sees us!”

Except he didn’t. The ship continued on its massive way, spitting out a monster wake that shook them so badly it almost felt like the raft was going to flip. When it was all over, they ended up on opposite sides of the raft, clutching their stomachs, making a concerted effort not to vomit.

“In case we die . . .” Clio croaked.

“Can you not say that?” he answered, just as hoarsely. “This is a
life
raft.
Life
being the operative word.”

“In case we die,” Clio continued, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What?”

She crawled over to him carefully, not wanting the world to tip or move any more than necessary.

“My secret,” she said. “My one true secret.”

“Please let it be that you have the ability to turn into a helicopter.”

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“No,” she said. “Listen to me. I’m only telling you this because I just saw my life go past. And if you laugh, I’ll make this thing rock again. I’ll take us both down.”

He pulled his head up from between his legs to look at her.

“I’m not laughing,” he said. “I don’t think I ever will again. I think I can only barf from now on.”

“Good,” she said. She reached for a bottle of water, which rolled up next to her, and took a careful sip. He waved away the bottle.

“You guessed right about my boyfriend,” she blurted. “That I didn’t have one. But I never lied. I never said he was my boyfriend. It was just something that Elsa thought. He
might
have been if I had stayed.” Clio stopped herself for a monent.
He
might have been.
Ollie. She had wanted him all summer. When had that changed? She looked Aidan in the eyes and took a deep breath. “But that’s not my secret.”

“Okay,” he said. “What is it?”

“I’ve never been kissed,” Clio said quickly.

This caused him to raise his head a bit higher.

“What?”

“I don’t know why,” she went on, shaking her head. “I think something
happened
to me. When I was a kid, everything was so . . . amazing. Seriously. I had this kind of perfect life. My dad and I made the game. Everything worked for us.

Everything was exciting. And it blew up in about one day. It all ended. My dad left. Life came crashing down. I just didn’t want anyone
near me
. I can’t explain it more than that. I had friends. Friends were good. But if a guy even looked at me twice, I would just start being . . . really mean.”

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“You know,” he said, “I noticed that.”

“I don’t know why I do it,” she said.

“Maybe it’s a test,” Aidan said. “To see who can take you.” He was looking at her closely.

Clio looked up. “To see who can
deal
with me,” she said. “Do I hate myself that much?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe you’re choosy. Maybe you don’t want to get hurt, so you want to see who’s really worth the risk.”

“Maybe,” she said, staring into his eyes. She felt the feeling again, like the night she was hurt—that energy radiating from Aidan. That feeling she could barely understand. The warmth that almost felt like champagne, except champagne was nowhere near as fine. Champagne made your head buzz. This made everything buzz. She pushed herself closer, back over to his side.

“Would you have said something like that if we weren’t in a life raft?” she asked.

“I doubt it,” he said. “I would have said something meaner but funnier.”

“Doubtful. You’re not as funny as you—”

It really didn’t feel like anything that she had ever heard described. She felt it in her mouth, of course. She felt his lips on hers. They were softer than she would have thought. She also felt his hand reaching around into her hair, cradling her head as she fell back. Aidan didn’t taste woody or have berry-like overtones or any of that. He just tasted like Aidan, and it was better than any taste she had ever experienced. A massive rush went over her head. It was like she was both dizzy and as 302

steady as she had ever been. It shook her body too, rocking everything. Everything was shaking. Everything was shaking a
lot
.

And there was a voice somewhere deep in her head saying,

“Clio! Are you in there? Aidan?”

“Dad?” she said into Aidan’s lips.

“Okay,” he said. “Later we’re going to discuss why you should never say that, like, when we’re doing this.”

He started kissing her again.

“Did you hear that?”

Aidan looked dazed, his hair sticking up in its most extraordinary formation yet. The voice came at them again. It wasn’t in her head at all, and it
was
her father’s. It was coming closer. The raft was shaking a lot now, and a light was penetrating the industrial fabric walls of the raft. They both jumped at the flap and pulled it open, just in time to be nearly blinded by the searchlight coming from the white-and-orange boat that was stopping in front of them.

The Guardia Costiera officers hauled them up quickly. In a few bright, loud moments, they were standing on a deck being draped in blankets that looked like they were made of tinfoil but were immediately warming. And just another moment after that, Clio’s father was hugging her as he had never hugged her before, pulling her close.

“How did you find us?” Aidan asked.

“A cruise ship radioed in,” one of the boat’s officers said. “A passenger saw something in the water. They said he was drunk, but what he described sounded like a raft.”

“The boat,” Clio managed to say into his chest. “I’m sorry.

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There was nothing we could do. I don’t know if you insured it or not. . . .”

“The boat?” Her dad looked shocked. “You think I care about the boat?”

“Also, it’s a
little bit
on fire,” she went on.

“Clio,” he said, taking her face in his hands. “I don’t care what happens to that boat. I couldn’t care less if I tried. I’ve got you.

Nothing
else matters.”

Her dad was holding her so tight now, he didn’t even notice when one of the ship’s crew removed the piece of marble from the raft. She leaned into his shoulder and smiled.

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