2. DAY ONE: THE AWAKENING
Ava
Dying was not like I thought it would be and despite being born on the wrong side of luck, I tell myself this wasn’t supposed to happen. Maybe that’s why there were no smiling angels holding a welcome banner or a bearded man dressed in white guarding a pearly gate. There wasn’t even a crowd waiting with my dead parents to greet me with open arms. And I’m sure I died, because the world seemed too calm and beautiful in an unrealistic sort of way—exactly how I’ve always imagined heaven to be.
I knew I was finally dead when I found myself floating through a tropical forest filled with thick greenery in the dead of the night. My feet barely touched the ground, and I reached out to welcome the tickle of leaves on my wrists and watch the moonlight shimmer off the drops of dew hugging my skin. The short journey led me to a lagoon where Preston, the love of my life, stood in waist-deep water that reflected the stars, beckoning me with my favorite smile.
I tried to go to him, but a long vine wrapped itself around my leg while my arms hung useless by my sides, making no effort to untangle the menacing vine that kept me hostage in its grasp. Preston rushed to me and gently freed the vine before scooping me into his arms. I smiled up at him as he carried me through the water and into a cave where he laid me down on soft, cool sand.
I wanted to ask him if we were dead, but just like my arms, my lips seemed unwilling to move. Leaning down to kiss me, he pressed his lips firmly to mine. He pulled away and then quickly kissed me but his lips felt wrong—forceful, not gentle, but maybe because I was distracted by the strange burning in my throat and a heaviness that weighed down on my chest and made it difficult to breathe. My eyes drifted closed, and I waited for his next kiss.
Even in death, his lips seemed so real as he pressed them to mine. He brushed the hair away from my face to kiss me and I fought to open my eyes, not wanting to miss that tender moment. Because Preston loves me—even though there was nothing tender about that rough kiss and his heavy hands that rested on my stomach and chest, drawing the heat from my scorched lungs as I struggled to fill them with air. I forced my mouth open to say his name, but the words turned to warm liquid that spilled out over my lips and down my chin.
Then I blinked to remove the blur obscuring his face and realized Preston’s dazzling green eyes turned blue, and his short, dark hair had transformed into golden waves that dangled just above his brow. A stranger had replaced my perfect Preston, and what started off more pleasant than a dream suddenly twisted into a nightmare I couldn’t escape. I screamed in hopes of scaring myself awake, but there was still no sound—and everything wrong simply stayed the same.
I started to cry but breathing was difficult, which seemed to be the fault of the stranger. I wanted to reach up and push him away, but my arms were too heavy to lift. His mouth moved like he was speaking to me, but I didn’t care and his words got lost behind the panicked screams in my head. If only I could have moved, I would have run out of the cave and back to the safety of Preston’s arms. I tried to cry out for him, but my voice failed me and once again, complete darkness closed in around me.
I thought I’d be lost in the dark forever, but now the soft chords of a simple melody are pulling me back. A collection of harmonious notes strummed from an acoustic guitar floats on the air, and I strain to hear the tune being drowned out by a crackling noise much louder and closer. Am I still alive?
I force my eyes open and stare at the dark shapes of rock above me, shiny from the moisture that clings to them. The air smells damp and cool and my eyes dart around, but I see nothing familiar. Flickering light from a fire dances on the wall, playing a game of cat and mouse with tiny embers as they jump into the shadows.
My whole body hurts. I turn my head slowly to see past the fire and notice an orb of brightness revealing the entrance of the cave, but I remain motionless, trying to make sense of my surroundings as confusion and then fear creep over me. The last thing I remember is getting on the plane with Preston, and now I’m alone in a cave. But wait—I’m not alone, because I can hear music.
I sit up swiftly, ignoring the nausea and searing pain that shoots through my forehead.
“Preston!” I yell, but my throat is raw and my desperate cry comes out sounding weak and unfamiliar.
The music stops. Dizziness threatens to overtake me and the room swirls, so I lie back down. Quick steps approach in the sand and I hold my breath, waiting for Preston to appear next to the stranger standing over me, but the seconds tick on. My heart sinks. The stranger who replaced Preston earlier wasn’t a dream at all, but a reality worse than any nightmare I could ever have. Preston really isn’t here.
“You’re awake,” the stranger says softly. His blue eyes hold a flicker of excitement.
The need to speak is there, but I choke up. I fight back tears and try to muster the courage to ask the only question that matters. Where is Preston? I struggle to sit up again, but he puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Take it easy. You have an enormous bump on your head.” He smiles and laughs a short laugh. “I thought you were dead when I found you. Good thing I know CPR. I guess that job as a lifeguard finally came in handy.”
I look away from him, frantically searching the room for any sign that Preston has been here.
“Are you looking for this?” the stranger asks, reaching in his pocket. He holds up my necklace. Dangling from the bottom is the familiar silver, heart-shaped locket covered in an ornate design, alongside a silver key with ‘The key to our hearts’ engraved in small script down the side.
“So you won’t forget us while you’re away at college,” my mother had said while fastening the clasp around my neck. That was the day before she died.
The stranger drops the necklace into my extended palm.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I had to take it off,” he says. “There’s a scratch on your neck from where the life vest rubbed against the chain.”
A tear escapes and trickles down my cheek. I pry the locket open and look at my parents’ pictures, water damaged but still intact. The death of my parents was hard enough, and the thought of Preston being dead terrifies me to the point I’m seconds away from exploding into a major meltdown. I force myself to not make any assumptions about Preston’s fate and search my mind for a clue that might help find him, but my head is fuzzy as if someone stuffed it with cotton while I was unconscious. I can’t recall anything about the last twenty-four hours—or maybe longer—and the only person who may be able to help is a couple of feet away, studying me intently.
The stranger sits on a small log next to where I lay, wearing nothing but a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a choker made of woven twine with a small sand dollar hanging from the end. He looks close to my age, eighteen or nineteen, lean but muscular, and his tan skin is a nice contrast to his tousled blond hair.
I wonder how long he sat in the same place earlier, watching and waiting for me to wake up. A hundred questions are on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t trust myself to talk without bursting into hysterical crying. Maybe if I just try harder to think, a logical explanation for how I ended up in a cave with a stranger might appear in my foggy brain.
“So did you drop out of the sky from a helicopter—like one of those extreme sports kind of people?” he asks, and then pauses, waiting for me to answer. “I don’t see why you’d want to get dropped down into the middle of a storm just to catch a decent wave. I mean, I love to surf too, but I’m not insane.” He glances at my shorts and tank top. “And a wetsuit probably would have been a better choice.”
He stares at me with a smirk on his face, waiting for a response, but his lame attempt at humor is grating on my nerves. I turn my gaze to the ceiling above me.
He continues talking. “I hope you don’t mind, but I tried out your surfboard.”
My mind struggles to catch up.
“And this morning, I found another one further down the beach. I was totally stoked. There must have been someone with you, ri
ght? Or did you bring an extra board in case you broke one?”
My eyes flash his direction, but I don’t have the patience to tell him the surfboards aren’t mine, or that they were in the luggage compartment of the plane because Preston planned to go surfing when we got to Australia. I grit my teeth—afraid of what might happen if I open my mouth. He stares at me for another second, realizing I’m not going to answer.
I don’t move or acknowledge him. I’m too busy screaming inside my head. What happened? Where is Preston? Think! Where is Preston?
He sighs. “You speak English, right?”
I don’t know why, but I don’t respond.
“Wait. Are you—?” He snorts. “Never mind.”
He thinks I’m deaf. That’s almost enough to make me laugh at him, but that would give me away. My eyes move to the wall of the cave and what I really want is to tell him to go away. It’s unfair to be angry with him, but I hate him for not being Preston. I hate him for not finding Preston—only me and a couple of stupid surfboards that belong to Preston and his co-pilot, Kirk. But most of all, I resent him keeping me hidden from view in a cave, where Preston doesn’t stand a chance of finding me if he’s looking.
The stranger stands up and starts to walk away as if he read my mind, then pauses and turns back around.
“Anyway, if you can hear me, my name is Daxton Miller, but you can call me Dax. I’ll be your rescuer for the evening, and now I’m going to go find some food.”
He laughs and then uses his hands to imitate feeding himself, and I wonder when he read Sign Language for Cave Men 101. If he weren’t so cute, he’d look like an idiot.
“Stay here though. It’s sort of dangerous out there,” he says, pointing outside, “and your—head.” Now he points to my forehead. Next, he picks up a bow and quiver full of arrows and slings them over one shoulder, then holds his index finger up to let me know he’ll be right back.
I wait for him to leave, and then calculate the distance from the opening of the cave. The exit is only about ten feet away, but judging from what happened earlier when I sat up, an escape plan doesn’t look promising. I want to yell Preston’s name again, but I refrain for fear Dax will hear and come back to my side—the last place I want him to be. My fingers explore the lump on my head and I wince at the pain, but I still have no knowledge of how it got there.
Irritation rips through me. How long have I been unconscious, lying hidden in this cave? For all I know, Preston is looking for me right now, and I cling to that little bit of hope. I need to find him, but something tells me Dax will never agree to let me leave in my current condition. Now the cave seems more like a prison than a place of protection, and my irritation blurs into rage. I know I should drop the act and talk to him, but ditching him seems like a much better plan.
I always have a plan. For most people, that would be a good thing—but for me, it’s a ridiculous habit because my life never goes as planned. Part of the bad-luck jinx I was born with. I do it because making a plan gives me something to hope for, despite the slim possibility of success. I didn’t plan to get on a plane and end up who knows where, in a cave with some stranger. But I did plan to spend the rest of my life with Preston, and in two weeks, we had planned to run away to Europe. But now he’s missing.
Even my plan of moving to California to escape my past didn’t pan out so well, because some things are just too hard to forget. But Preston made it possible to smile again.
I have to find him.