Before He Was Gone: Starstruck Book 2 (16 page)

The rock lobster was easy to catch. The reef here is ten times better than the one out from camp and with the full moon, I could see even without a mask. Thank god they gave me a spear here, too. Every time I throw it I picture Jaxx’s face, so even when I miss a fish I don’t really care.

I should’ve known he’d screw me over. The jock probably never had any intention of us both seeing this through to the end. Still, at least I can fend for myself out here without dealing with any of that bullshit - even if the sudden distance from Alyssa hit me harder than I thought it would. She had every right to question me and lashing out at her like that was a total dick-move. I was angry and embarrassed. But I can’t think about that right now. I have a chance to toughen the hell up on my own out here and close this thing. I have to.

‘Want some lobster?’ I say to the camera guy. He's yawning on the sand as I wade out of the water, but as usual he ignores me.

Asylum Island reminds me of some post apocalyptic world from a sci-fi movie. I have to admit it’s beautiful, though. It’s a tiny curve of sand down the path from the waterfall. It was blocked off before. In the sunlight it’s like some kind of fairy tale set, mixed with all the tropical island images you could Google search. There’s whiter sand than on the other side, but it’s too small to have been a good base for all of us.

I already started the fire. I sit down and lay the lobster over a makeshift grill I constructed from washed up pebbles and stones. My head hurts from being under the water so long, diving down to depths I probably shouldn’t have without a tank. At least, I hope that’s all it is. I never really know anymore.

I’m about to reach for the lobster when another movement to my left along the tree line makes me turn. How many damn cameras do they
need?

But it’s not another camera.

Alyssa’s hurrying towards me in her pantsuit blazer and bikini, barefoot over the rocks and across the sand. I stand in shock, almost rub my eyes as she reaches me. ‘What the…’

She puts a finger over her lips to
sssh
me, as if the camera guy hasn’t perked up at her presence anyway.

‘They don’t know I’m gone,’ she says. Her hair is wilder than ever; her skin in the moonlight is almost glittering. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I whisper loudly as she puts her hand to my torso to catch her breath. ‘Alyssa, you’re breaking every rule in the book!’

‘Am I?’ she says, looking up at me. Her touch is soaring through me. She’s hot and her eyes are steely as the palm leaves sway behind her, making the scene more surreal. I take her hand, lead her back towards the ocean. My heart’s going wild in my chest.

‘There’s nothing in the rules that says I can’t visit Asylum Island if I know where it is,’ she tells me, stopping at the shoreline. ‘It’s just that most people don’t know where it is.’

I’m about to tell her she needs to leave; that they’ll kick her off the show, when she reaches into the pocket of the blazer, pulls something out.

I freeze.

Her eyes are scanning my face. ‘What are they for?’ she asks, holding up my pills.

I can't even speak. I can't even breathe. ‘Where did you find them?’ I manage eventually.

‘They fell out of your jeans…’

‘Did you tell anyone?’

‘No!’ She steps forward, but I catch her by the wrist as the camera guy creeps closer. I snatch the bottle from her, throw it to the sand
.
I haven’t taken them for days – I don’t know if it’s them that are making me weaker. Damn it, why wasn’t I more careful?

‘What are they for?’ she says again. She’s staring at me now like she pities me already and I can’t look back at her.

‘Are you going to use this against me, when you all vote me out again?’ I say, turning to the water, feeling my body turn rigid.

‘I’m not voting you out,’ she says, looking around her at the camera. She lowers her voice. ‘But Joshua, you lied when you said there was nothing wrong with you. This is
not
part of the game. Why did you lie to me?’

I say nothing, but she takes off the blazer, throws it to the sand and steps into the water. ‘Swim with me, now,’ she orders and I stare at her as she wades out into the shallows, her silhouette lit by the moon. How is she doing this to me?

She turns around. ‘Joshua.’

‘You need to go,’ I say, clenching my fits to my side.

‘I’m not going.’ She wades back towards me quickly, steps back to the sand and folds her arms in front of me. Her eyes are narrowed now. ‘Do the people at home know what’s going on?’ she says. ‘Joshua, does everyone know what’s going on except me? They cast you in this show for drama, didn’t they? Is there some secret that’s making me look like an idiot for not knowing?’ Her voice is cracking, though she’s trying to be strong. My heart breaks.

‘No,’ I tell her truthfully.

‘Then what are the pills for? How serious is it?’

I breathe out heavily through my nose. I want to tell her. It’s getting out of my control, all of this.

‘Swim with me,’ she orders again, and this time she drags me by the hand till we’re waist deep and she’s swimming into the starlight and I can’t do anything but follow her. The camera guy has already gone to get a kayak.

‘You don’t want to let anyone close to you and you don’t want any ties,’ she says, treading water in front of me now. Her hair is a fan in the water; her eyes are shining. ‘It’s too late, Joshua. We’re tied now.’

‘No, we’re not,’ I say, hearing my own voice crack.

‘Yes, we are,’ she says fiercely, taking me by the shoulders. ‘I know you’re pushing me away because you’re sick…’

‘You don’t know anything,’ I tell her. My words come out thick; they feel heavy. My heart’s still thumping as she holds onto me and I realize she can’t touch the bottom. The camera guy is on his way now, paddling fast.

‘I know you’re afraid,’ she says, spotting him but keeping her grip. ‘We can talk about projections and what’s not real while we’re here, but this…
this
is real… whatever’s hurting you. And so are we.’

I’m kissing her before I can stop, hands around her waist. Hot tears are lodging in my throat. ‘Why don’t you just give up on me?’ I manage. She runs her hands up my back, puts her fingers in my new fuzz of hair and clenches it till our foreheads are pressed together.

‘I’ll lose this game if I have to, but I won’t lose you,’ she says, locking her legs around my middle. ‘Not now.’

‘What if you don’t have a choice?’

She pulls me tighter to her. ‘Tell me the truth, Joshua.’

‘I want to,’ I tell her now, pressing my mouth to hers. ‘Baby, I want to.’

‘Then why can’t you?’

‘I haven’t told anyone,’ I say. ‘It’s complicated.’ It’s the truth. No one knows; no one but Evan, and that one support group I went to once – the one I left halfway through because I couldn’t stand the thought of ending up like any of them.

‘You’re not…’ Alyssa trails off and I see the pain in her eyes as she moves her head back. ‘You’re not
dying
or anything, are you?’

Adrenaline almost makes me laugh as I kiss her again, shake my head. My eyes dart to the camera and I swim with her away from it. They can hear us, I know it. ‘No, I’m not
dying
,’ I say, pulling her to me again. ‘But this isn’t the place. I can’t bring this into the game, Alyssa, I can’t, not with you, not with anyone. I’ll tell you everything when we’re out of here, I promise, but right now I can’t…’

‘I understand you can’t tell me now, Joshua, I lived with cameras in my face for a year, I get that! But you were the one who said all we have is
now
. You told me no more secrets…’

‘OK, OK, I’m sorry,’ I start but she’s kissing my forehead, my nose, my mouth and I know it has to be over; the running, the denial. She was right before - I did it with Harri and it hurt us both.

You’re summer Joshua. I’m glad you’re here
. Harri said those words before I froze over on her like a damn iceberg and I told myself, like an asshole, that she didn’t care too much; that she was OK because we were never all that serious. Harri was serious. But still, Harri wasn’t Alyssa. 

‘These cameras are killing me,’ Alyssa says, swiping at her eyes and motioning to the kayak now floating less than three meters away. ‘What’s that smell?’

‘Lobster!’ I let her go, start swimming, fast. I can’t lose that stupid thing, it’s all I have to eat.

We make it back to the shore and she follows me as I pull it off the handmade grill with my hands. It’s not too badly burned. She watches me as I drop it into a coconut bowl I hacked with my machete. ‘Want some?’ I say.

She lets out a sigh. ‘No thanks. I’m still full of spaghetti.’

‘What?’

She drops to my side on the sand, studies me in the firelight. ‘Long story. Listen, you have to vote Jaxx out next.’

‘You don’t need to tell me that,’ I say, sitting down next to her. She moves to straddle me in the sand.

‘I didn’t think so. We’ve got it covered - I hope. You still have to win the duel,’ she tells me, hugging me with her legs as well as her arms.

I smile. ‘You don’t have to tell me that, either. How the hell did you get here without them seeing you?’ I run my hands up her back, draw her close and breathe into her skin. This girl is a miracle.

‘Stephanie and Jaxx are watching the latest Adam Sandler movie, courtesy of our lovely sponsors,’ she says. ‘I think Jaxx would’ve preferred the spaghetti but let’s just call that karma. Punk’s asleep.’

‘Sounds like I missed a lot.’

‘I missed you,’ she says, kissing my forehead and clenching my hair again. ‘I
know
it’s crazy… but… seriously, Joshua, tell me this thing isn’t all in my head?’

I shake my head, locking my arms around her damp, beautiful body. ‘No,’ I say quietly into her shoulder as my heart skids and slides at the realization. ‘It’s real.’

‘Then whatever it is, you can trust me,’ she says. ‘Whenever we both get out of here, we’re facing this together, OK?’

‘OK,’ I say. And I fall harder than ever, into Alyssa, away from everything else. 
I’ve been walking blindly for way too long, telling myself I liked it out there on my own. The truth is I’ve been running too fast to keep up with anyone, or to let anyone else keep up with me. I guess I didn’t want anyone to remind me how I was just running away from myself. 

I hold her tighter, feeling her warmth; feeling her heart against mine still thumping. I've been an asshole. I shut everything I cared about in a box and kicked it to the curb of my mind, when those are the
only
things I should’ve focussed on. I didn’t want to get hurt, or feel stupid, or less of a man.
Selfish.

Already the thought of missing Alyssa is more than I can stand.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe it
doesn’t
just have to be me anymore.

‘Joshua and Jaxx,’ Ed Bernstein says, raising his eyebrows at them. ‘When the players get played, huh?’

Jaxx’s eyes are on the floor. He never figured out we were messing with his obvious obsession with Stephanie. Punk and I made sure we were talking about voting her out very loudly as he was salvaging one egg from a chicken and
we
were walking past on the beach. 

When he handed her the immunity charm to place over her guitar pendant at the votes yesterday, it was all I could do to stop from laughing out loud.

‘Jaxx - how do you feel about what happened at the last council meeting?’ Ed’s asking him now. Jaxx is standing here next to Joshua in his tattered Abercrombie shirt. He looks uncomfortable.

‘I got screwed,’ he manages after a moment, and then he forces a smile to his face. ‘Guess that’s the game, Ed,’ he adds begrudgingly.

‘But you guys got to kiss and make up last night. After you were voted out, Jaxx, you got to camp out with Joshua on Asylum Island. What was the main topic of conversation over there?’ Ed folds his arms, looks between them.

I catch Joshua’s eye and he looks away quickly, though I don’t miss the slight smile on his face. I’m pretty sure Joshua won’t have told Jaxx I paid him a visit on Asylum Island, and that we spent a good few hours stargazing again before I had to make a run for it. Thankfully no one missed me. I told them I’d been talking to the camera by the well. We’ve all been doing that a lot more, lately. I guess we have a lot more to talk about now - stuff we don’t feel like we can say to each other.

‘You can see more of the sky in the Southern Hemisphere than you can in the Northern Hemisphere,’ Joshua told me from our place on the sand before I left, pointing at the spangled stretch of the Milky Way that’s been out on show ever since the rains stopped. ‘You won’t ever see Scorpius back home.’

He traced the long, curving tail of it through the sky with his fingers then; ran his other hand through my hair, and then traced the curves of my body with his lips and hands.

‘I can’t imagine being back home,’ I told him truthfully.

‘Then let’s never go,’ he said.

‘One of you is leaving the game tonight,’ Ed says now, crashing into my thoughts. ‘One of you will win immunity against votes and therefore a place in the final three, but as a compromise, you
will
spend the remainder of your time on Asylum Island. This is where things can get crazy guys. Keep your head in the game.’

I grip my hands together in my lap, look at Punk and Stephanie in the blazing light of day. They both look as nervous as each other. Ed walks around the colored objects, scattered around the challenge pitch.

‘Jaxx and Joshua,’ he says loudly. ‘There are three braided ropes in front of each of you, attached to sliding blocks. Slide the blocks around to un-braid them. When the ropes are untied, you’ll release a key.’ He points upwards to the keys at the top of the ropes. ‘These keys will unlock a chest. In your chest you’ll find seven planks of wood.’

Ed walks across the sand to the chests - one red and one blue. ‘These planks will interlock in one way only to create a walkway,' he says. 'You must build these walkways as you go, carrying all your planks with you. Once you’ve built your individual walkways, at the end you’ll find a jigsaw puzzle. The first to complete this puzzle will win this challenge.’

He pauses dramatically as the cameras pan in on the guys. ‘Sounds easy, right?’

I look at Joshua in his white sleeveless T, the board shorts hanging below that six-pack. He doesn’t look too worried, but I know by now that his looks are deceiving. Jaxx has his fists clenched to his sides like he’s about to charge into an actual battle.

‘Now remember guys, a lot is at stake here,’ Ed tells them, stepping backwards to the side lines. ‘Concentrate and work quickly. Go!’

All my muscles tense in a heartbeat as both guys speed towards the ropes and my eyes are instantly glued to Joshua’s hands.
Come on, come on
, I mouth silently as he works to unbraid them.

‘Come on Jaxx!’ Stephanie yells suddenly and irritation flares through me. I resist the urge to call Joshua’s name – he doesn’t need distractions.

‘Jaxx, doing a nice job - off to a great start,’ Ed Bernstein comments, hovering around his braided ropes. I can see two of his are untwisted now; the key is dangling lower on one rope, like it wants to fall.

Joshua’s hands are moving like lightning. Concentration is etched on his face. My heart's bashing at my ribs and I grip Punk’s shoulder next to me. Stephanie cries out, ‘Yes!’ and my eyes flash back to Jaxx’s ropes. His key loosens.

‘Jaxx has his braids untied!’ Ed shouts enthusiastically, circling him like a hawk and my stomach knots as Joshua glances up. Jaxx grabs his key and races to the chest.

‘Joshua, you can do this!’ I yell out now. I can’t help it, but Punk joins in. ‘Joshua, come on, JOSHUA!’

‘Jaxx - unlocking the chest now,’ Ed comments, ‘getting a good head start, gathering up his planks. Will Joshua un-braid those ropes… YES. He will. Nice work Joshua.’

I breathe a huge sigh of relief as Joshua’s key finally snakes down the rope and he grabs his, speeding to his chest. The lock is open and his planks are gathered in his arms in seconds.

‘Both big, strong guys here,’ Ed says, trailing them as they both kneel on the floor, working to see which plank fits across the first posts. ‘Who’s going to be the best at building these seven-piece walkways? Each one only fits in one place, guys, remember, take your time.’

The cameras block Joshua from my line of vision for a moment, but when I see him again, Jaxx is just ahead of him. ‘One plank in, good job Jaxx!’ Ed booms. I’m holding my breath again.
You can do this…

‘You must carry all your planks with you, guys! Jaxx, start building your path as you go. Joshua, one plank in, nice work. Catching up quickly…’

‘Faster, Joshua!’ I yell at him now, squeezing Punk’s bony shoulder, and for a second I can imagine Shan watching this on TV, jumping up and down like me. I can imagine Chloe and Noah watching me, cheering Joshua on. I hope.

‘Joshua! One more plank in,’ Ed cries out and we all yell as we watch him shoot along the wood to the next posts. Jaxx curses loudly as he drops his planks to the ground from the walkway. He’s not as good as balancing as Joshua is - as long as Joshua stays focused I know he can do this. As a climber he’s used to strategic movements, lifting with his arms, plotting his next space. I saw the way he came for me up those rocks, when I was stuck on that ledge. He was like King Kong on the frickin' Chrysler Building.

‘Joshua with another plank! Nice work
. Jaxx
with another plank!’

It’s almost too much to see them head to head. I can’t stand it. Punk’s squeezing my shoulder now as the guys both move like tornadoes, still figuring out which piece of stupid wood goes where. ‘Joshua now in the lead. Jaxx catching up…’

I can barely look as Ed calls out each of their six pieces, until Jaxx slots the final one of his into place and it’s Joshua’s turn to curse loudly. My heart is literally threatening to escape through my mouth.

‘Joshua has one piece left on the walkway. Jaxx is flying through this challenge. Jaxx, heading to the final puzzle…’

I hear Stephanie let out a long whistle through her fingers. I jump to my feet on the bench and Punk follows. Suddenly, Joshua’s final piece slots into place and he runs across it, jumps to the floor in a cloud of sand and I watch his muscles flex in his back and shoulders as he joins Jaxx in figuring out the puzzle.
Yes.

‘Both guys head to head now,’ Ed points out dramatically, standing just a meter away with a camera. ‘It could go either way at this point. One bound for a night on Asylum Island, the other for a place on the jury with Mike, Journey, Karin, Mia and Shan. Jaxx is getting close…’

My hands are gripping the bottom of my shirt now, sweating in the sun.
Come on, come on.

‘Jaxx, sliding this puzzle around, looking confused here,’ Ed reports. ‘Does he know what he’s doing, or has he lost his mind after this long on the island?’ Ed circles him as he works. ‘Jaxx was the one who discovered the immunity charm,’ he says. ‘Last night he gave it away to Stephanie - a selfless act that backfired and sent him to Asylum Island. Tension’s mounting here, guys. Is Jaxx also going to give away his last chance to win this season of
Deserted?’

‘YES!’ Joshua yells suddenly. He’s standing back from his puzzle now, looking at the pieces intently with his hands on the table. Every muscle in his torso and arms is tense. Ed holds up his hand as Jaxx works furiously to complete his too, but Ed’s looking Joshua’s puzzle over, up and down. His expression is unreadable.

‘Has Joshua completed his first?’ he says to a camera. ‘Yes…’ he adds with a shout. ‘Yes! I can confirm, congratulations Joshua, you
are
the winner of this challenge. Joshua is your winner today.’

All of us are on our feet now, on the sand. Punk and I are jumping up and down, arms around each other’s shoulders as Ed raises Joshua’s arm high in the air. Without thinking I race over to him, dragging Punk with me. Joshua catches me as I jump into his arms and he lifts me high into the air by my waist, grinning.

‘Oh my god, I’m so glad,’ I say into his ear as he lowers me to the floor and I’m kind of surprised when he keeps his arms around me, pulling Punk against us, too.

‘Joshua,’ Ed says, straight into the camera now pointed at us all. ‘I’m afraid you will return to Asylum Island tonight, but you are immune from the next vote and you are one step closer to that
million
dollar prize. Congratulations.’

He turns to Jaxx, puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘For you, Jaxx, I’m afraid it’s the end of the line. But we’ll see you with the rest when it’s time for that final jury. Any last words before you go?’

Jaxx turns to Stephanie, now beside him on the sand. He puts an arm around her. ‘If anyone deserves to win this, it’s this girl, right here,’ he says to the camera, leaning into plant a kiss on the side of her head. I can’t help noticing how Stephanie just smiles awkwardly before he’s led away.