Before He Was Gone: Starstruck Book 2 (20 page)

But he’s walking up onto the sand and I know my time is up.

By the time I get back to the beach, Joshua’s been dragged away back to Asylum Island.

‘They were stricter than I thought they’d be with that one hour,’ I say to Sebastian, squeezing out my hair and laying the spear on the rocks as the camera guy parks the kayak in his usual spot. ‘Any cookies left?’

Sebastian doesn’t reply. He’s staring out to the ocean, sitting on the sand, resting his arms on his knees. His eyes are stony cold and I sense he’s seriously pissed about what he saw or heard in the water. I feel sick. I don’t want to be alone with him. The others are still at the waterfall.

‘I’m going to go gut this fish,’ I say, standing in front of him. ‘There might be some chicken left for lunch, or a mango…’

‘Alyssa, I miss you,’ he says suddenly, reaching out and holding my ankle. My breath catches. He looks up at me, tugs at my leg till I’m forced to sit down with him heavily. I say nothing, noting the camera trailing us. ‘Listen to me,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know what I was thinking. Meeting your mom, and Jack’s wedding, and Chloe and Noah being all, like they are, it was just… I freaked out. You know Denzel’s keeping us all so busy. I thought the band was the most important thing, but when I saw you with him, on the TV, and here…’

‘Your ego kicked in,’ I finish coldly. ‘You didn’t want to see me with anyone else.’

‘Of course I didn’t, do you blame me? Baby,
you’re
the most important thing. You keep me normal. I fucked up. I need us back together.’

I search his face. ‘I’m not a
thing
,’ I say. ‘I can’t believe you’re saying this here. And anyway, I’m not the same person you ditched for some band.’ I go to stand back up, but he pulls me back down again, this time by my arm. ‘Ow!’

‘Not the same
person? 
Alyssa, you’ve been here less than two months. You have a life out there!’

‘You don’t know what it’s like, Sebastian!’

He shakes his head and I can see he doesn’t get it. Maybe no one will. No one knows what it’s like to be out here until you actually are. Until there’s nothing else. Until the hours tick past with just you and the sun and the trees and the clouds, then the moon and the wind and the stars; until itches and burns and hunger eat you up and your saving grace is one other person’s incredible life and mind, laid out before you like a map of a distant galaxy you never knew existed. 

‘I’ve never had this time to just…
be
, before,’ I say. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.’

‘And screwing,’ he says angrily, dropping my arm.

I feel myself stiffen. My jaw tightens. ‘That’s none of your business. You broke up with me.’

He curses, puts his head between his knees for a moment. I’ve never seen him so angry. ‘You don’t know what you’re dealing with, getting involved with him,’ he says quietly.

I feel my temper flare. ‘Don’t bring Joshua into this.’ This time I don’t let him pull me back as I get up. He stands and follows me with heavy strides towards the patch of sand where Karin built her couch. His jaw is pulsing. His ego is bruised. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything…’ he starts.

‘Oh come on!’ The camera guy’s moving semi-circles to our side. ‘You hate that I’m
not
playing him and now you’re pissed ‘cause I’ve moved on! You broke up with me, you left me crying on the floor! You let papers and blogs and whatever make stuff up about me and for all I know, they still are. I don’t want anything to do with that world, Sebastian. I’m done!’

‘Fine,’ he says, stopping in front of me. ‘But if you think you’re going to walk into some happy fairy tale ending when you leave here, Alyssa, you’re wrong. Joshua’s losing his mind – he’s gonna be a goddam vegetable in ten year’s time. Maybe even sooner. He won’t even remember you.’

His words make me stagger backwards onto sharp, washed up coral. The pain soars through my foot and I let out a cry as he reaches for me. I shove his chest hard but he catches me. ‘Some guy from some support group he went to told some blogger - it was after they showed those pills you found on the show.’ He reaches a hand to my face. I swipe it away roughly. ‘Baby…’

‘Stop calling me that!’

‘Joshua’s got some neurological deficiency, Alyssa - some disease. They don’t even know exactly what it is in order to cure it, but he pretty much moves around between medical treatments, doing crazy ass shit like this, because in a matter of years he won’t remember his way out of whatever fucking white room they’ve locked him in…’

‘Stop!’ I yell at him. But the tears are clouding my vision and I’m collapsing onto the sand again, right where the couch was.
No, no, no, no!
‘Why did you tell me this?’

‘I wasn’t going to. He tried to hide it, Alyssa! If you hadn’t found those pills no one would’ve known - 
you’re
the one who let his secret out!’

‘I didn’t know what they were for!’

‘Exactly. And I can’t watch you fall for some guy you can’t be with.’ He kneels in front of me, puts his hands on my shoulders. ‘Come home, move to New York this time and let me take care of us; and this…’

‘No,’ I tell him, shaking my head, forcing him back from me. ‘It’s not a case of you or him, Sebastian. I came here on my own, and I’m fine on my own! I just…’

‘You just what?’

He’s looking at me like I might just be insane. He’s fighting for me for the first time ever. I see all the nights I spent waiting for his calls. He took me to some amazing places, pushed me into crowds, yet I always felt deserted somehow. It was never my life, all of that. I’ve never really lived like I live when I’m with Joshua; or
any
of these people out here. I don’t feel deserted anymore. I feel like I’ve been found. Or, I
did
. I can’t even explain.

‘You just what?’ he says again. ‘Don’t tell me you
love
him?’ His eyes are wide, shocked, hurt.

‘Why did you come here and tell me this?’ I say again, and I can’t control the sob that comes out of me, into my hands. Joshua is going round in my brain; his lips on mine, the feel of his arms, him making love to me under the moon and telling me we never had to go home.

Sebastian sinks to the sand beside me. I curl my arms around my knees. Is this why Joshua pushed me away? Is this why he pushed his ex away? And the blackouts; the looks he gives me sometimes, like he doesn’t know what the hell to do or say. He told me no one was going to save him. Is this why he ran out of faith?

‘I’m sorry,’ Sebastian says, but I can’t even respond. I pull myself up to my feet, using him as a post, start walking back to the trees.

‘I need to see him,’ I say.

‘No you don’t.’

‘I know where they’ve taken him…’

Sebastian catches me, holds tight to my wrist. ‘Don’t be crazy. Alyssa, listen to me. You can win this thing, baby, people out there love you. Get the hell out of here and you and me…’

‘There is no you and
me!
’ I yell back at his face but as I move again he runs forward, takes my head in his hands, doesn’t let go.

‘I love you,’ he tells me, forcing me to look straight into his eyes. The sun is blazing down on us but I can barely see him. I’m crying so hard. My mind is so fried. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, Alyssa. I’m sorry.’

I practically fall as he presses his lips to mine and kisses me, pulling me harder against his chest. He’s holding me so tight. My lips remember him before logic reminds me he shouldn’t be doing this. I cling back like he’s a rock I could fall from and hurt myself even more. But as my mouth moves with his, my soul and every piece of my stupid heart burns for something else, till I’m nothing but fire. 

I pull away sharply. ‘I said no!’ But he grips my shoulders.

‘Alyssa, you have no future with him.’

‘I have
now
. Now is all that matters.’

‘You won’t be saying that when he doesn’t know who you are.’

‘
You
don’t know who I am!’ I yell, pulling back, walking faster, swiping at my tears. ‘I wish you hadn’t told me what you just told me, but it doesn’t change how I feel. It doesn’t make me
not
want to be with him!’

But as I keep on moving, my heart is screaming, shredding to pieces. If he’s right, will I look back on everything Joshua and I have said, everything we’ve done here as fleeting moments in time before he was
gone?
Before his amazing mind was gone? His memories? Will I break even more than this stupid place is breaking me now? Will he? I hate all these questions. All I have is questions.

‘Don’t you
dare
put this on the TV!’ I yell at the camera guy suddenly. He startles and holds his hands up, stops in the sand beside me as I start running, straight to the challenge pitch. I cut Sebastian off as he follows me by taking another path in the trees. Someone stops me as I’m halfway to the waterfall.

‘You can’t go in there,’ the guy says from under his
Deserted
baseball hat, holding out his walkie-talkie. I bend over, breathless, sobbing. ‘Please,’ I say, ‘this isn’t funny anymore, I’m not playing the game right now. I need to see Joshua.’

‘If you’re on this island, you’re playing the game,’ he says firmly. ‘You can’t see him. Sorry.’

‘Punk, the haircut’s looking different - how does that feel? Did you have fun with your mother here?’ Ed Bernstein asks him now. Punk’s grinning like a mad man beside me on the bench. His curls have been chopped so close to his head that he’s even more of a skinhead than I was when I got here.

‘I’m a new man,’ he replies.

‘Good to hear. And Alyssa, you and Sebastian Moreno, huh?’

‘Thanks for lining that up, Ed,’ Alyssa replies flatly. She’s sitting behind me next to Stephanie. I don’t miss how Ed says Sebastian’s last name, too - like that added celebrity title made his visit infinitely more important than the others, which of course, it did. I’m just thankful no cameras caught our conversation in the water before I got hauled back to Asylum Island.

‘Looked like you guys had some catching up to do after all this time; much to discuss I’m sure. And Stephanie, you and your brother had fun at the waterfall?’ Ed’s arms are crossed.

‘My head’s a little fuzzy today,’ Stephanie replies. ‘That wine was pretty good, you were right. Thanks for giving it all to me!’

’I’m sure Cory enjoyed his orange juice,’ Ed smiles.

I force myself not to turn around and look at Alyssa, find out what ‘catching up’ meant; what Sebastian might have told her. He looked like he was set on breaking whatever contract they had him sign in order to come out here. Every nerve in my body is shot to pieces.

I heard the boat leave with Punk’s mom, Cory and Sebastian on it last night at sunset, but they took my projection screen away while I was having coffee and cookies. It was another night of no sleep; tossing and turning and waiting for her to come to me. But again, she didn’t.

I’ve been wracking my brains to think of what might’ve gone out on TV, apart from Alyssa handing me the pills that time on the beach, and me burying them, maybe. No one knows anything out there aside from Evan and my mom, I don’t think, and they wouldn’t have said anything.

Ed talks to Stephanie about her brothers in Homewood and her music and I feel Alyssa’s hand land on my shoulder. She squeezes it and instinctively my own comes up to hold hers. I turn my head, finally, just for a moment, but when her eyes meet mine my stomach jolts. They’re red and swollen, like she’s been crying. She scans my face, looking panicked and a wave of dread and paranoia crashes over me at the same time as Ed demands our attention.

He’s told her.

‘Castaways, it’s been a pretty dramatic few days, no one can deny that. But unfortunately, only three of you can go through to the final challenge tomorrow. You know how it goes. Have you thought about your votes?’

I see Punk nod to my side. I have no clue who the girls are voting out right now. For the first time ever I haven’t even given strategy a thought.

‘Before we let you at that voting booth, let’s take off some of this tension, shall we? Come on guys, you’ve had a blast, especially yesterday!’ Ed’s grinning now. ‘Can we run through some of this week’s highlights, please?’

Right away on the screen I see Alyssa and Punk chasing the chickens, Alyssa bringing the machete down on their heads and passing the dead bodies to Punk. I hear the girls snicker behind me. The look on his face has been zoomed in on close and they’re showing it in slow motion; the horror, the eyes wide in disbelief.

‘Oh, come
on!
’ he says beside me, slapping a palm to his forehead, but he’s laughing. I can hear Stephanie laughing too. I can’t laugh; I’m too pumped full of adrenaline.

‘I’m surprised you did that,’ Ed’s saying to her now, pausing the screen, ‘if your fear of horror movies is anything to go by. Isn’t that what Stephanie told these guys the other night?’

He starts the video again and I see the fire, Alyssa sitting next to Sebastian on the beach, Stephanie explaining some Linda Blair story from Alyssa’s school days, but all I can focus on now is the look on Sebastian’s face; moody, distant, uncaring, staring into the flames. 

He doesn’t give a shit about her, until someone else is on the scene, threatening to take what’s his. I’ve met guys like him. I know his ego brought him here more than anything else, when the stories and photos and gossip about her moving on got more than he could stand.

‘Stephanie and Cory with quite the voices, huh?’ Ed carries on as the shot changes to them singing together. I see Alyssa get up with Punk, start the dance Shan taught us.

But Sebastian’s up with her now, instead. My jaw tenses. They’re laughing; he’s spinning her around. She’s pressing her head against his chest. His arms are around her. Every muscle in my chest turns rigid. I control my breathing, fix a look of what I hope is indifference to my face as the camera guy stalks the sand to my side, pointing his lens at me.

Ed talks over footage of Punk falling asleep on the massage table under the hands of an Indonesian masseuse. His mom’s on the next table, laughing at him for snoring softly. ‘It was the comfiest bed I’ve had in a long time!’ he says in defense, ‘I couldn’t help it!’ I force myself to smile, smile, smile.

Stephanie and Cory are back on now, drinking from plastic glasses, floating on ridiculous chairs in the pool by the waterfall, singing in harmony. ‘We wrote another song,’ she says, before an image of Alyssa flickers up on the screen again and my eyes glue to her form.

She’s on the beach, walking away from the ocean towards the trees, wearing nothing but her bikini. She’s too far away to hear what being said, but Sebastian’s coming up behind her, reaching for her, pulling her towards him, kissing her.

The breath leaves my body and I suck it back in hard.

She’s kissing him back.

She’s leaning into him.

‘That’s not what happened!’ Alyssa says now from behind me. ‘Joshua, they’re only showing you that to mess with us, you know that.’

‘OK, cut,’ Ed puts his hand up. The producer hurries over, talks into a mic on her shirt that blasts through a speaker. ‘Alyssa, you can’t say that while we’re filming. You know the rules. Please… let’s start that again.’

‘It’s bullshit,’ she hisses, reaching for me, but Ed’s looking seriously pissed and she retracts her hand, stops talking. My jaw clenches.
They’re messing with us. She’s right. Remember that.

But the projector comes back on and it’s right there in front of me. She’s still kissing him. His hands are up in her hair. Raw animal rage takes over my body. I want to slam Sebastian up against a palm tree. 

Strike that. I want to climb him to the top and throw him off. They’re messing with us, sure… but they can’t edit footage from something that didn’t happen.

The image cuts to us all standing on the rocks, then to Alyssa holding her snapper out to the camera somewhere out by the reef, but I can’t concentrate on a word she’s saying.

‘A beautiful day of reconnection all round!’ Ed says as it shutters off, leaving us all in silence. 

The lights all flash back on. Anger and humiliation are ribboning through me like currents. The red eyes, the crying. Did she spend all night last night pitying me after he told her everything… or everything he
thinks
he knows in order to get her to kiss him like that?

‘Time to cast your votes, please. Make them count. Now remember, Joshua’s earned immunity. Stephanie, would you do the honors first?’

Stephanie climbs down from behind me. I watch her through a blur as she walks down the path, scribbles a name on the card and comes back, biting her lip. Her hair is scraggly, her daisy dukes are ripped. Her toenails are full of dirt. Alyssa tries to get my attention but I don’t move an inch. I can’t see those sad eyes again.

‘Alyssa,’ Ed calls next. Even hearing her name makes my stomach lurch. I can’t get that image out of my head. I keep my eyes down as she walks away, and then back. Punk takes his turn.

‘And Joshua!’ Ed calls finally.

My feet are shakier than I allow them to look as I stand up. I write Stephanie’s name. I won’t vote Alyssa. She deserves to be in the final. Whatever’s happened between us, and whatever the hell happened yesterday, she’s thrown herself into everything since the start; stepped up whenever she’s had to, even before duty called. She fought for me, before I sent her back to that asshole. At the end of the day, that’s what I did. I kept the truth from her way too long.
Idiot.
 

Idiot for thinking the shit wouldn’t hit the fan; that this show wouldn’t
make
it. Stupid, selfish idiot thinking I could keep her at all. Making her my damn salvation.

‘Silence please, castaways, while we count up these votes!’ Ed says, seconds after I take my seat again. I stare at my fingers lacing through each other, try to keep my breathing calm. I thought it would be easy, claiming this million dollars. I’ve fired loaded guns at apocalyptic zombies, fended off bears on the Appalachian Trail, ridden bareback on horses through Devil’s Garden thunderstorms in Utah… what’s a few nights on some fucking sand in comparison?

But I never met a hurdle like falling for this girl. Maybe being deserted with her meant I was never going to survive this at all. Or anything else, for that matter.

I can hear her shuffling behind me; Stephanie whispering something to her. Every atom of my body wants to reach for her at the same time as the walls come back up and stop me. This is everything I didn’t want.

Ed’s clearing his throat at the front as the make-up artist leaves with her box. Punk’s biting his new manicure next to me. I can feel the tension loaded in the muggy air and part of me doesn’t give a shit right now who stays and who goes.

‘The person so close, and yet just a little too far from winning this season of
Deserted
is…’

He pauses, of course.

‘Stephanie. I’m sorry Stephanie, would you come down here please.’

Punk grabs my shoulder. ‘You’re
kidding
me? Thank you man,’ he says, pushing his new glasses back up on his sweaty nose. ‘Thank you!’

‘Wasn’t all me,’ I tell him distractedly. My voice surprises me. It doesn't even sound like my own.

‘Any final words before you leave what’s been your home for almost two entire months?’ Ed says in front of us as Alyssa continues to sniff and I continue to force my head not to turn in her direction.

‘I’ve had a truly awesome time here,’ Stephanie answers. ‘Truly, Ed, I’ve done things I never thought I’d do… I mean,
you
guys have given me the confidence to do things I never thought I’d do. Light fires, pluck chickens…’

Sleep with a guy
, I think suddenly, although didn’t Jaxx say she was still a virgin? ‘Only just,’ at least?

‘Stephanie,’ Ed says, ‘you’ll get to join your fellow evictees tonight for a night of decent food and sleep, before coming back tomorrow to help us decide on the winner. Any ideas at this point, who you think that should be?’

I look up, see her folding her arms across her tiny body. ‘In all honesty, all three of these people are good people, Ed,’ she says tactfully. ‘We’ve all played a good game.’ She smiles slightly as she says it. ‘But if anyone’s going to win this now, it’s got to be Punk, right?’

Punk laughs and part of me does, too. Good for him. He’s a nice kid. I know Alyssa would have left him in on purpose, because she hopes she’ll be able to knock him out tomorrow, but that’s the way it goes. I know they’re friends by now, no matter what. 

I run my hand over my head, feel the dirt in my fingers. For everything that’s predictable about this show, there’s been a million things I could never have predicted at all. Like that kiss. Or how just the thought of it and what it meant or broke could rattle through me like an earthquake.

‘Joshua, Punk and Alyssa, congratulations!’

The cameras find us and Stephanie heads off the pitch, out of the game. ‘You’ll be participating in the final challenge tomorrow! It’s going to be a nerve-wracking night. Joshua, back to Asylum Island, get your strength up. And get some sleep, all of you. Tomorrow, all of this will be worth it, we promise. At least for the one of you who’ll be speeding out of here with a million dollars - the winner of season twenty-three of
Deserted
.’