This Is My Brain on Boys (21 page)

“W
here is he? It's super-hot!” Lauren fanned herself with the brim of her white visor as she sat on Ed's boat, which bobbed off the Academy dock in the still, humid air.

Too still
, as if the world was waiting.

Ed checked his phone for the zillionth time. “No word. We might have to cancel.”

“We can't cancel. Addie already screwed things up by not letting me climb the rock wall the other day. The only way my Bio teacher is going to give me extra credit now is if I write up a report on this island doohickey thing whatever.” She sighed petulantly. “What time are you coming for us tomorrow?”

“Depends on when we leave today. You guys have to make it a whole twenty-four hours without food or water, just surviving on what's there.”

Lauren curled her lip. “Ew. There's nothing on Owl Island.”

Ed shielded his eyes to see up the cliff. “There are a couple of fresh lakes with native perch to cook. There are no beaver out there, so no giardia that could make you sick. You won't die of thirst.”

“Yippee! No beaver pee! Where do I fill up?”

A figure ran down the wooden stairs leading to the beach and Lauren said, “That's him.”

Ed started the boat. Blue smoke puffed out the engine in the rear. “You made it.”

Kris threw a leg over the side. “Sorry, man. How late am I?”

“An hour.” Lauren tossed him a life jacket.

Much to Kris's disappointment, she was the only one on board. He'd been prepared for a cold shoulder or, more likely, a pair of red-rimmed eyes that seethed with hate. But for Addie not to put in an appearance at the grand finale of her own experiment? That was intense.

“What time you get in last night?” Ed asked, pulling away from the dock, one knee on the driver's seat as he chugged slowly through the harbor's no-wake area.

“Try this morning. Took the first shuttle.”

Ed let out a low whistle. “So you and Kara are . . .”

“Never speaking again.”

“Good. I heard she was pretty gross last night, and what she said to Addie . . .”

“Please.” Kris slapped his hands over his ears. “I'm trying to forget it.”

“Hey, what are you two talking about?” Lauren called from the back. “Who was gross?”

“No one!” Ed said, opening the throttle and letting the boat rip on the open water.

Kris leaned on the prow, relishing the fresh air and spray of seawater on his face as he kept his focus on Owl Island, where he hoped Addie was waiting. This was his final chance to look into those mesmerizing gray eyes and beg for her forgiveness.

Or say good-bye forever.

Big gray clouds hung on the horizon. In the back of his mind, an alarm went off, something about the air and the heat, the portentous quiet of the atmosphere. Owl Island came into view, a cluster of dark silver oak and green pine trees and rocks. Ed slowed the boat as they neared the beach. Not a single sign of life.

“Where's Addie?” Kris asked.

Ed didn't reply.

Kris turned. “I said . . .”

“Heard you.” Ed killed the engine and went past
Lauren to the back, depressing the automatic winch that lowered the anchor.

Wow. Kris had no idea that Ed was so pissed at him. Made sense, he guessed. After all, Addie was his close friend, and Ed probably didn't appreciate that Kris had left her to take Kara home.

“We're stopping here? But how are we expected to get there?” Lauren pointed to the beach.

“Swim,” Ed said. “The water's waist deep. You won't drown.”

“Yeah, but.” She peered over the edge of the boat. “Are those jellyfish?”

Kris jumped in and held out his arms. “Come on, Lauren. I'll carry you.”

She slipped off her sandals and held them with one hand as she gingerly stepped over the edge into Kris's grasp. “It's noon,” she called out to Ed, clinging to Kris's neck. “So be back the same time tomorrow and not a minute later!”

Ed gave her the thumbs-up and hauled in the anchor.

Kris turned toward the beach and saw the terns and seagulls not running along the water's edge as usual, but gathered together in a cluster, hunkering down. At the time, he didn't give it another thought.

Big mistake.

The island was dead silent, especially since there were surprisingly few motorboats on the water today, and even the birds were strangely muted.

On the bay side, which faced Academy 355, a sandy shore led to a salt marsh teeming with tide pools full of minnows, fiddler crabs, clams, and snails. It was a completely different story on the ocean side, where waves crashed against huge boulders leading to a high meadow of short, dense grass. In winter, the wind was so fierce it whittled the oaks to toothpicks.

Kris hadn't been out here before, though Lauren had during orientation, which of course he'd missed as a midyear student. She showed him the rustic cabin, where they found the cooler of water bottles someone had conveniently left.

Then they headed out to explore the middle of the island in search of the freshwater ponds Ed had described. It had to be over ninety degrees with 90 percent humidity. Even with the ocean breeze, they were hot and sticky and growing slightly bored.

“When's Addie going to get here?” Kris tried to ask as casually as possible, though he suspected that Lauren was savvy enough to see right through his act.

“I don't think she's coming.” She led the way on a rocky path covered with pale green lichens. “Ed gave me a notebook from her where we're each supposed to write
our before-and-after lists and journal our thoughts and feelings, et cetera. So that tells me she's off doing something else.”

Kris was instantly deflated. The realization that his hopes were mere pipe dreams, that there would be no Addie, that he was stranded here with Lauren, was unbearable. They were only two hours in and already he was ready to flee. Swim back to the Academy if he had to. He was a mess. He was hungry and exhausted from tossing and turning on Kara's couch, worried about Addie, and at the moment he was under attack by a swarm of mosquitoes.

He smacked one on his arm. “Can you figure out the point of this experiment?”

Lauren ducked under a low-hanging branch. “Didn't Addie and Dex say at the beginning that they were trying to chart how males versus females responded to different situations?” She shrugged. “I don't get it, but I don't care, either. All I have to do is write a five-page paper on what it was like to be a guinea pig and my B+ in Bio is moved to an A-.” They went down a slight hill. “Why are
you
doing this?”

He told her about the trouble he'd gotten into that spring.

“You were part of that?” If Lauren was faking disbelief, she was an excellent actress. “But I thought they were
kicked out as soon as they were busted.”

“Not me. I came clean. Confessed to everything.” He could never bring himself to explain about trying to paint over the damage; it sounded like such a lame lie.

Lauren stood aside to let him go first. They were at a swampy part riddled with even more mosquitoes and probably she wanted to see if he got stuck before she did. “Does Addie know?”

He found a dead log and dumped it on the sodden ground as a makeshift bridge. “Yeah.”

Lauren took his hand as she crossed. “You told her.”

“Actually, she figured it out. Except that part about me being the one to come up with the idea of going down to the lab. She learned that last night.”

Lauren hopped off the log and spun around, hands on hips. “And that's why you keep asking about her.”

“Yup.”

“So how long have you two been going out?”

He laughed. “Who says we're going out?”

“It's written all over your face. You look like a puppy licking his wounds.” She stuck out her lower lip, pouty.

“We're not together,” he said honestly. “Addie didn't want to while I was in her experiment and, well, after last night I think I blew any chances of us happening.”

“Too bad for her!” Lauren said blithely. “Hey, I think I see water.”

They stumbled down a sandy path to a tranquil pond. Kris ripped off his shirt and dove in, Lauren running after. The water was incredible, almost silky soft and clean. A glacial pond with no vegetation.

Lauren threw off her shirt and stepped out of her shorts to reveal a bright-yellow bikini. “This is awesome.” She dipped her head back to wet her hair, and when she stood, pinching her nose, she reminded him of one of those
Sports Illustrated
models—beautiful, athletic, and totally airbrushed. Except she was real.

He must have been staring, because she lowered her eyes coyly and then swam to him with graceful strokes.

“This is wild, huh?” Her eyelashes were spikes that made her eyes mesmerizing. “Kind of funny that the school would be okay allowing the two of us on an island. Alone.” She lifted and lowered one bare shoulder. “Not that I'm complaining.”

It hit him then.

She had a crush.

He should have known at the dance, when Lauren kept whispering in his ear stuff he couldn't even hear because the music was so loud. She'd been sending other signals, too. Stupid, girly things like twirling her hair and running a toe along his leg under the table during those experiments. He was always the last to know when a girl liked him.

He barely noticed the gust of wind that rippled across the water. Or how the leaves were turning inside out.

She took one step forward, the dappled sunlight sparkling on her skin.

“You know,” she purred, “I bet this
is
the experiment.”

“What?”

“I'm guessing the reason they paired me up with two guys was because they wanted me to choose. And you know who I chose?”

At last an out. “Alex? I saw you guys in the gym and you were tight. He seems like an awesome guy.”

“Alex is nice and everything, but . . . he's kind of vanilla.”

Another gust of wind and the sky went dark. Kris looked up to see gray clouds amassing overhead. “Sudden shift in the weather. A storm's coming.”

The pond water lapped the shore in gradually increasing waves. The small hairs on the back of his neck rose from atmospheric electricity and he felt a flicker of alarm.

Not just a storm, his instincts told him. A
monster
.

Lauren remained oblivious. She was swimming on her back like a siren, ankles crossed mermaid style. “For example, the rock wall? He'd never have done that. He told me so.”

It took Kris a second to remember what they were talking about. Oh, yeah. Alex.

“But you went right up it without a rope. My pulse actually started racing when you did that.”

She knew he didn't have a girlfriend. He'd admitted as much by fessing up about Addie. So he could scrap that as an excuse. Lauren knew he was a free agent and she was circling for the kill, just like the mechanical shark.

“No one will know what we do out here,” she said, flipping around so her head bobbed by his chest. “What happens on Owl Island stays on Owl Island.”

Something crashed in the woods and Kris jumped.

“Relax. It's just a branch. There are no big animals out here.” Lauren stood and rubbed her bare wet arms. “Is it me, or did it just get colder?”

A lot colder, as a matter of fact. “We need to go.” He ran out of the water, taking Lauren's hand to get her to move. She squeezed it playfully.

On shore, they threw on their clothes, which minutes before had been hot and oppressive and now were insufficient against the breeze and faint drizzle. A bolt of lightning cracked across the sky.

How far to the shelter? They were sitting ducks with all this exposure, and it was suddenly so dark he couldn't see the path. He would have to negotiate by memory and they would have to run.

“Hey, wait up,” Lauren shouted, wriggling her foot into a sandal.

Kris impatiently waited for her to get ready. Finally, she joined him, panting in panic. “This is bad, isn't it?”

“It's not good.” He wished he had his cell to call the mainland. There was still a chance Ed could pick them up before the storm got out of control. After a certain point, however, it wouldn't be safe for anyone to be on the water and they would have to hunker down.

Lauren stumbled and cried out in pain. “Damn tree roots. I think I twisted it.” She was bent over, clutching her ankle.

“Are you okay?” A meaningless question. He just wanted her to say yes.

She tried taking a step and winced. “No. Hurts like hell. I can't walk.”

Through the trees ahead he could make out a dark sliver of ocean. The path was too narrow for her to lean on him, which left only one option. He would have to carry her.

“All right. This is what we're going to do.” He knelt. “Hop on my back.”

“What?”

“Please, Lauren, I want to get out of the woods before the lightning hits us. This is the fastest way.”

She hobbled over, slid her arms around his neck, and leaned against him. As he lifted her legs, she whispered, “My knight in shining armor.”

Good thing she couldn't see his eye roll.

They emerged from the woods to two revelations: the clouds had temporarily parted to reveal blue sky, and waiting on the shore for them was Ed.

“I turned around when I got the weather alert. Wicked storm rolling in.” He helped Lauren slide off Kris's back. “What happened to you?”

“Twisted my ankle on a tree root. Kris had to carry me.”

Ed arched an eyebrow at Kris, who responded with a neutral shrug.

“We barely have enough time to make it back,” Ed said, heading to the moored boat.

Lauren groaned. “I can't believe it. Another experiment ruined. I'm never going to get that extra credit.”

“Worry about that later. Be glad you're not stranded here. They're saying it's a nor'easter, which means you would have been socked in for three days.” Ed gave her his arm so she could lean on it.