The Best Week That Never Happened by Dallas Woodburn

Author:Dallas Woodburn [Woodburn, Dallas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, supernatural, Pacific Islanders, YAF058120, YAF052000, teen, death, dying, magical realism, after life, young adult, YAF058050
ISBN: 9781951710118
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC
Published: 2020-04-21T07:00:00+00:00

Over a lunch of grilled fish tacos, the mood between us shifts. Kai and I both make an effort to talk about everything except what we’ve learned in the past few hours. We’re emotionally wrung out. We want to focus on the silly surface stuff—inside jokes, random memories, childhood stories we’ve already shared with each other a dozen times. I’m thankful, because I don’t know if I can handle any more deep talks at the moment. I want easy and familiar and normal. If life were a TV show, right now I’d prefer to watch a comforting rerun of an episode I’ve already seen. I don’t want to venture into a new episode, where anything could happen—and beloved characters might be killed off.

I eat every last bite of my fresh fish tacos, trying to savor every detail of my final days here. But I don’t really taste the food. My stomach is unsettled, and I’m worried about Kai. Fear and despair lurk in his eyes. I know that searching the lava tubes for clues will be fruitless. I think, deep down, he knows it too.

We ball up our lunch wrappers, throw them into the trash can, and climb back into Kai’s Jeep. As we head down the highway, the breeze whipping my hair all around, I wonder what would happen if we just kept driving and driving and driving. I’d imagine there are worse ways to spend your last days on Earth.

Kai parks in the lot for the golf course. We follow, in reverse, my footsteps from two days ago when I chased after Theo. The same path I walked in the moonlight to meet Kai when we were fifteen. The same path his eight-year-old self raced down to get help when I needed stitches. Now, in the heat of midafternoon, the asphalt is hot beneath my sandals. Eventually, it turns to pebbled dirt. We are getting close.

Trees arch over the path, lush with foliage. I’m grateful for their shade. Everywhere, the buzzing of insects and calling of birds. The air is damp and swollen with heat. A bead of sweat rolls down my forehead. We round the bend, and there it is—the entrance to our place.

Cigarette butts are scattered in the dirt, and a plastic soda bottle lounges against a hibiscus bush. Kai mutters to himself, bending down and untangling it from the flowery branches. He picks up the cigarette butts and drops them into the plastic bottle. I help him, even though cigarettes are probably the grossest things on the planet, and I hate touching them. Before long, we’ve cleaned it all up. Kai leans the bottle against the lava rock, to pick up on our way out later.

“Do you think Theo’s friends did this?” I ask, wiping my fingers on my shorts.

Kai nods. His jaw is set in a hard line. “Those guys don’t have respect for anything. I can’t believe Theo would bring them here.”

I wrap my arms around his waist and kiss his cheek, then his lips.

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