She rolls her eyes. “Fine, I’ll go.”
“All right,” Hamish says. “So far you guys are the only ones signed up.” He smiles, as if he knew that would make us feel uncomfortable.
Little does he know, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all. I can’t wait to be alone with her. It’s she who looks a bit out of sorts at the thought, but at this point that doesn’t surprise me.
Instead of staying in the red farmhouse with the other backpackers, Gemma has secured us a cabin at the edge of their property. It’s rustic, just a wood fireplace, a small table and chairs, a full bed downstairs, and a full mattress in the loft above, accessible only by ladder. But it has a wide porch out front with sweeping views of the valley and the bay in the distance.
I take the bed in the loft because Amber said it looked “creepy” and we crack open a bottle of wine on the porch, sipping out of mugs, staring at the sun-drenched hills and killing time before dinner is served.
I can’t help but grin. “This ain’t a bad life, is it, girls?”
“Hell no,” says Amber, raising her mug to the view. “I could stay here forever. Literally, just keep feeding me wine and I’ll keep sitting here.”
Gemma doesn’t say anything but she briefly catches my eye and offers me a small smile. It’s not a lot, but it’s something.
Naturally I want more. I’m grateful that Amber bowed out of the boat trip. I need to be alone with Gemma again.
I sigh inwardly and stare out at the endless view. It’s so strange to think that we’re here, one person from San Jose, one from Vancouver, one from Auckland, and we’re together, sitting in a valley at the edge of the world. There’s something about being on New Zealand’s east coast that I find a bit unnerving. It isn’t until after we’re done with the fabulous lamb meal in the farmhouse that I identify the cause.
With working flashlights this time, we make our way back to the cabin in the pitch dark and sit back down on the porch to finish off the rest of the wine.
Far off in the distance I see lights scattered near where the horizon line should be. They glow brightly in the black, artificial against the stars above.
“What are those?” I ask no one in particular. The crickets are so loud and intrusive here that I keep my voice to a hush, afraid to interrupt them.
“I think they’re prawn- or crab-fishing boats,” Gemma answers, her tone matching mine.
I stare at them for a few moments. It’s hard not to. They’re so far away and yet the brightest spots in all the dark. It’s frightening. The desolation feels real.
“What’s out there?” I ask.
Gemma pauses, seeming to think. “Antarctica.”
I shudder. “That’s it? Beyond those boats is Antarctica?”
“Maybe the Chatham Islands or something in between. I don’t know. But they’re small.”
I swallow uneasily, feeling like I’m about to slip off the edge of the world. “God, this is a lonely place.”
I can feel their eyes as their heads swivel in the dark toward me.
“What do you mean?” Gemma asks.
“Can’t you feel it?” I ask, knowing I can’t be the only one. “There’s nothing out there, nothing at all. Even at home, if I make it to Vancouver Island and stare across the Pacific, I know Japan and Asia and Russia are out there. Civilization. Here . . . it’s just waves of nothing and then a giant, uninhabited continent of ice. It makes you feel . . . alone. Like the earth could swallow you whole right here and no one would notice.”
We lapse into silence for a moment.
“It is kind of creepy,” Amber concedes.
“I like it,” Gemma says simply.
But how could she? I wonder about the whole country, these slivers of islands balancing at the edge of nothing, and if everyone thinks they’re this close to being lost.
It doesn’t help that I’m sleeping on the loft that night.
I have dream upon dream about falling.
I am falling.
Chapter Fifteen
GEMMA
I’m still not used to waking up in a different place each day. As soon as I open my eyes, it takes me a moment for my world to realign. Then, as I remember where I am and shrug off the blissful abyss of sleep, I have to wrestle with my crap reality.
Before all the shit went down with Nick, I was battling my growing feelings for Josh. Now, I’m still doing that and trying to figure out what I’m going to do with my life. It’s hard to adopt the same attitude as Josh and Amber. They weren’t just dealt a crap hand. They’re on vacation. I’m trying to put one foot in front of the other and I’m stumbling with each step I take.
I want to reach out to Josh so badly. I want to lean into him, feel his arms around me, hear those words he once whispered, that he understands, that he gets me. But I’m too much in my head, too far down the spiral, and I know that when our time is up together, he will be gone and I’ll still be trying to deal.
Time is flying, swooping past me, and I have no idea where I’m going to end up in the end.
Amber turns over under the covers, her butt bumping into my hip. I sigh and stare up at the ceiling, at where Josh should be sleeping on the loft above my head. I think about getting out of bed, quietly, and climbing the ladder to him.
What would he say? Would he kick me out of his bed or welcome me with open arms? Would he be wishing I was Amber, or someone else, someone who smiled more than smirked, who took in the world eagerly, like he did?