Page 81 of Stuck in Paradise with You

‘Excuse me?’ she says, looking like she might actually slap my face. ‘As if you have any right to tell me what I can and can’t?—’

‘Damnit, Carrie, I can’t be doing with this. You’re exhausting.’ I sigh. I really am tired of this back and forth with the woman I can’t stop goddamn thinking about.

‘I’mexhausting?’ Nostrils flaring, she pushes past me. ‘You should listen to yourself, Luke. All chivalrous and caring. Which, by the way, actually comes across as domineering on you.’

‘I do care whether you get hurt, Carrie. I’m not a monster.’

She spins so fast to face me that I walk right into her on my next step up. ‘Seven years too late.’

‘You think I didn’t care?’ My words lose all their strength. I cared. I cared so much, it ripped me to pieces.Howcould she fail to see this?

I wait for her next retort, the one that opens my final wound and has me as injured as I was back then. Instead, I see the fight drain from her, her shoulders drop and her face soften. I think she’ll speak. Maybe tell me she knows I cared. Of course she knows.

Silence.

She sets back up the stairs and into the lounge of the main house. I’m amazed it looks intact. That the windows haven’t broken.

I look beyond the glass and I’m speechless as we make our way outside. The landscape looks wholly different. The lush green of the hills, the palm trees, the blooming frangipanes, they’re all gone, replaced by what looks like barren land. The terrace has been destroyed – the wood frame and the roof that used to be decorated in tea lights are halfway down the rockface to the beach.

The beach thatwas, because I can’t see the beach for the grey, brown murky sea water that’s covering it entirely. The steps that led down to the sand are gone without trace and some of the pods – Carrie’s included – have partially lost their roofs.

‘Jesus,’ is all I can say.

‘If it’s like this here, imagine what it’s like on the other islands,’ Henry says. ‘Local homes aren’t built like Charithonia. They’ll be destroyed.’

The three of us look around in silence at the devastation, a strange contrast to the chirping birds, blue sky and beaming sun. It’s a trip, completely.

‘There’s still the other half to come,’ I say in disbelief.

‘The worst half,’ Henry adds.

I watch Carrie now, observing everything I can see in silence, her eyes wet. I want to go to her, to put an arm around her, but despite the enormity of what’s in front of us, I can’t forget her words of minutes ago. She doesn’t think I care or that I ever cared.

‘We should probably head back inside,’ Henry says, moving to Carrie and putting his arm around her, where mine ought to be. ‘People get caught out in the eye of the storm. She’ll come back with vengeance.’

‘All right, Dr Meteorology,’ I mutter for my own ears.

‘I’ll follow,’ Carrie says, her voice hoarse. ‘I just want another minute.’

Henry nods and walks back into the house. I linger behind her, out of her view but with her firmly in mine. There’s no chance I’m leaving her out here alone.

I give her minutes, wondering what she’s thinking, wanting to ask but also knowing she doesn’t want me to be here with her. Eventually, she speaks, as if she knew I would be right here the whole time.

‘It’s perspective getting, isn’t it?’ she says.

Yeah, I suppose it is. It makes me feel like this is no time to leave things unsaid.

On that note…

‘Come on, let’s get back inside.’ As I speak, I hear a distant rumble like thunder and I know it’s the return of Isabel. ‘Carrie, let’s go,’ I tell her, more urgently now.

She nods, eventually shifting to come inside. I hold open the door to the house for her as the thunder of the wind grows louder, the sky grows darker again, and hell, I confess that I’m afraid now too. But Carrie halts, staring at the storm, watching it draw closer, hypnotized by it.

‘Carrie!’

It’s as if she doesn’t hear my words at all. She’s lost to the storm, mesmerized.

‘Luke!’ Dave hollers from the top of the basement staircase, holding the door open for us.

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