Page 32 of Bound to You

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Marina yells out. “You see why it’s my favorite spot now?” She turns to float on her back looking completely at peace.

I definitely can.

“It’s incredible,” I say, quiet enough that only Caio can hear me.

“There are a few spots like this dotted along the coast, we are lucky to have one so close.” He swims closer, floating just in front of me.

His eyes bore into my soul. Having his attention solely on me in this moment feels like I’m on stage under a spotlight and I’ve forgotten my line. What is it about this guy that makes me either speechless or blurt out nonsense?

“You’re going to love this. Follow me,” Marina says.

We all follow her further into the cave. Caio has a knowing smile on his face as we reach a ledge that Marina boosts herself up and onto. “Come on,” she says.

I brace my hands on the rock in front of me, wondering how the hell she just did that. May and Heath make their way up from another spot.

“There’s a notch in the rock you can put your foot on to help you get up,” Caio says from beside me.

I lightly move my foot around looking for it, trying not to graze my foot against the rock. “Where?”

“I can show you. Do you mind?” Then his hands are on my thigh under the water. I nod, and he maneuvers my leg to theright spot where my foot finds a little step that I use to push myself up onto the rock. He quickly follows me up.

“Thanks.” He just nods in response as we follow over to where Marina is standing with May and Heath.

As I sidle up next to my best friend my eyes catch on what they’re all looking at. I let out a little gasp as I look down at a rock pool in front of me. It’s big and filled with bursts of color. Pink and orange coral create castles under the water, with green kelp acting as flags waving in between them. And sitting on the sand at the bottom of the pool are octopuses. Blue tentacles all curled up next to each other. I can’t take my eyes off of it, it looks like a different world down there.

My fingers spark and my stomach drops at the feeling. I look down to see Caio’s knuckles brushing against mine. “Pretty cool, isn’t it?”

“They come here to breed,” Marina says. “But over the years we see more and more of them here out of that season. They’ve come to like it here, just like we have.”

“It’s amazing.” I feel a sudden breeze over my knuckles and realize Caio’s hand is gone. I look up to him. He opens his mouth and then shuts it, obviously thinking better of what he was going to say. His eyes look past me to the cave entrance.

“I’m going to go check on Rafael, okay?” He flicks a few beads of water at me from his fingers before he jumps off the rocks and starts swimming towards the cave entrance, back to the boat where Rafael stayed.

“We should probably get going anyway, it’s getting late,” Marina says after a while of us all staying in silence, watching the underwater world in front of us. We begin to make our way towards the end of the cave, towards where Caio and Rafael are waiting. I still stumble when I think about where we are and how we got here, but every day we spend here I feel a little lighter. A little more grounded. A little more like I’m going to strugglewhen it gets to the end of summer, and we have to leave this place.

chapter twelve

ISLA

We swimout of the Cave entrance to the sky painted in strokes of peach and lavender. The contrast scratches an itch in my brain, it’s so beautiful. It’s the first sunset I’ve seen since we’ve been here. I’ve either crashed early or been at the bar when the sun goes down. I’m so glad we didn’t go back earlier, or we would’ve missed this. Even if we saw it, it wouldn’t have been like this.

I’m floating in the middle of the ocean with nothing around for miles but the sea and the sky. I take a moment where I am to appreciate the show that the sky is putting on for us. The sun is peeking just above the horizon, the shining glow tiptoeing across the surface of the water.

The sunset spans across the whole sky, Caio was right in saying that there’s no other place like this. I couldn’t describe its beauty even if I tried. I could only hope to try and recreate this one day. I try to take one of those mental pictures to keep for the day that I pick up a paintbrush again.

I make my way over to the boat where everyone else is climbing back on board.

“I told you, didn’t I?” Caio is holding out his hand for me, obviously noting my admiration.

I shake my head. “It’s incredible.”

I take his hand as I climb the stairs up to the deck. Before I know it, a towel is being wrapped around my shoulders from behind.

“Thank you,” I say as Caio steps away.

“You’re welcome.”

I turn again to look at the view before the sun disappears and run inside to grab my phone to take a photo, I can see the painting of this so clearly in my head, and I haven’t had the real urge to do any art since I’ve been here, but I want the reference just in case I get home and decide to pick up that sketchbook that Nora gave me.

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