Sungas e Segredos

The salt hit me before the heat did. That thick, wet smell of ocean and rot and something sweet I couldn't name yet. I stepped off the ferry and the wooden dock groaned under my weight, a sound I trusted more than the smiling man who'd handed me a flower lei and a glass of something pink.

I didn't drink it. I gave it to a seagull. The bird looked at me like I'd insulted its mother.

Vacation Island. That's what they called it. Not a name, just a description. Like calling a dog "Animal." But the postcards weren't lying. The water was that blue. The sand was that white. The women in the bar wore flowers in their hair and the men walked around shirtless like they'd forgotten clothes existed. I fit right in.

I'd brought one bag. One pair of shorts. One pair of sandals that were already falling apart. And one swimsuit, a little number I'd bought in a shop run by an old woman who'd laughed when I asked for something bigger. She'd handed me this scrap of blue fabric and said, "Good luck."

The luck part made sense later.

The island wasn't big. A strip of white sand shaped like a crooked finger, maybe three miles long. Palm trees bent toward the water like they were trying to drink it. A few huts made of bamboo and thatch. A bar called The Salty End that had no walls and a roof made of corrugated tin. A volleyball net stretched between two palms. The whole place smelled like coconut oil and sunburn.

I dropped my bag on the sand and stretched. My shoulders popped. My back cracked in three places. The flight had been eight hours, then a smaller plane, then the ferry. I was stiff and tired and ready to do nothing for seven days.

"You must be Varka."

The voice came from behind me. Low. Flat. Like someone reading a menu they'd memorized years ago.

I turned.

He was skinny. That was the first thing I noticed. Skinny in a way that made you wonder if he ate. His shoulders were narrow, his arms thin, his chest barely a suggestion beneath a white linen shirt that hung open. His skin was pale, almost translucent in the harsh sun, like he'd been raised in a basement. Dark hair fell across his forehead, straight and fine. His eyes were gray. Not blue-gray or green-gray. Just gray. Like a sky that couldn't decide if it was going to rain.

He looked about nineteen. Maybe twenty. But his face had that stillness old people have, the kind that comes from seeing things you shouldn't have seen yet.

"I'm Knife," he said.

I laughed. I couldn't help it. "Your name is Knife?"

"K-N-I-F-H-E. Pronounced the same." He didn't smile. "I'm your guide."

"I didn't ask for a guide."

"The island assigns one to every new guest." He said it like he'd said it a thousand times. Which he probably had. "I'll show you where to sleep, where to eat, what to avoid. The first day is free. After that, you pay."

"Pay with what?"

"Whatever I ask for."

I looked at him. Really looked. The gray eyes didn't blink. The thin mouth didn't twitch. He was serious. Completely, utterly serious. A kid who looked like he'd blow away in a strong wind, talking like he ran the place.

"Alright, Knife." I said his name slow, tasting it. "Show me where to sleep."

He turned and walked. No waiting to see if I'd follow. His steps were short and precise, feet bare in the sand. I grabbed my bag and caught up in three strides. My shadow swallowed his.

The hut they gave me was the last one on the row. Small. A bed with a mosquito net. A table with a candle. A hook on the wall for clothes. The bathroom was a curtained-off corner with a bucket and a hose. Luxury, really.

Knife stood in the doorway. "The beach is best in the morning. Before the tourists wake up. The water is clear then."

"Tourists? There's like twelve people here."

"Twelve is too many." He said it flat. "Dinner is at seven. The food is good. The drinks are strong. Don't drink the water from the tap."

"Anything else?"

He looked at me. His eyes dropped to my chest, then lower. Stopped. His face didn't change, but something in his posture shifted. A slight lean backward. A tightening around his mouth.

"That swimsuit," he said.

"What about it?"

"You might want to wear shorts over it."

And then he left. No goodbye. No see you later. Just a skinny kid in a white shirt walking away across the sand.

I looked down at myself. The blue fabric barely covered anything. The old woman had been right about the luck part. It was small. Almost obscenely small. The kind of thing you wore if you wanted people to look.

I grinned.

I didn't wear shorts.

The first day was a blur of salt and sun and rum. I swam until my arms ached. I lay on the sand until my back burned. I drank something called a Sunset Hammer that tasted like pineapple and regret. I met a woman named Coral who laughed at everything I said and a man named Brick who challenged me to arm wrestling and lost twice. I ate fish that had been caught that morning, grilled over a fire, served on a banana leaf. I felt the knot in my chest loosen for the first time in months.

Knife appeared at the edge of things. Never close. Never far. I'd look up from my drink and see him standing by the bar, arms crossed, watching. I'd turn from the volleyball net and catch him walking away. He didn't speak. He didn't approach. He just existed at the periphery, a gray-eyed ghost in a white shirt.

On the second day, I found him.

He was sitting on a rock at the far end of the beach, legs pulled up, chin on his knees. The sun was setting, turning the sky orange and pink and purple. The water looked like liquid fire.

I walked up and sat next to him. Not close. Close enough to talk.

"You always watch people like that?" I asked.

"Like what?"

"Like you're studying them."

He didn't answer for a long time. The waves pushed and pulled. A bird called somewhere far away.

"Everyone has a pattern," he said finally. "The way they move. The way they speak. The way they lie. I watch the patterns."

"And what's my pattern?"

He turned his head. Those gray eyes met mine. "You don't hide. You don't apologize. You take up space like you own it." He paused. "You laugh too loud. You drink too fast. You touch people when you talk to them."

"Is that bad?"

"It's not good or bad. It's just what you do."

I laughed. "You're a strange kid, Knife."

"I'm not a kid."

"How old are you?"

"Old enough."

I let it go. We sat in silence as the sun dipped below the horizon. The sky turned dark. The stars came out. I'd forgotten stars could look like that. So many of them. Like someone had spilled a bag of diamonds across the sky.

"You should get back," Knife said. "The path gets dark. People get lost."

"You won't get lost?"

"I know every rock on this island. Every tree. Every shadow." He stood up, dusted sand off his pants. "I'll see you tomorrow."

He walked away. I watched him go. His silhouette was small against the darkening sky. A thin line. A whisper of a person.

I stayed on the rock for another hour. Just watching the stars. Feeling the night air on my skin. Thinking about nothing and everything.

The third day was when things got interesting.

I woke early, before the sun was fully up. The air was cool and damp. The mosquito net had slipped during the night and I'd been bitten in three places. I scratched my shoulder and stumbled outside.

The beach was empty. The water was glass. No wind. No sound except the gentle lap of waves.

I walked down to the water and dropped my shorts. The swimsuit was barely there. A thin strip of blue fabric that held nothing back. I'd bought it because it was ridiculous. Because it made me laugh. Because the old woman had dared me.

I waded in. The water was cold. It woke me up fast. I dove under and came up shaking my head, water streaming down my chest. The sun was just starting to crest the horizon. Pink light spread across the water like a blush.

I floated on my back. Let the water hold me. Felt the salt on my lips. The sun on my face. The absolute peace of being nowhere and no one.

When I opened my eyes, Knife was standing on the beach.

He was holding a coffee cup. Staring. Not trying to hide it. Just standing there, frozen, his gray eyes fixed on me. On the water. On what the water barely covered.

I waved.

He didn't wave back.

I swam to shore. Water sluiced off me as I stood. The swimsuit clung to nothing. The fabric was transparent when wet. I knew this. I'd tested it in the hotel mirror. I didn't care.

"Morning," I said.

Knife's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "Morning."

"Nice day."

He nodded. His eyes didn't leave my waist. Specifically, the right side of my waist. The side where the fabric had slipped. Where something had fallen out.

I looked down. My right testicle was hanging free. Just out there. In the open. Catching the morning breeze like it owned the place.

I laughed.

I couldn't help it. The look on his face. The absolute horror mixed with fascination. The way his ears had turned red while his face stayed pale. The coffee cup trembling in his hand.

I didn't fix it. I let it hang. I stretched my arms over my head and arched my back, letting the morning sun hit every inch of me. My chest was broad. My stomach was hard. My legs were thick. I was built like a brick wall, and I knew it.

"You said something about breakfast?" I asked.

Knife made a sound. It might have been a word. It might have been a dying animal.

I walked past him toward my hut. My wet feet left prints in the sand. I could feel his eyes on my back. On my ass. On the part of me that was still hanging out.

I didn't look back.

But I grinned the whole way.

Breakfast was fish and fruit and bread that tasted like heaven. I ate at a long table under a palm frond roof. Coral sat across from me. Brick sat to my left. A few other guests I hadn't learned the names of yet. The conversation was easy. Laughter was frequent. Someone had brought a bottle of something that wasn't coffee and we passed it around.

Knife sat at the far end of the table. He wasn't eating. He was watching me. His coffee cup was empty but he held it like a shield.

I caught his eye and winked.

He looked away so fast I thought he'd hurt himself.

"Hey, Varka," Brick said. He was a big man, bald, with a scar across his nose. "You play volleyball?"

"I play everything."

"Game after lunch. You and me against Coral and the French guy."

"Which French guy?"

"The one who keeps talking about his yacht."

I laughed. "I'm in."

The game was brutal. The sand was hot. The sun was high. We played for two hours, sweating and swearing and laughing. The French guy was actually good. Coral was better. Brick was a wall at the net. I was everywhere else.

We won. Barely. I collapsed in the sand, chest heaving, salt dripping into my eyes. My swimsuit had shifted again. I didn't bother fixing it. Half of me was out. The other half was barely contained. The French guy kept glancing. Coral kept laughing. Brick just shook his head and handed me a beer.

"You're a menace," Brick said.

"Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"It was to me."

I chugged the beer. It was warm and perfect. I let the empty bottle fall into the sand. I stretched out, arms behind my head, legs spread. The sun was directly overhead. The heat was a blanket.

Knife was standing under a palm tree. Watching.

He was always watching.

I crooked my finger at him.

He didn't move.

I crooked it again.

Slowly, like he was walking to his own execution, he came over. He stopped a few feet away. His arms were crossed. His jaw was tight.

"Sit," I said.

"I'm working."

"Sit anyway."

He didn't sit. He stood there, rigid, looking at a point somewhere above my head.

"You've been watching me since I got here," I said. "Three days. You've barely spoken. You just stare."

"I told you. I watch patterns."

"And what pattern have you found?"

He was quiet for a long time. The waves filled the silence. The sound of Coral laughing somewhere behind us.

"You're not ashamed," he said finally.

"Of what?"

"Of any of it." He gestured vaguely at me. At my body. At the parts of me that were on display. "You walk around like you're the only person on the island. Like no one else's opinion matters. Like you're daring someone to say something."

"They haven't yet."

"They won't. That's the point." His eyes finally met mine. "You know no one will challenge you. You know you're the biggest thing on this beach. So you flaunt it. You push. You see how much you can get away with."

"And what do you see?"

"I see a man who's never been told no."

I sat up. The sand stuck to my back. I looked at him. Really looked. The skinny frame. The pale skin. The gray eyes that held something old and heavy.

"You're wrong," I said.

"Am I?"

"I've been told no plenty of times. I just don't listen."

I stood up. I was a foot taller than him. Twice as wide. I loomed over him, blocking the sun. He didn't step back.

"You want to know the real pattern, Knife?"

He didn't answer.

"The real pattern is that I spent ten years being told what to do. Where to go. When to sleep. When to eat. When to breathe. I spent ten years in a uniform, taking orders from men who'd never held a gun in their lives. I spent ten years being small." I tapped my chest. "I'm not small anymore. And I'm never going back to being small. So yeah. I take up space. I laugh too loud. I let my balls hang out in the morning breeze. Because I can. Because no one can stop me. Because I earned the right to be ridiculous."

He stared at me. Something flickered in his eyes. Not fear. Not anger. Something else. Something I couldn't name.

"You were a soldier," he said.

"I was a lot of things."

"That explains the scars."

I looked down at my chest. The white lines crisscrossing my skin. The puckered circle on my left shoulder. The long slash across my ribs. I'd forgotten them. They were just part of me now.

"Those are nothing," I said. "You should see the ones I can't show you."

His ears went red again.

I laughed. Loud. Long. The sound carried across the beach. Coral looked up. Brick raised his beer. The French guy frowned.

I clapped Knife on the shoulder. He flinched. His body was hard under the soft shirt. Harder than it looked.

"Relax, kid. I'm just messing with you."

"I know."

"Do you? Because you look like you're about to explode."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You're wound tighter than a spring. You need to loosen up. Have a drink. Swim in the ocean. Let something hang out for once."

"That's not going to happen."

"Never say never."

He shook his head. But there was something there. A crack in the armor. A tiny, almost invisible smile at the corner of his mouth.

"I have to go," he said. "There's a new guest arriving."

"Another one?"

"They come every few days. They stay. They leave. The island eats them up and spits them out."

"That's cheerful."

"It's honest."

He turned and walked away. His bare feet left shallow prints in the sand. His shoulders were straight. His back was narrow. He looked like a boy playing at being a man.

But he wasn't a boy. I knew that. You don't get eyes like that from a childhood of sunshine and safety.

That night, I found him again.

The Salty End was full. A fire pit had been lit. Someone had brought a guitar. The music was off-key but enthusiastic. Coral was dancing on a table. Brick was arm wrestling a man twice his age and winning. The French guy was trying to impress a woman who wasn't impressed.

I was in the middle of it all. A drink in each hand. A woman on my lap. Laughter pouring out of me like water from a broken pipe.

Knife was at the edge. As always.

I extracted myself from the woman. Handed my drinks to Brick. Walked through the crowd to where Knife stood.

"Dance with me," I said.

"No."

"Come on. One dance."

"I don't dance."

"Everyone dances."

"Not me."

I grabbed his hand. It was cold. Thin. The bones felt fragile under my grip.

"Let go," he said.

"Dance first."

"I'll bite you."

I laughed so hard I nearly let go. "You'll bite me? What are you, a feral dog?"

"If I have to be."

His eyes were hard. His jaw was set. But his hand was trembling.

I let go.

"Alright. No dancing. But you're drinking with me."

"I don't drink."

"Tonight you do."

I walked to the bar. Grabbed two glasses of something dark and strong. Came back and pressed one into his hand.

"Drink."

"I said I don't—"

"Drink."

He looked at the glass. Looked at me. Looked at the glass again.

Then he threw it back in one gulp.

His face went red. His eyes watered. He coughed so hard I thought he might throw up.

"That's terrible," he gasped.

"That's rum. Good rum. The kind that strips paint."

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes were still watering. But he was looking at me. Really looking. Not watching. Looking.

"Another," he said.

I grinned.

We drank until the fire burned low. Until the music stopped. Until Coral fell asleep on the sand and Brick carried her to her hut. Until the stars spun overhead and the world went soft at the edges.

Knife didn't get drunk. He got loose. His shoulders dropped. His voice got lower. He talked about the island. About the guests who came and went. About the ones who never left.

"There's a graveyard," he said. "On the north end. People die here. Not often. But sometimes."

"How do they die?"

"Heart attacks. Drownings. One man walked into the jungle and never came back."

"That's cheerful."

"It's honest." He looked at me. His eyes were glassy. His cheeks were flushed. "You're different."

"Different how?"

"You're not trying to escape anything. Most people come here running from something. A divorce. A debt. A crime. You came here because you wanted to."

"I came here because I had vacation time."

"That's not the same thing."

"Maybe not."

He was quiet for a moment. The fire popped. Embers rose into the dark sky.

"Your right one keeps falling out," he said.

I looked down. Sure enough. There it was. Hanging out of my swimsuit like it owned the place.

"I know."

"Doesn't it bother you?"

"Nope."

"Not even a little?"

"It's just a body part. Everyone has them. Some are bigger than others. Mine are big. They don't fit in small spaces. So they hang out. The world doesn't end."

He stared at me. Shook his head. Laughed.

It was the first time I'd heard him laugh. It was a small sound. Rusty. Like a door that hadn't been opened in years.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing." He shook his head again. "You're just... nothing I expected."

"Good. Expectations are boring."

We sat in silence as the fire died. The stars wheeled overhead. The waves kept their rhythm. The island breathed around us.

"You should sleep," Knife said. "Tomorrow is the full moon party. Everyone goes. You'll want to be rested."

"Full moon party?"

"You'll see."

He stood up. His legs wobbled. He caught himself on a chair.

"You're drunk," I said.

"I'm not."

"You're swaying."

"I'm testing the wind."

I laughed. Stood up. Put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

"Come on. I'll walk you back."

"I don't need—"

"I know you don't need. I'm offering."

He looked at me. The firelight caught his eyes. Made them look silver. Made him look like something from a story. A creature of the island. A spirit of the shore.

"Fine," he said.

We walked in silence. The path was dark. The sand was cool. The sound of the waves guided us.

His hut was smaller than mine. Tucked between two palm trees. A single candle burned inside.

"Here," he said.

"Here."

He didn't go in. He stood at the door, looking at me. The moonlight made his skin look blue. Made his eyes look like water.

"Thank you," he said.

"For what?"

"For making me drink."

"Anytime."

He nodded. Turned. Pushed open the door.

"Knife."

He stopped.

"Tomorrow. The full moon party. Save me a dance."

He didn't turn around. But I saw his shoulders shake. A silent laugh.

"You're impossible," he said.

"I know."

He went inside. The door closed. The candle went out.

I stood there for a long moment. Feeling the night air. Feeling the rum in my blood. Feeling something else. Something I hadn't felt in a long time.

Curiosity.

I walked back to my hut. The path was dark but I didn't get lost. I knew the way now. I knew the sound of the waves. The shape of the trees. The feel of the sand under my feet.

I lay down on my bed. The mosquito net hung above me like a cloud. I stared at the ceiling and thought about gray eyes and a rusty laugh.

Tomorrow was the full moon party.

I couldn't wait.