Emerald Isle

Three. Souvenirs

I wake up with a headache, white linen sheets pulled over my head not thick enough to block out the sound of the ocean. I left my window open by mistake, and a timid breeze dances through and cools my room down. The first thing that hits me when I awake is anxiety. I remember telling harry my real name. I shouldn't have gotten into a car with him that first night. Being in a car with tinted windows late at night makes me feel like I could go anywhere, and disappear. I feel safe to speak when I'm alone with him, but I have to remind myself that I can't trust him. Rich people are different, they know they're above the law, and I can't trust him to have good intentions. 

Mia and Sophie don't seem suspicious of me at all. They saw me get ready last night, and they know where I was.  I remind myself that Casper is the only option here, and I wait for his call. 

He calls me late in the evening. Casper is not an incredibly important man in this cartel, and that is why he's so easy. The idea is that he is important enough to flout his status and want notoriety and attention, but low enough that he is easily accessible. I wouldn't be able to just walk up to the real ring leader, he'd be much much harder to find. When my phone rings with a local number, I wait three rings before I pick it up. 

"Hello?"

"Is this Evelyn?" 

"It is. This must be Casper." I am in awe at the lack of chemistry we have, and I wonder if its just my nerves. 

"I'd love to see you again, take you out on a real date." His voice is raspy but not particularly low, and I pretend to giggle a little, before I tell him yes. We make plans to have dinner two days from now, and I save his number in my phone after we hang up. Maybe its because I know who he really is, but I can't muster any sort of excitement about the "date". Its all too forced and contrived. My mind wanders to Harry, and I imagine letting him take me on date. He'd ask a lot of questions like he always does, and I'd feel seen not just looked at. I felt like Casper was looking at me, and I felt like Harry was actually seeing me. Rolling my eyes at the cliche, I toss my phone back onto my bed, and pull the blinds shut. For the next two days, I don't have to do anything while I wait for this date. If I rush anything, he might get suspicious. Instead, I tell myself that I can have the next two days to pretend to be on vacation. I pull on a pair of comfortable jeans and a white t-shirt, clothes I brought from home that have been worn by the real me. Clothes I bought myself back before I got into this mess. 

I find myself walking out the back door onto the slightly damp sand. It seems that it just rained, and the sky is still clouded and blotting out the last few hours of sun. The overcast weather is easy on the eyes, and the grey-blue color of the sky almost melts into the ocean where they meet on the horizon. I wander towards the water and just stand and stare it down, wishing I could swim out to an island somewhere and just live the rest of my life in peace. Because of the rainfall earlier, all of the sand is sort of damp, and sticking to my feet and the bottom of my jeans. That, coupled with my windblown hair is making me look disheveled, but more like a real person, not a carefully crafted image. 

I decide to walk by his house, because I am stupid. He wasn't out on his porch, and I breathe a sigh of relief. His house is all shuttered up, dark color pallet in direct opposition of the light sand and cool blue sea just a few yards from his back door. Truthfully, I like living near him. The idea of him feels within reach, when I can see his dark looming house in the distance from my bedroom window. I know I'm romanticizing him, but I can't help it; we are both curious about the other. I don't know a thing about him, except that I want to know him. He doesn't seem concerned with the intense party culture surrounding the coast. I'm sure he sees thousands of tourist girls flooding the sand when the weather turns warm, looking for excitement, a summer fling to whisper about for years to come. I'm sure he's been curious about plenty of girls before me, and will be curious about plenty of girls after me. But for these three months, I want to believe that maybe something could've come out of it, if things had been different.