Island Vibes

19. just gets better

Luckily, the café's bathroom fittings were in decent enough condition that they'd been left intact, totally plumbed in. We still needed to fix up the rest of the room – flooring, wallpapering, decorating – but the toilets and sinks themselves were fine.

I asked Noah to give me a minute and disappeared to rinse my blue hand clean. Well, clean-ish. My hand still had a faint tinge of color to it even after I was done, and it was hard to properly clean my face off just using the sink, but I was confident that no one driving by us would mistake me for an alien. The color had disappeared enough that you only really knew it was there if you were looking for it. Blue flecks were still stuck in my hair, however, but... I'd looked worse, for sure. I could rock some blue highlights.

I reappeared and Noah gasped.

"Wow, who is she?" Noah said, as if we were currently starring on a makeover show. He cracked himself up while I rolled my eyes, and then he jangled his keys at me again. The ugly mass of kitschy keyrings clanked together, and I wondered how he could even stand to walk around with that mountain of garbage attached to his keys.

"Where are we headed?" I asked, leading the way out to his car seeing as he clearly had the keys ready to lock up.

"It's a surprise."

I turned to glance back at him over my shoulder, and sure enough: big dumb grin.

"Of course it is," I said, but I managed to refrain from bugging him for more details. Old Callie would've bothered him for the duration of the entire journey about the destination. Well – Old Callie might've refused to get in the car at all until she knew. But Island Callie? She could go with the flow. She was learning to chill.

I still sighed a little as I tied the top of my borrowed overalls around my waist, turning the ensemble into some paint-covered baggy pants and a cute top. Clambering up into the van, I got to have a proper look at Noah as he approached, and I started laughing.

"Wait-- are you really going out with paint on your face?" I asked, trying not to giggle at the sight.

He got into the driver's seat and clicked his seatbelt into place.

"Ah, who cares?" Noah said, bringing the engine to life and fussing with the radio for a moment. "Blue is the new black, right?"

"Wrong," I said, but I was grinning at him while I said it.

We drove for around twenty minutes, and I stared out at the scenery the entire time. I wished I had a car of my own to get around in. Maluhia was a beautiful little town, but there wasn't a lot to do. I'd been spending all my days at the café with Noah and all of my nights in front of the TV, unsure of how to explore by myself. A car would've made things less daunting. The island had so much more to offer that I wasn't getting to see.

It reminded me of how Noah had his world here, and I just had Noah. Noah had the entire island of Kipuka, where I had the sleepy town of Maluhia.

I realized we were starting to head up an incline. We'd been gently climbing the roads since leaving the beachside towns behind, their bright sand left there with the clear blue ocean. We were heading into thicker flora, where the nature around us had been cut in half by the road. As we got higher still, I sat up in my seat, leaning ever closer to the window.

"Pretty, right?"

I nodded, Noah's voice not stirring me from my staring. I could see beautiful little villages scattered between the towns and bigger settlements. Places that looked more like cities were further off still, looming in the distance. This island had so much to offer and... I was spending all of my time here seeing the inside of a rundown café.

"It just gets better," Noah said, and I finally looked back at him.

He was smiling out at the road, gently drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel to the song on the radio. It was all in Spanish, and I couldn't make out a word of it. Why had I even taken Spanish in high school? Noah mouthed along with a sentence or two every once in a while, and I felt a smile hook up one of the corners of my mouth. I wanted to hear him sing along, but I guessed he was holding back on my account. I hoped he was a terrible singer. He couldn't be cute, handy, and a talented singer.

Only a minute or so later, I saw the road begin to plateau. Looking down again reminded me just how high up we'd gone, and I wondered what the road actually led to. As Noah pulled in, I realized the answer was-- well, nothing.

The road opened out into a reasonably large open expanse. He drove us over to the right, where some lines were marked on the ground for visiting vehicles. A few low wooden barriers lined the sides, which made sense considering how high up we were, but there was no gift shop or snack bar or anything.

"Is this it?" I asked, blinking around at the nothingness and then back at Noah.

"Yep," he laughed. "You'll love it."

He took his keys, silencing the engine and the radio, and popped the door open, swinging himself out. I figured I should follow his lead, if this really was it, and got out of the van too.

Noah wandered slowly over to the left, nearing some of the barriers. He looked back at me as I stepped out, and the wind hit me instantly. It wasn't too strong, but the breeze was much cooler and more persistent out here.

I followed him over to the edge, but my steps faltered before I could get there.

"Holy shit," I breathed, the words barely audible as they escaped from my mouth.

It was unbelievable. Before us was a sweeping valley of lush green, small villages dotted among all the foliage. It seemed so vast, even though we could see where the land ended at the coastline and the cliffs of the island.

I stared, trying to take it all in and memorize the scenery. I wanted a mental postcard of this saved forever.