Free Locked by Parker Witter Page B

make other things right. The chief wants me to be their Healer. He wants me to ascend to the position.”
    My hands are still dripping water, and I wipe them on my dress. “Ascend? You’re not a king, Noah.” Something flashes across his face, but it’s slow enough that I can catch it. “Are you?”
    â€œIt’s a high position,” Noah says. “The highest in the tribe. Higher than chief. My people believed—”
    â€œ Your people?” I shake my head. Now I’m angry. Angry at Noah for learning all this without telling me. Angry that while we’ve been moving around this cabin like strangers for the past few weeks he’s been building a life here, one I’m not a part of.
    â€œAugust,” Noah says. His voice is soft. “If I accept my role, I can help. I can do good. I can set the balance back. You see how the island is changing already with me here. They’re dying, August. Without me, they won’t last another ten years. If I stay. If we stay—you and I can…” He looks at me, and then down at the floor.
    â€œWe can what?”
    He holds his eyes to meet mine. “Be together. The Healer sets the natural order of the tribe and the island. If I step into the role, things will be the way they should. I can control that. It wants you to go because it thinks you’re going to take me with you.”
    â€œAnd then what?” I say. “So you have a purpose here and I’m just—”
    â€œWith me,” he says. He steps closer to me and places his hands on my waist.
    â€œIs that what you want?” I ask.
    â€œI want you to be safe,” he says. “I want to do what’s right.” He moves his thumb back and forth over my hipbone. I want to take his hands in mine, but I don’t. I stay still. Because I can tell he’s not done talking. “I don’t want to lose you again.”
    â€œAgain? Noah, I’ve been right here. You didn’t lose me; you turned away from me.”
    But I see his face, and I know that’s not what he’s talking about. He’s referring to something else, something that happened long before we landed on this island. All at once I see Ed and Noah on my doorstep. I feel the flowers in Noah’s hands. I see his eyes—shining, but hopeless. I hear Ed’s confession—“I came here tonight because I want to be with you”—and I feel the way I did that night: confused. Like it’s coming out of the wrong lips. Because it was.
    â€œThe night Ed asked me to be his girlfriend,” I say. “You showed up first. You weren’t there for him. You were there for me.” I can hardly believe it but as I say the words I know they’re true.
    Noah exhales. “August…” he starts.
    â€œAnd that fight I saw you guys have a week before we left. You weren’t really fighting about college. You were fighting about me. I heard you. I heard you say ‘Maybe after this we’d be even.’ You let him have me. You traded me like a piece of property. I just don’t understand why.”
    Noah’s face clouds. “It wasn’t like that,” he says. “I didn’t—”
    â€œTell me it’s not true,” I say, my voice rising. “Tell me you didn’t show up at my house that night two years ago because you wanted to be with me, too.”
    I think about everything before that and everything that came after. About how heartbroken I was. About how stupid I thought I had been to ever think it could have been different. That all of our history could have led to love on his side, too.
    â€œYes,” Noah says. “It’s true.”
    We stare at each other for a moment, both afraid to blink.
    â€œEd,” I say, my jaw tense. “I can’t believe he’d do that. I can’t believe—”
    â€œThat he loved you, too?” Noah says. “Come on, you know