Free Falling In by Avery Stark Page A

passed by with their long, arched roots dipped
like hesitant toes into the ocean.
    “That
sounds-”
    “Pretty
fucking cool?”
    Audrey
chuckled and nodded her head.
    “Yeah, I
guess it does.”
    It
didn’t take long to reach the abandoned island, though the gently rolling waves
didn’t help much as they paddled up to a dock that showed its age.  Half of its
boards already gave up and dangled from where they once proudly sat.  Liam took
off his shoes and socks, then hopped out and pulled the kayak up onto the
pearly white sand, which was studded with hundreds of untouched shells.
    When
then boat was secure, he extended his hand to Audrey and said with a smirk,
“Now get the hell out of my boat.”
    She
climbed up to the front and took his hand.  In seconds, her feet touched down
on dry land and Liam turned back to pull the kayak up even higher.
    “There,”
he said and sat down on the dock to put his shoes back on.  “It gets better, I
promise.”
    Audrey
eyed the way that the toned muscles in his arm flexed as he tied the laces back
together in neat, double-knotted bows and dusted the extra sand off of his
ankles.  By the time that he stood back up, she had to tear her eyes away
before she ended up looking like a creep.
    “You
ready?”
    “I was
born ready, my friend.”
    Liam led
the way to where the wooden boards of the tiny, forgotten pier gave way to the
glittering sand, which in turn relented to firmer, grassier patches.  He pushed
past a massive, willowy-looking branch that blocked the way, finally allowing
Audrey to see the first part of the forgotten town: the graveyard.
    Much as
they stood over a hundred years before, rectangular mounds of bricks sat
scattered across the tree-shaded patch of land.  All of them faced the same
direction and some were higher than others.  A few even still had the names and
dates.  Audrey leaned over one to get a better look.
    She
reached a hand out and wiped away a wet layer of leaves, but as soon as the
letters and numbers came into focus, she couldn’t make sense of them.  Behind
her, Liam had moved in close enough for her to feel the steamy heat radiating
off of his tight body.  It distracted her so wholly that she gave up on reading
the head stone all together.
    “This
really is something,” she said and straightened her back.  When she did, her
shoulder bumped into Liam’s golden chest.  On the sides of where the thin strap
of her shirt covered, Audrey’s skin met his.
    It felt
like heaven.
    “Yeah. 
This place just feels unreal every time I come out here.”
    He
squeezed her hand and pulled her away from the decrepit, moldy head stone.
    “Do you
take all of your dates to graveyards?”
    He
peeked back with a grin.
    “Nah,
you’re special like that.”
    “I don’t
know if I should be flattered or concerned.”
    Liam
shrugged his powerful shoulders and continued to pull her deeper into the
town.  Along the way, small shacks were scattered in a hap-hazard fashion, some
in a bigger state of disrepair than others.  They were obviously peoples’
homes, given away by the tangled clothes lines that still hung in front of a
few of them.
    “Here,”
he said and pointed to the only building around that still had a roof.  “Look
at this.”
    They
stopped short of climbing a set of sinking stairs and peered in through the
door.  Inside, dozens of small desks had been pushed up and piled against the
wall.  Where the windows once were, rectangular holes in the building’s wood facade
were all that remained, allowing the little light that made it past the trees
to filter in and illuminate softly-swirling clouds of dust and pollen.
    “This
was the schoolhouse?”
    “Yep.  I
don’t think that anyone was actually in here when the storm hit, but it’s still
kind of creepy.”
    Audrey
looked to where one end of the chalkboard had been torn down and sat on the
wood floor, splintered and cracked.
    “You
think so?”
    “Of
course.  You should see it at