Chapter 9
Maya
I've had my share of scary dreams, but the one I had that night was defiantly the cream of the crop.
In my dream I was on this beautiful cruise ship, I had my best friends by my side, we laughed and had a wonderful time. We played games, swam with dolphins, surfed and drove the jet skies. I even had a summer romance with one of the island boys we had meet that day. I remember coming back to the ship after a bonfire we had, to find Josh sitting on one of the lounge chairs on the deck with a guitar. He was staring out at the ocean and strumming a beautiful tune.
I didn't want to disturb him, so I tried to tip toe around to the entrance hall without him noticing. But, I tripped over one of the pool noodles lying on the deck. As I fell I threw out my hands to stop my head from hitting the floor, but in doing so I sprained my wrist, I could feel the pain moving up my arm and let out a scream. I could still move my fingers and, although it stung, it wasn't that sore to do so, so it couldn't of been broken. As I stood I felt extremely dizzy, and swayed a bit, like I was drunk and then fell flat on my bum. "Maya! Are you alright?" Josh had shouted out of worry. I couldn't help but laugh at myself for being so clumsy.
"Yeh, I'm fine," I laughed as he helped me up and lead me to a lounge chair. "Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb your peaceful moment," I said as I blushed and looked down at the floorboards to embarrassed to look him in the eyes. "Its alright, I was finishing up anyway," Josh lied, I knew he had lied cause he has this tell, he starts to play with the ring that his brother gave him as a promise to keep him safe. "You know you a terrible liar right?" I told him, he chuckled and looked out at sea once again. "What gave me away?" he asked as he looked back at me. "You play with your ring that Mr. Matthews gave you," I told him. "Huh," he said and smiled at me.
Gosh I loved it when he smiled, it was like nothing else mattered and you were the only reason for him to smile. It had always made me feel special, until I had seen him give that same smile to millions of other girls. We stared at each other for a while, I wasn't sure how long cause I was really lost in his eyes. "So how was the bonfire?" Josh asked after a while. "Boring," I lied.
In actual fact it was incredible, Lucas and Riley had the best, most romantic moment that teenagers could ever have. Smackle and Farckle danced, well tried to dance, and I flirt with the island boy. We danced, surfed and even kissed by the fire. It couldn't have been a better evening. Well, okay that was a lie too. The only thing that would of made it better, was if Josh had taken the place of the island boy.
"Now, you lying," Josh said as he chuckled. "What gave me away?" I asked the question he asked me. "You also have a tell, you play with that locket that your mom got for you on your Birthday last year," he said as he held the locket in the palm of his hand and looked into my eyes. "So how was it really?" he asked as he dropped the locket and let it fall back to its spot, resting on my chest. "It could have been better," I told him truthfully. "Oh yeh? How so?" he asked with a smirk on his face.
Damn, he knows me to well. All I could do, as an answer was blush like the reddest tomato on the planet. Josh laughed and pulled me closer to him. So close that our faces were only inches apart. "This better?" he breathed as he looked into my eyes for any sign of protest. "A little," I tried to say, but it got stuck somewhere in my throat, so it came out as more of a whimper than actual words. Josh just chuckled and put his hand on my check and leaned in for a kiss.
But at that same beautiful moment, a gunshot went off and I suddenly felt unbearably pain in my left shoulder. I looked down and saw blood pouring from my shoulder. As I looked away, and looked at Josh I saw that there were others on the ship. They all held guns and they were all pointing at me.
Suddenly Josh got up and pulled out a gun, I thought how was one gun going to do anything against the thirty that was trained on us. But as fast as the thought came, it left, because as Josh stood he turned and pointed the gun at me. "I'm sorry Maya," he said, but the look in his eyes told me a different story completely. I had fallen for his trap perfectly, I was exactly were I had to be.
Just as Josh was about to pull the trigger, a man shouted: "STOP! Keep her alive." Josh lowered the gun and stepped a side for the man, who crouched down in front of me and whispered something in my ear.
As he pulled back from whispering in my ear, I saw his face, and that was when everything flooded in. All the pain, emotions and lose of blood all came down on me like a tidal wave. My body couldn't take it anymore, and nor could my mind. So I collapsed on that deck of the ship and passed out right at his feet.
His face was still clear in my find, and so were his words. "Hello Maya, time for that father-daughter day."
It was my Father.
I woke myself up screaming my lungs out. Next thing I knew someone wrapped their arms around me and held me close to their body until I realized that I was awake and it was all just a dream. I broke down in this person's arms and just cried into their chest, while they stroked my hair and tried to comfort me as much as they could. Eventually I run out of water to cry out and fell back a sleep. Hopefully to mentally exhausted to dream anymore.
Josh
Holding Maya in my arms as she screamed and thrashed around, and then eventually broke down was one of the hardest things I ever did. And I have had to do some very difficult things. But feeling so helpless and not being able to stop what was ever hurting her, was excruciating.
As soon as she fell back to sleep, I ran to get my phone that was in my bag by the door. I grabbed it and walked out onto the balcony and called Cory. I didn't have to wait long until Cory answered.
"Josh? What's wrong?" he said in a very urgent, I'm ready to come fetch you in the middle of the ocean, voice. "I'm fine," I said to ease his mind. "But Maya…Maya not so much, Cory I think we messed up, we messed up big time! She's starting to remember Cory…" I said as I looked out at the sea worried about what was going to unfold on this ship. "What do you mean she's starting to remember?" Cory asked with a hint of anxiety in his voice.
"I mean she's starting to remember what happened two years ago".
