The milk threatens to shoot out of my nose as I snort at Charlie's joke. He chokes on his cereal, coughing and beating his chest as I try not to follow suit.

"Don't you dare spit that up on my lounge chair!"

He swallows, wiping his lips with the back of his hands. "Thanks for being so concerned for me. It's not like I could have died or anything."

"You're so dramatic sometimes." I place the bowl on the floor and walk over to the digital clock. The sky is black outside my windows so I know it's late but the numbers show me just how late it is: 11:21pm. We've been hanging out for over six hours. The time has flown by.

"We should wrap it up for tonight," I say, tugging on my curls.

Charlie drops his spoon into the bowl with a frown. "Let me stay for a little while longer. We haven't talked in ages."

I bite my lip, averting my gaze to the door. I've already missed storytime with Jimmy, Aiden, and Jaden - which I will undoubtedly get scolded for by Jimmy. There's no reason to kick him out aside from knowing Aaron usually pops in to say goodnight. "It's getting late."

"You got a curfew or something?"

I trudge back to my bed, rubbing my forehead. I almost forget that I haven't explicitly told Charlie about Aaron and I. Now it feels too late to. "It's not that I want to kick you out. It'll just look bad."

"To who?"

I think about the sketch of Aaron tucked in the draw behind him. My cheeks are warm.

"Tell me something." He sits up suddenly, leaning his elbows on his knees and clasping his fist in his hand. "This thing about going back on the Jolly Roger, was that your idea or your boyfriend's?"

I don't even know where to start for a response. I fumble for an answer, unable to decide whether to address the concept of going back or his correct assumption I have a boyfriend. If only he knew how much backlash I had gotten from said boyfriend for wanting to go. The implication that I would go back to that horror show simply at the request of a boy makes my blood boil.

He takes my silence as guilt and continues with a snappy attitude that he has never used with me. "I've known about Aaron for a while. By the way, thanks for not telling me about that either."

I match his tone, clenching my fists to keep from sending something flying at his head. "It's not like that's any of your business."

"Oh, sorry. I assumed we told each other things."

Do we? Telling each other things is an entirely new trend in our relationship from where I'm standing. For the majority of the time I've known him, I kept a giant secret from him - the secret that had brought me to this island in the first place. I also had never told him that I was practically head over heels in love with him from the day I met him and he never had the decency to tell me he'd never feel that for me. It shouldn't be surprising that I need time to get accustomed to this new openness policy.

"I was going to tell you," I say, trying to deflate the tension. Charlie and I have never shied from a healthy screaming match before but none of those times were we in a house full of sleeping children.

"You wanna know how I found out? Jimmy told me. Kids say the craziest things." He gets a mischievous glint to him that is more unkind than teasing. It lets me know that this will be funny to him and only him.

"What did he say?"

He laughs but it better resembles a scoff. "He saw Aaron giving you mouth to mouth resuscitation in the hallway."

It takes everything in me not to hide my face. I should have told him myself. Why didn't I tell him?

His voice is gentler when he speaks again. "Listen, I think your decision to go back is brave if you're doing it for the kids. I just want to make sure this decision came from you."

"It did."

I want nothing more than to see all the people hurt by the Jolly Roger have freedom and peace. I want Luka to be able to attend school and use that amazing mind of his, for Willow to find out what happened to Micheal and John, for Shawn to no longer live in a constant fear that provokes anger, and for Jimmy to have a mother.

"Do you love him?" Charlie says it so softly and hesitantly that for a second I don't think it came from him. He peers up at me from under his eyebrows and all at once my chest is filled with sorrow - maybe even regret.

"No. I don't even know him well enough to determine that yet." I scratch my head and after some thought, I add, "Maybe I do love him but I don't think I'm in love with him. I don't know. I'm not sure how to tell."

He stands up and paces the room, running his knuckles over the furniture. He gets distressingly close to the draw where Aaron's sketch is kept. "Maybe it's not my place to say, but I don't like you two together. I've seen how you are around him."

He's been on this island for a handful of days and he swears he has everything figured out. He swears he has me figured out!

"You're so full of it."

"I'm being serious. You look at him like he's a mythical being! I'm sure his flight only drives it home for you. You're infatuated."

In spite of me, my powers knock open the draw of the vanity. It's contents spill out on the floor in front of Charlie. To him, it must seem like the drawer was too full and burst open. At least there's one less thing I need to explain.

Charlie immediately picks it up. He shakes his head at it, the scoff-like laugh making a reappearance.

"Nice, Dove. This is really nice work."

He's been sarcastic with me many times but never has it ever made me want to cry. I haven't done anything wrong for him to act this way.

I hold back my tears. "Excuse me but he's been a welcome distraction, okay? I'm going to board a ship I might not come out of in less than two days! Sorry for having some fun."

"You can't use a human being as a distraction." He places the sketch back in the draw and slams it shut. "You should be with him because you actually care for him and because he cares for you. There should be chemistry, you should have things in common, really know each other . . . "

I suppose Charlie would know. He's dated plenty of girls before, girls who weren't me. Aside from that, he makes it sound easy. With all the commotion going on and how quick things are moving, it's difficult to tell what's happening because I want it to and what's happening because I am going along with things. Are Aaron and I only more than friends because he was the one to show up at my window that night? Because he saved me? Maybe José's light hearted remarks had more weight to them than I had given him credit for.

I shrug, slumping against my bedpost. "I guess I've never had that many examples of what it looks like to have someone care for me."

Charlie looks like he's been slapped. "I care for you, Dove. What do I have to do to make you see that?"

The sensation of hanging over a cliff encompasses me. There's a chance I could fall but there's also a chance someone will reach out their hand and pull me back up.

I think I want to fall.

"I should go," he says. "Don't want to upset the boyfriend."

I fall but not towards the stars. I fall towards the ground. It's a long enough drop to make me consider why I ever thought it was possible it'd up any other way. Gravity drags you down and that is what this room is filled with. Gravity. The gravity of having someone you love be so close to someone you hate, the gravity of senselessly keeping secrets, the gravity of letting chance after chance to be honest slip through your fingers.

The gravity of loving someone you can never seem to grasp.

The door shuts behind him.

He's had many opportunities to be honest but so have I. Perhaps he has told me over and over again how he feels. Perhaps I've never been listening.

I care about you, Dove.

Maybe that's as good as an 'I love you'.

+++

I spend the next day in Logan's train cart hide-out. Logan, Luka and Jimmy come along with me. We listen to the old CDs that were stashed in an overhead compartment and flip through the other junk. The discs are all a little scratched, causing the music to stutter and freeze. Jimmy turns it into a solo game of freeze dance.

On our way back to the castle, Luka stops at the infamous tree. It's the tree he made me climb up in fear of Shawn's sword and the tree Aaron calls our spot. He tells Logan and Jimmy to go on while he hoists himself up onto the first branch. He holds his hand out for me to take. When I hesitate, he draws his thick eyebrows to his glasses.

"I won't let you climb up to the top this time. I promise."

I smile, taking his hand so he can help me up. We sit a few feet above the ground, swinging our legs and enjoying the view. Luka sighs heavily, glancing over at me with a lazy smirk.

"So when we chased you up here and you got stuck, Aaron got you down by flying?"

I nod. "Bingo."

Why didn't we tell them about Aaron's powers earlier again? I know Luka would love to hear about the things I saw on Aaron and I's journeys around the island. It's also a shame José never got to find out. It would have blown his mind.

Suddenly, it hits me that I'll never have enough time to tell Luka about it or to find out more about his life before the Jolly Roger. I might never know what he wants it to be after. He'll slip through my fingers too quickly and be gone from my life too early like José.

"I'm going to miss you," I blurt out.

Luka laughs and bumps his shoulder into mine. "You really wear your heart on your sleeve, don't you?"

"And you're too cool to admit you'll miss me? Because I know you will."

"Then there's no need for me to say it, is there?"

I throw my head back and stare up at the sky. Luka was kind to me from the very beginning. He has always been in my corner and ready to go to bat for me. I'm happy to know that tomorrow I'll get the chance to go to bat for him - for him and all the others like him.

An idea pops into my head. It's impulsive but so was my decision to follow Aaron over here and good cane from that. Besides, if I can trust anybody with this information, it's Luka. 

I stare at my hands while my heart flutters in my chest. "If I show you something, will you promise not to tell anyone?"

Luka turns over in his seat and straddles the tree branch to face me.

"You're trusting me with a secret?"

"Yes." I make the final decision to go through with it in my head. "We're bonded together by cookies. I eat the strawberry ones, you eat the vanilla ones - "

"And we split the chocolate ones in José's honor," he finishes.

"Exactly." The wind tosses my hair. I've come to realize that not all bursts of wind are made the same. Some stem from the abilities Nakpuna's poison gave me. "You can't break the circle of cookies."

"Alright. I won't tell."

I mirror Luka's position on the tree, grinning big. I point to a spot below us. "See that flower over there?"

The dandelion stands alone in between the blades of grass. All of the white fluffy seeds remain in tack.

"Yeah, I see it."

I pluck the flower with a flick of my wrist and lift it up to us. It floats over to the spot between us and I scatter the seeds by uncurling my fist. Luka's glasses droop down to his nose but he doesn't make a move to adjust them. I lift them up with my finger and laugh.

"I hope you made a wish."

Luka gulps, blinking rapidly. After a moment, he shakes his head as if to clear the fog. "If this is your way of asking me out, I'm going to have to politely decline. Your look is a bit too . . . artsy for me."

I give him a hard shove that knocks him out of the tree. He lands on his side and I let myself drop down beside him. He turns over onto his back, tucking his hands behind his head.

"And you're still going back?" he asks. "With your powers and all?"

I lay down beside him. The grass tickles my legs and neck. "It's not like they'll be testing for these. Besides, they might come in handy."

It would be epicly satisfying to use the researchers creation against them. I try not to fantasize about effortlessly launching one of those giant crates at Nakpuna.

Luka sighs, gazing up at the clouds with a dreamy look in his eyes. "I hope they do."