My heart skipped a foreboding beat. "What is it?"
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"That night on the boat, Kiran and Taylor realized you and Upton were gone and they started joking around about it. You know, stupid immature crap about where you were ... what you were doing...," he said, avoiding eye contact.
I blushed and looked away.
"But then all of a sudden, Paige grabbed Daniel and pulled him off the craps table and they were all whispering and stuff and then they just disappeared," Sawyer continued, his words tumbling over one another. "They didn't come back until right before Upton and Poppy did."
I swallowed a huge lump in my throat. So Upton had been with Poppy while I was getting almost-killed. What the hell was it with those two?
Focus, Reed. So not the point here.
"So you think... I mean, do you think that Paige or Daniel could've been the one who pushed me?" I asked, my voice quavering.
"I don't know," Sawyer replied firmly. "That's all I saw. And five minutes later Upton realized you hadn't come back to the party and we all started searching the boat. Including Paige and Daniel."
I nodded, my heart slamming against my rib cage. I'd never liked the Ryan twins. Never trusted them. Now it seemed like I had a good reason.
"Should I not have told you?" Sawyer asked, his eyes full of worry.
"No. I mean, yes. It's fine," I said. "It's good to know."
For a long moment, I just let this information sink in. I stared out at the water and felt a wall of fear rising up inside my chest. A couple
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of nights ago I had been out there somewhere, alone and scared and freezing. I had almost died in that ocean. I had always suspected that Poppy might be behind the horse-riding incident and the Jet Ski thing. She was irate that Upton had dumped her and seemed a bit off in general--she'd even disappeared for a couple days without telling anyone. But perhaps I was wrong about her. Was it possible the Ryans were to blame?
"You wanna head back?" Sawyer asked.
I looked up the beach at Noelle. She was watching us from behind her big black sunglasses, keeping an eye on me as promised. I wanted to run over there and tell her what Sawyer had just told me, but I hesitated. What if she said I was crazy? What if she took Paige's side? I so didn't want to deal with being talked down to again.
Part of me wanted to stick close to her, simply because I always felt safe when Noelle was around, but I felt safe here, too. If anything, I felt more comfortable with Sawyer than I did with pretty much anyone else on the island. Not only did he believe my story, but he was actually trying to help me. Going against this stupid "since zygotes" St. Barths cult and telling me the truth.
Besides, not everyone had been through the sorts of losses we had been through. Not Upton, certainly. He thought he was so worldly, but nothing bad had ever happened to the guy. If I was living under a dark cloud, he was basking in the sun. It made him lucky, yes, but when it came down to it, it also made him kind of naive.
What I really needed right then was to be around someone who understood.
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"Let's walk a little farther," I said.
"You sure?" Sawyer asked, concerned. "You must be tired."
"I think exercise is probably good for me," I told him, turning my back on Noelle and starting down the beach again. "But let's talk about something else."
"Something nontragic?" Sawyer said with a smirk.
"Nontragic would be perfect," I replied.
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SAFE
"Nothing's going to happen to you in a crowded restaurant," Noelle said as we got out of her BMW, which she'd just parked in front of Shutters, the St. Barths crew's favorite hangout. She handed her keys to the valet and walked around the front of the car. Waiting for us under the colorful awning was a whole host of familiar faces. Dash McCafferty, Noelle's maybe-on-again boyfriend, all polo-shirt preppy and blond, stood between Kiran Hayes and Taylor Bell, all of them watching me with a mixture of encouragement and pity. Kiran was wearing a red sundress, her long dark hair tied back in a loose French braid, while Taylor wore a cute madras dress, her blond curls still wet from the shower or the ocean. Upton was talking to Tiffany Goulbourne, gesturing hugely as he told some story that had her laughing. Sawyer, meanwhile, was standing next to Amberly Carmichael, watching me as she chatted his ear off.
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