The Island Between Us

River POV

I didn’t remember much about the funeral.

People told me that grief made everything sharper. That every flower, every hymn, every handful of dirt burned into their memory forever.

Mine felt like someone had smeared grease over the lens of my life.

I recalled rain.

Black umbrellas.

Someone squeezing my shoulder every few minutes like they were checking I hadn’t disappeared.

Then everyone left.

Just like that.

The house that had always been too small for three people suddenly became impossibly big for one.

I spent the next five days wandering through it like a ghost.

I couldn’t bring myself to throw anything away.

Dad’s coffee mug still sat beside the sink with the chip in the handle he’d always promised to glue back together.

Mum’s cardigan was draped over the dining chair where she’d left it before they went out that afternoon.

The police had offered to return their belongings that had been recovered from the accident site.

I told them no.

I couldn’t imagine opening a box containing the last things my parents had touched.

Instead, I packed my own life into two suitcases and let the movers take care of everything else - either donated or thrown away I didn't care.

Not because I wanted to leave.

But because it hurt more to stay.

Both my parents had been orphans.

I had no living relatives.

I could either stay in this empty house, trying to find a job or some other way to support myself, or I could go live somewhere else.

With someone else.

I had chosen the someone else.

So on the sixth day I dressed carefully in my empty bedroom - jeans, a T-shirt and one of Mum’s lilac sweaters before studying myself in the mirror.

I looked strange.

Not quite myself and not quite a stranger either.

The River who had existed a week ago had been an eighteen-year-old girl on the cusp of adulthood. She had styled her long light brown hair in shiny waves and worn make-up and smiled easily.

Everyone said I had pretty green eyes when I wore my contact lenses.

Now I looked impossibly young, with my practical clothes, twin braids down my back, and wearing the glasses I usually swapped for contacts.

My skin was pale and I already looked like I had lost weight.

I sighed.

I didn't really care what I looked like anymore.

There was no mum to tell me that I was wearing too much blush. No dad to fuss over the length of my skirt.

It was just me.

At least for this moment it was.

The knock came just after nine.

Three firm raps.

Professional.

I opened the door expecting another neighbour with another casserole.

Instead I found a stranger.

My eyes met his and I shivered before I could stop it.

Not exactly a stranger.

He was one of those people who’d always existed somewhere beyond the edges of my childhood.

A Christmas card every year.

An expensive birthday present that always arrived late.

A name my parents mentioned in faint snippets of conversation I hadn't paid attention to.

A vague impression of stiff suits and expensive cologne and a hand that had ruffled my hair every so often.

Flynn.

That’s all he’d ever been.

Just Flynn.

Except now he was Flynn Conrad - the man here to whisk me away to a new life.

He stood on our front porch wearing a charcoal coat over a crisp white shirt that probably cost more than my wardrobe.

Tall.

Broad shoulders.

Dark hair neatly combed despite the wind.

Maybe thirty-five.

Older than I remembered from the faded photographs Mum kept in an album somewhere and the hazy memories of visiting him in a big house in Sydney that had a pool I almost drowned in once.

His expression wasn’t cold.

Just… controlled.

Like someone had spent years practising never letting anyone see what he was thinking.

“You’re early,” I said flatly.

He lifted one eyebrow. “River?”

I nodded, not letting my expression change.

What other eighteen-year-old girl would be answering my door?

“I’m Flynn.” He said, lifting his hand for a moment as if he was actually going to shake mine.

Then he dropped it with a frown.

“I figured,” I said.

“Do you remember me?” He asked, shifting on his feet.

“A little. I think I was eleven when I saw you last.”

For a second neither of us spoke.

Perhaps he was remembering the shy child who had skipped through his hallways.

Perhaps he was remembering my parents who had been laughing and smiling only a week ago and now were gone forever.

His eyes drifted down my body and up, and then over my shoulder into the silent house before settling back on me. “I’m sorry about Tara and Dale. They were good people.”

The words at least sounded genuine.

I waited, knowing there was more.

“I couldn’t get away from the company in time for the funeral.” He eventually added on. “I didn't want you to have to do that on your own.”

There it was.

The apology I’d apparently been waiting for.

“It’s fine,” I said, still in the same flat monotone.

It wasn’t.

Nothing was.

But correcting him sounded exhausting.

Besides, I doubted Flynn could have provided any more comfort than my neighbours or my mum’s work colleagues who had kept clucking their tongues and wiping their eyes when they thought I wasn't looking.

“I should have been here,” he said quietly.

I shrugged because I didn’t know what else to do.

“It was just so…” He trailed off and ran a hand through his hair. “A fucking car accident.” He frowned again and tacked on. “Sorry I shouldn't swear.”

“I've heard swear words before, Flynn. I even occasionally use them.”

He didn't respond to my dry comment, instead shaking his head. “And now my friends and your parents are gone and we...”

I stared at him, waiting again for the end of the sentence.

Now we were stuck with each other?

Now he was kind of my new temporary dad?

Now I had to try not to drown in my grief while a practical stranger took me away from everything I had ever known?

Flynn never finished his thought.

I would learn a lot later that he did that a lot.

Instead, he looked at the two suitcases waiting beside the door. “Is that all you want to take? I can have movers collect anything else you need?”

I had a brief image of my easel and paint set still in the attic - missed by the movers before I realised.

I hadn't touched them for months, long before the numbness of the last few days.

For one moment I thought of taking them. Maybe one day I would want to paint again.

But then I shook my head. “I don't want anything else. I'm good.”

“So you’re ready?”

No.

“Yeah.”

He reached for the heavier case before I could protest.

My eyes snagged on the yellow ribbon tied around the handle. My mum had always insisted on putting it there to help identify our bags in the airport.

I don’t know why I hadn’t taken it off.

It was silly.

A typical mum thing to do.

I had no mum now.

“River?” Flynn prompted. “Are you coming?”

I blinked out of the thought and then frowned at him. “I could have carried that one.”

“I know.” His voice stayed calm. “But let me, kid.”

I watched him lift both suitcases like they weighed nothing, choosing not to correct the name.

Figures.

The universe killed my parents then sent me a six-foot-something millionaire as my replacement adult.

One who was already moderating his language around me and calling me a kid.

Apparently irony was alive and well.

The black town car waiting outside looked expensive enough that I was afraid to breathe near it.

An actual driver was standing next to it.

He opened the passenger door.

I climbed in without looking back at Flynn.

There were no awkward attempts at conversation.

No more speeches about how sorry he was.

Just the quiet hum of the engine as we pulled away from the only home I’d ever known.

I didn’t look back.

Because if I did…

I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop.