@tiny-ivy
Chapter 5
Monday, June 23, 2025:
Early Morning
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After a day full of lust, life story swapping, (mostly from her), being cooked for, and, at her own insistence, helping in the garden, Jessi took the most satisfying shower of her life, and fell asleep early. She woke up in Adam’s bed, right after sunrise. He was snoozing so peacefully, his body wrapped around her, but she knew she couldn’t fall back asleep. She was far too wired, from all the joy and sex and the cheating from yesterday. She decided to get up, and have a look around the rest of the island by herself.
Looking out of the living room’s wide glass window, the sandiest, softest beach of the island was on the left side of the view, while the rocky part of the shore that she crashed into was to the right. There was a short path that went from the front door with the tiki torch path, to this soft beach.
This sandy beach also had a modest boat dock, with a small motorboat, and a bright yellow two-seated ocean kayak stowed upside down, on top of the dock.
Jessi walked past the sandy beach, to the rocks, and sighed at the sight of her ruined yacht. She kept going, up a path that veered uphill and to the right, which lead to a dense forest of evergreen trees. It was a narrow path through the trees, but she found her way, and noticed how cool and peaceful it was up here, with just the sounds of birds and the distant sea shore.
The forest path veered to the left, and she noticed now that it intersected with a row of downed trees. She looked all around her as she went down the path, and realized that there were also patches of flattened ground, also in a straight line about 30 feet wide, going from the house, for hundreds of feet until the end of the path. The path came to a dead end, at a sheer rocky cliff that went straight down into open water. Jessi thought that this line of destruction looked like tornado damage, but she was puzzled, since those really never formed on coastlines. She put it in a mental list of things to ask her host about.
After touring more of the island, Jessi built an appetite for breakfast, and headed back. As she did, she saw the house from the southern side in the daylight for the first time, and noticed a prominent, modern satellite dish, behind an array of solar panels that hid it from the garden side.
“Of course he has Satellite internet,” she thought to herself.
How could a physics nerd live without the Internet? How else could he learn how to garden and farm and run solar panels all by himself? How did she not notice that glaring lie?
And if her host was lying about this. What else was he lying about? Her internal monologue did not give herself a rest. An acidic ball of shame, mistrust, and suspicion formed inside her. Anyone involved who was unlucky enough to speak to her right now was not going to walk away unscathed.
She walked into the house to confront Adam, at the same time that he entered with a wire basket of eggs from the coop. He was grinning when he first came through the garden door, as he saw her moving form in shadow, but as his eyes adjusted to the indoor light, and he took in the expression of anger on her face, the joy drained from his. He put the basket of eggs down on the living room table, next to her charging cell phone, and stood next to the back door.
“I saw the satellite dish,” she said.
“Oh.”
“You remember what you told me yesterday? Do we need to rehash that?”
“I remember.”
“So, you do have Internet here?”
“I do. But it’s not for guests,” he responded. He cleared his throat, and moved to the living room couch to sit down. “Come sit with me, let’s talk this out calmly.”
“I’m staying over here ‘til I want to move elsewhere, thank you very much,” she replied, venom in her voice. She would not let the promise of more attention from this unfairly hot man distract her from the fact that he’s also a shady-as-hell liar.
“Why isn’t your Internet for guests, Adam?”
“Once it comes in from the satellite, a hard line connects it to my computer. I don’t have a WiFi adapter.”
“You could have let me use your computer.”
He let out a short groan, and closed his eyes for several beats.
“I don’t know how to put this in a way that won’t make you angrier,” he finally said, with a carefully even tone of voice.
“Try.”
“I already told you about the online stalkers. They’re real. They’re dangerous. Only I know how to safely use the Internet here without giving them more clues about my location.”
“So you don’t trust me to use the Internet on this island?”
“I study privacy methods like it’s my job. No, I don’t trust someone I barely know with something this vital to my continued freedom and life.”
“Why are you so obsessed with secrecy? Why are you so convinced you’re the target of some insane stalker, with enough resources to track you down to this middle of nowhere island, based on an Instagram photo of a chicken?” She was holding nothing back.
“Other than me, there is one person in the world who knows the answer to that question, and the fact that she does is why my life is now this self-kept prison sentence.” His voice was raising in intensity and anger, and he heard it. He closed his eyes again, and counted to ten. He knew that getting angry never helped an attempt at a discussion. He brought his voice down to an even tone.
“I know I lied to you, but I need you to trust me, when I tell you the following: the value that that piece of information would hold for you, is not even on the same scale – it’s several degrees of magnitude less than - the value of that information staying secret holds, to me.”
The arrogance of him assuming that he knew her mind better than she did, rubbed Jessi the completely wrong way. The shine of infatuation fell off. This man is paranoid. He is conceited. He is out of touch with reality. Given the wrong stimulus, someone with a mental health condition like that could even get dangerous.
“I am sorry I lied about the Internet access. I hate lying, and I’m not good at it, as you see. Just, if you care for me at all, don’t tell anyone about me. I implore you. Forget any of this happened after you leave on Wednesday. And keep this all off the Internet.”
“Or you’ll do what?”
Jessi’s phone was sitting on the living room table, in between them. He stared at it, and hated its electronic guts. He wished that the gadget didn’t exist, wished that the Internet wasn’t so all-powerful, wished it wasn’t so toxic to his continued freedom. She saw him staring at her phone, and she snatched it up.
“Oh NO you don’t!” Jessi yelled. “This is MINE!” She lifted it up, and opened the camera. Adam shielded his face with his arms, but she snapped several photos of him cowering, of his living room, and of the kitchen next to it.
“I wasn’t going to touch your phone,” he said, voice muffled by his arms.
“Sure you weren’t,” she said, and continued taking picture after picture of the inside of his house. She grabbed all of her things in a whirlwind of activity, and put them in her go bag. She ran to the sandy beach, aiming for his kayak, taking pictures behind her as she went.
Him going after her phone was the last straw. If his delusion was all about his existence not getting out, then a predictable conclusion for it would be: kill any witnesses. She wondered if those other sailors who met him even survived their visits.
She was a strong enough kayaker, well-rested enough, and the waves were low enough, she was comfortable rowing a few miles to Newfoundland.
He ran outside, several paces behind her, and desperately shouted after her, “I’m begging you! My life is in your hands!”
He got on his knees, and held his hands in supplication to her.
She turned around, looked at him head-on, and took a zoomed-in photo of him begging, with a perfect view of his face. She then turned back, and got the kayak ready.
The thought of the face photo that Jessi snapped going onto to the Internet sent the blood rushing to Adam’s ears, more than anything else. After years of learning to process his emotions, he could deal with disappointment, rejection, or anger, he could even deal, apparently, with being close to a beautiful, intelligent, and courageous woman without fearing the worst for her. They had slept all night together in his bed, peacefully.
But he couldn’t mentally tolerate the thought of the government agencies and cryptozoology nerds that had been stalking the Jersey Shore Giant since 2006 catching up to him because of an Instagram post with a geotagged photo. He couldn’t handle the thought of becoming a caged freak in some governmental lab. The sound in his ears ramped up to a klaxon volume as his panic built.
He ran with all his strength down the beach, past Jessi and the kayak, up the sandy hill beyond, and into the half-trampled forest path, towards the southern cliff. The terrible growth would happen any second now.
Jessi didn’t like the look of his intense speed, even after she noticed he was heading towards the forest path. She got into the awkwardly long two-seater kayak, and pushed off. She looked back over her shoulder, and was relieved that she didn’t see him anywhere.
She had looked at a printed nautical map on Adam’s desk yesterday, and started rowing north, towards where she remembered as the best current to get to the mainland.
The sound of falling trees came from the south, followed by the loudest splash Jessi had ever heard. She looked behind her, and saw birds flying away from the forest.
All of the natural waves came from the east here, but after a few seconds, a freak wave came from the source of the sound, looking like a tsunami. Jessi paddled into it, and it carried her a few hundred feet north. She watched as the wave broke against the shore, going over the dock, almost capsizing the moored motorboat.
What the hell was that, she thought to herself.
