Read The Island of Excess Love for Free Online

anymore. I try to call his name again but this time no words come out. It’s like those dreams where you’re debilitated; you can’t run, you can’t scream. But I don’t need to scream, do I? I look around and suddenly I don’t recognize where I am. Did I move? Where is the way back up to the deck? I sit down on the cabin floor because I can’t walk anymore. The linoleum is stained and peeling. I’m trying to remember what I must do, where I need to go. There’s someone I have to speak to.… The only name that comes to me is Venice. I can’t call for him but I must. A phone number beeps itself out in my head but I don’t know whose it is. And there aren’t any phones anymore, right? Someone comes down through the hatch and sits beside me. It’s Ez.
    â€œEliot?” he says.
    I look at his face and it is long and twisted, his mouth a grimace, his eyes blanked out with pain.
    â€œEliot, I thought you were dead,” Ez says. “You’re dead. You look dead.”
    Eliot is Ez’s twin brother who died in the Earth Shaker. Does Ez think I’m him? I can’t help Ez; there’s nothing I can say, no words. I need him to make this thing stop that’s happening. I want to tell him that what he sees isn’t real, tell him something that has to do with Ash or Hex, or maybe Venice, but I can’t speak. And what did I want to say? And where is Hex? He could be anywhere. Who did this to us? I want to know what’s happening but I can’t ask. I reach for Ez’s arm but he feels insubstantial, just stares at my hand on his bicep like it’s a foreign object. I think someone has done something to us but I don’t know who or what.
    Kronen, the Giant maker, is standing there behind the table. He’s holding up a large glass tumbler and shaking it. Inside are round, gelatinous things that jiggle in some sort of brine. Eyeballs. I touch my patch. It’s not here. Where is it? Will someone see my empty socket? I cringe against the bunk behind me. Ez has gone. I want to cry for Hex but I still can’t speak. I want this to stop but how do you make it stop?
    Ash is lying on his back on the wooden table. “Don’t touch me,” he whispers. “Just because I don’t have anywhere to go doesn’t mean you can touch me like that.”
    Kronen is gone. Is Ash talking to me?
    He turns his head and stares down at me, his green-jade eyes framed with eyelashes that look as if he’s curled them. “You took me in when my mom called me a faggot. I trusted you. I didn’t think you would do that.”
    â€œWho do you think I am?” I ask.
    He sits up on the table and points his finger at me. “You raped me! I was just a kid. You said it was my fault for coming to you like that, for singing to you and looking at you like that. It wasn’t my fault.”
    Ash gets up from the table and pushes me so hard that I fall backwards onto the floor. I cover my head with my hands and listen as he walks away. I’m afraid Kronen will come back and take my other eye so I try to hide under the table.
    When I glance up Hex is staring at me, his face coming in and out of focus, his eyes huge and black. “You look like shit,” he snarls.
    Why would Hex say something like that to me? I want to tell him that it’s mean, but I can’t talk.
    â€œYou think it’s acceptable parenting to get high like that? In front of your kid?”
    His mother? I wonder. Am I Hex’s mother? Am I high? I didn’t take anything, did I? Where is Kronen? If he takes my other eye I will not see.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I say to Hex. Each word feels like a huge rock I have to lift but I’m determined to speak, even if it kills me. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
    We hear screaming from above deck and Hex grabs me by the arm until I’m standing, leaning against him. The