Adventure to Love

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Adventure to Love Page 20

by Ramos, Bethany


  Cooking leaves and fish had been their only hope. She had no clue which berries were and weren’t poisonous. She didn’t want to chance eating anything besides fish and plantain leaves.

  The last thing that she needed was to poison herself and the entire group, when there wasn’t anyone to give them medical attention. At the very least, she didn’t want to have to deal with any “digestive problems” without a real toilet, in front of the man she could possibly marry. No, thank you.

  The intense pressure was causing her to look at Ky in a whole new light. He was still the same Ky. Handsome, charming, and sweet, but he also was pretty useless when it came to any kind of outdoorsy activity. So, when the three of them were stranded in the wilderness with no one to call for help, Ky had nothing to offer.

  She didn’t want to complain. He still made her feel so special whenever he looked into her eyes. He made her feel like she was the only woman he was talking to, even in a group of ten, or now two, women.

  But she couldn’t help cringing every time Ky made a joke about being the son of a plastic surgeon. He was poking fun at himself, but he couldn’t hide the fact that he had no clue which end of a hook to bait, let alone how to get them all out of this terrible mess.

  According to Ky, the only time that he had spent outdoors was when he’d summered at some château in Europe where he had spent the entire month of July horseback riding. A twelfth birthday gift from his filthy rich father, who wasn’t able to attend because no one could cover for him at the practice.

  Yes, Ky had really used the word “summered” to describe his vacation. That stuck out to her like a sore thumb. She now acknowledged that the two of them couldn’t be more different, especially since she had never been anywhere near Europe. Signing up for the show had been the first time she had been out of the country, not to mention the Midwest.

  She studied Ky sitting on a log across from her. His hair had gotten longer and shaggier. The scruff on his face was at least a week old, and it was starting to come together as a beard with patches in a few places.

  His dark brown eyes watched her, staring without blinking. It made her heart beat faster. So what if Ky was never going to be the type of father to take their kids on camping trips? So what if he’d have to call hired help to change a tire if they ever got a flat?

  He was undeniably gorgeous, even without showering or shaving for at least a week. She couldn’t remember how long they’d been there, but it must have been more than seven days. She would have been cutting notches into the wall of her cabin if she’d known that they were going to be legitimately stranded for that long.

  The thought made her laugh. Morgan looked up at her, startled. The entire group had been sitting in silence for at least an hour. It definitely made for some boring film, but the cameramen were still there nonetheless, relentless in their quest to capture every second of action that was probably going to be sliced, spliced, and edited into something much more interesting for national TV.

  At least she hoped. She really doubted that all of the viewers were going to want to watch the three of them sit in silence for hours and pick at their fingernails because they had nothing better to do. No food, no water, and very little sleep weren’t just making them boring. It was making them borderline crazy.

  “What did you say?” Morgan jerked her head to attention.

  “Uh, I didn’t say anything,” Brinkley furrowed her brows.

  “Sorry, I thought you said something.”

  Morgan’s eyes were vacant and hollow. They were all so hungry that their facial features had started to change. Morgan used to have plump, gorgeous cheekbones and soft, silky skin. Now her skin was taut and streaked with dirt. Her cheekbones looked like just that, hard little bones protruding from her cheeks that made her face look sharp, like a bird.

  Brinkley didn’t even want to think about what she looked like. If there was a silver lining to the whole situation, it was that she’d probably lost enough weight to fit into the size three jeans that she’d worn in middle school. Harper would have been so proud, she thought to herself bitterly.

  But besides that, she was sure that her face was filthy, her hair was stringy, and her breath was absolutely horrible.

  That was something she’d never thought about when she’d watched Survivor in the past. All of the contestants seemed to go a little crazy after spending days in the wilderness without any real food or distractions, but nobody commented on how bad their breath really was.

  When you factored in at least a week without a toothbrush, or anything fresh in her mouth, she didn’t want to get closer than two feet to anyone. Her mouth tasted like an old sock day in and day out. That meant that any kind of potential romance with the “eligible bachelor” was completely out.

  But who wanted to think about romance at a time like that? She was tired, irritable, and so very hungry. Food seemed to be the only thing on her mind these days.

  She decided to break the silence again. She had no idea how much time had passed since she’d zoned out the second time. It could have been five minutes, ten, or even an hour. Who knew? And who really cared at that point?

  Wasted time was a gift, in her opinion. It just meant that they were that much closer to getting home and out of the jungle for good.

  She cleared her throat. “Do you think we should try to go back to the river to get food?”

  Morgan stared back at her with a blank expression on her face. She didn’t seem to register a word that she had said. Brinkley started to repeat herself, but Morgan held up her hand to interrupt.

  “I don’t want to be the one to cause problems, but I don’t think I can hike back out there,” Morgan said in a weak voice. “I’ll do what I can to prepare the food, but I don’t have the energy to go back into the jungle again.”

  Brinkley let out a sigh. None of them had the energy to do anything. That was the whole point of getting food in the first place. Her head hurt. Nothing made sense anymore.

  “It’s like a chicken and an egg,” she mumbled as she put her head in her hands. She just needed to rest for a minute. Close her eyes. Stop everything from spinning around her. “How are we supposed to get food if we don’t have the energy, and how are we supposed to get energy to find food without any food for energy?”

  Brinkley sat motionless for several minutes. She heard the sound of footsteps moving closer, then someone sat down on the log next to her. From the corner of her eye, she could see a hairy leg. Ky. She felt his hand on her back as he rubbed back and forth.

  But instead of feeling comforting, it felt like sandpaper scratching against her skin. Her spine was protruding thanks to the crash jungle diet, and each rub across her back felt like Ky’s hand was scraping across raw skin.

  She stiffened. “Could you just stop that for a moment?”

  Ky froze. He mumbled something back to her along the lines of, I was just trying to be nice. Of course, she knew that, but by that point, she didn’t really care. All of her social niceties and biting her tongue and hiding how she felt to spare feelings had flown out the window.

  Her skin felt like it was on fire. Her head was swimming. She could barely muster up the energy to talk, let alone flirt with Ky. You’d think that he of all people would understand that.

  She raised her head. From across the campsite, Morgan was staring at her with a strange expression on her face.

  “What?” she asked, sharper than she had intended.

  “Your face, it looks different somehow. You have little red dots all over your cheeks,” Morgan pointed in her general direction. “Do you feel all right?”

  Brinkley felt pretty sure Morgan was hallucinating. But when she looked at Morgan’s face, she saw little white spots of light that swirled and surrounded Morgan’s head in a halo. It was actually kind of pretty. It made Morgan look beautiful and se
rene, like some kind of otherworldly creature.

  “Yeah, well, you have white spots on your head.”

  Through bleary eyes, she watched Morgan shoot Ky a concerned look.

  “Brinkley,” Morgan said carefully, “do you know what you just said?”

  Brinkley repeated herself even slower. Slow enough that a five-year-old could understand. The dehydration and hunger must have really gotten to Morgan. She wasn’t making any sense. She could hardly understand what Morgan was saying. Her voice sounded like it was coming through water or something thick, like syrup.

  “Do you hear the syrup?” Brinkley asked. She wasn’t sure if the words were coming out right. Her tongue felt heavy and thick in her mouth. She leaned her head down into her hands again to stop the spinning. And then everything went black.

  Chapter 18

  Morgan

  Morgan’s Confessional: For the record, since I’m probably already getting sued for breaching the contract and talking to the cameras, I have to say that it’s totally strange that we keep doing these one-person interviews. Unless you’re trying to document our every move before we die in the jungle, which is probably going to get the studio in a lot of trouble. So, I guess it doesn’t matter that I fucked up the contracts because you’re the ones who are going to go bankrupt when we end up dead in the middle of nowhere. Sorry, I know that’s not really funny, but it’s pretty ironic, you have to admit.

  Morgan couldn’t believe it had been there all along. What kind of bullshit was that, really? Behind a rusted lantern without any kerosene, a pile of old sponges, and some wet newspaper in the single cabinet in their cabin sat at least fifteen packages of dehydrated food.

  Um, that was something that would have been helpful to them at least five days ago, before everyone went completely crazy due to borderline starvation and some pretty legit dehydration. Starting with Brinkley.

  She couldn’t believe that Brinkley had started talking nonsense. At the time, she had assumed it was from sleep deprivation. Brinkley had put her head in-between her knees for what felt like an hour and didn’t say a word. She thought that maybe Brinkley had gone to sleep.

  It made sense. They were all completely exhausted, and because of her stomach growling all night long, she herself couldn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time. She imagined it was the same story for Ky and Brinkley. She’d heard Brinkley tossing and turning in the hammock next to her for hours throughout the night.

  So maybe Brinkley had been taking a nap, slumped over with her head in between her legs. That was why she hadn’t said anything to wake her or disrupt her. It wasn’t worth the trouble. Besides, what were they going to talk about anyway?

  The first few days in the wilderness had been borderline cute. Ky had continued to ask the women questions to get to know them better, about their upbringing, their favorite movies, and how they spent their holidays.

  But day after day with the same questions was enough to drive anyone insane. And when you factored serious hunger into the mix, it was hard to have the patience to politely participate in small talk, let alone start a conversation of your own.

  So she let Brinkley sit like that. She didn’t want to disrupt her. And then Brinkley had finally lifted her head. Her face was chalk white, almost gray in color. Totally covered with bright red spots. Everywhere. If she had had her iPhone on her, Morgan would have Googled that shit pronto. It looked like some kind of jungle rash or infectious disease.

  Brinkley’s eyes were glassy. Her lips were chapped and dry. Morgan drew on all the energy she had left to tell Brinkley that something was wrong with her face. Something was really wrong, like she needed medical attention immediately.

  But Brinkley didn’t seem to understand what she was saying. Brinkley pointed back at her with a vacant expression on her face. She seemed like she was looking right through her. It had been spooky and pretty disturbing.

  Then Brinkley started talking, still pointing like a character from The Shining. At first, it didn’t even sound like she was speaking English, more like gibberish that sounded more like a foreign language. Maybe French. And then she started talking about syrup. That’s when things got really weird.

  Morgan had tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was talking about how hungry she was and how she wanted to eat syrup and pancakes? But Brinkley kept on pointing. Her face looked even whiter than before. The hand that she was pointing at her with was visibly shaking.

  If she hadn’t experienced firsthand exactly what Brinkley had gone through over the past week, she would have confused her for a junkie looking for a fix.

  Then Brinkley started gasping for air like a fish. Her mouth opened and closed. Her hands went to her throat like she was choking. But what on earth could she be choking on? They hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in at least a day. It seemed pretty unlikely that she was choking that dramatically on her own saliva.

  Ky was sitting next to Brinkley the entire time. He started slapping her on the back and tried to raise her hands over her head. At first she was confused. Was he trying to lift Brinkley up by her arms? But then she realized that he was doing what so many parents did when their kids choked on juice from their sippy cup. They raised their hands to make it easier for them to breathe.

  It seemed like a strange thing to do to an adult. And it didn’t even work because within a few seconds, Brinkley had passed out cold while she had sat there with her mouth open like a fish before she sprang into action. Luckily, Ky was right behind Brinkley to catch her before her head hit one of the many sharp rocks surrounding the fire pit. That would have been a disaster. Brinkley might have needed stitches or worse, and they had no way to get to a doctor.

  But Ky swiftly caught her in his arms like the hero he was, taking a moment to turn his profile to camera for the effect. She rushed over and helped him gently lower Brinkley to the ground. She began tapping Brinkley on the cheek to see if she would wake up by herself.

  Her grandmother had been diabetic. Even though it was always frightening to see someone pass out, she’d learned from first-hand experience, whenever her grandmother had low blood sugar, that it was pretty easy to wake someone up in a few seconds. Normally, they didn’t even know they had fainted in the first place.

  But if they passed out for longer . . . That was a bad sign. That was the time her grandmother had to be rushed to the hospital, where she stayed for two weeks in critical condition.

  “Brinkley, Brinkley!” she had whispered over and over again. She prayed silently to herself for Brinkley to stir, cough, open an eye, anything.

  Morgan wished yet again for some water. She could have poured it on Brinkley’s face or placed a cool cloth on her head to help wake her up.

  After a few minutes, she looked at Ky. He was staring back at her with a terrified expression. He raked his hands through his hair. “Do you think you should do CPR?”

  Morgan took a moment to listen to Brinkley’s breathing then turned to Ky. “The good news is that she’s breathing pretty steady. So she doesn’t need CPR or mouth-to-mouth or anything like that. Maybe . . .” She paused to give herself time to think and licked her dry lips. “We could just take her back into the cabin and let her rest? We can both keep an eye on her to make sure that she’s still breathing and let her wake up by herself.”

  Morgan was thankful she sounded much more confident than she felt. She had no idea what you were supposed to do with a person who fainted and wouldn’t come to. Besides call an ambulance, which wasn’t even an option. Production had to determine if an injury or illness were life threatening.

  With Ky supporting the bulk of Brinkley’s weight and Morgan carrying her legs, they brought her limp body into the cabin. They laid her down on one of the soiled mattresses and tucked a tattered blanket around her.

  The blanket was pretty unnecessary given that it wa
s at least 100° outside. But Brinkley felt ice cold. Brinkley’s face was still ghostly white and covered with red splotches.

  They watched her vigilantly for what felt like hours. Finally, finally, Brinkley slowly raised a hand and brought it to her mouth. She started to cough, a dry, rasping sound that never seemed to end.

  Brinkley gasped and opened her eyes. Morgan rushed to her side. Ky was already sitting on the bed with Brinkley, her head cradled in his arms.

  Morgan knelt beside her and took her cool hand. “Oh, thank God, Brinkley, you scared the shit out of us!”

  Brinkley said in a weak voice, “What happened?”

  Morgan laughed. Even though it was a totally inappropriate response to a crisis, she didn’t know what else to do. Ky looked into Brinkley’s eyes as he explained to her exactly what had happened. Every gory detail, including how she’d been talking gibberish and shaking like a maniac.

  Brinkley’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. That was a great sign! At least her face looked a little less pale and a little more lifelike.

  Morgan let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in and her shoulders relaxed.

  Brinkley smiled sweetly. “Thank you both so much for taking care of me. You are too much. I think I just really need some food and water. I guess I passed out because of that.” She immediately started into another coughing fit.

  Morgan agreed. They all needed food and water, or else something worse was going to happen. Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to wake Brinkley up next time if she passed out again.

  Ky stood and put both of his hands on his hips. He looked kind of like Superman. Morgan stifled a giggle as Ky said, in a deep, heroic voice, “Ladies, I will go back into the jungle and bring us water. I don’t know if I can guarantee any food because I’m not as good of a fisherman as Brinkley, but I’ll try to look for some leaves out there.”

 

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