The Heat

by Alice Ward

  When I somehow found him, I thought he had to be a mirage. Although he clearly didn’t remember doing it, he had been lucid enough to drag himself up into the boat while I cried and snotted all over him.

  And that had been all I could do. Cry and hug him. Pray to something I hoped existed and felt us worthy of saving.

  When Wyatt didn’t wake, I peeled the bandage from his wound. The skin beneath it looked terrible. The edges were crusted with pus, angry red tentacles were reaching out from it, and it smelled foul, rotten. Infection.

  Despite all I’d done to keep it clean, it hadn’t been enough.

  I’d failed him.

  Grimacing, I used up the last of the antibiotic ointment, rubbing it into the angry wound, hoping it could suck out whatever had begun to invade his bloodstream. Even though I knew that antibiotics didn’t work on their own, and he’d need liquids to flush out the bacteria. It was all I could do.

  When he had woken, my heart had sung with hope. But it hadn’t been any better, and when I’d gotten him back into our little bed, he’d been unconscious ever since.

  I had to face the truth.

  He was dying.

  And I was going to go right along with him. It wasn’t fair. After all he’d done to save me, why was I so weak that I couldn’t save him?

  As night fell, I whispered that I loved him. I wrapped the jacket around him to keep him warm, because he was shivering, his skin burning. He was tossing and turning, murmuring things that didn’t make sense. I kissed him, over and over again, begging him to stay with me.

  That was how I spent my night. Afraid that if I closed my eyes for any length of time, I’d wake up to find he’d stopped breathing.

  In the morning, I poured the last of the water into his mouth as the sun rose. I remembered when I used to think a bright, sunny sky was such a blessing. Now it seemed like a terrible curse. His skin was on fire, like he was roasting from the inside out. I thought that meant his blood pressure was dropping.

  I didn’t care what he said. I wished I could google ways to keep him with me just a little longer. Maybe that was all we needed. Maybe I’d find an island, only an hour from now. Or tomorrow. I just had to get him to hold on.

  Hold on, Wyatt, I kept willing into his brain. Just a little longer.

  There was a spot under the steering console that provided a little shade, so I dragged him there and tried to make him comfortable on the cushions.

  If I was going to keep the dehydration from making me insane, I’d have to stay busy. I wiped strands of oily hair from my face as I tried to plan my day. I was a mess by then. Sunburn had broken the blisters and fried the tender skin underneath, leaving a thick brown crust. I would probably have scars, not that I could be worried about that right then. The skin of my lips had peeled off in chunks, and now they were bloody and raw. I had blisters all over my body, but I barely felt them.

  I knew the biggest scar would be inside.

  I decided to spend the morning fishing. The sun had never been as hot. I felt it on my neck and the back of my ears as I leaned over the edge of the boat with a shear from the scissors, impaling fish one after another. I’d gotten so good at it now, that I caught twenty of them, easy as could be. More than I could eat. More than he could eat. I’d always been so against senselessly killing animals, and now I didn’t even care.

  Hey, look at me, Roger Stapleton. How’s this for being a shark?

  I used the other part of the scissors to skin the fish and put them all in the cargo hold, where I kept replenishing the water to make sure they didn’t spoil.

  As I did this, I kept talking to Wyatt as he laid motionless in the shade. Talking to myself too. Maybe I was going crazy.

  “Hey,” I said, kicking his foot with my bare toe. “You’re going to want to get up soon. Freshest sushi around.”

  Ha, ha. So funny. It wasn’t even that funny the first three times we’d joked about it.

  It didn’t matter. He didn’t wake up.

  Gravity felt a lot heavier now. I wanted to sleep. I was losing energy. So, I ate the fish myself, forcing the nasty mess into my mouth and practically swallowing it whole. When I knew I could eat no more, I tossed the rest back into the ocean. A total waste, but the earth was conspiring against us, so I wanted to strike back.

  When the hours dragged on to the hottest part of the day, I told him I’d catch him more, if he’d just get up.

  But he didn’t. He didn’t even stir.

  And then I cried. I cried so hard. Every time a tear fell, I told myself to stop it, I was wasting precious fluid that my body needed to stay alive. All the water had been gone since morning, and crying was stupid.

  That sandpaper scratchiness in my throat came back.

  I stood at the front of the boat and pictured a small island in the distance. Then I blinked, and it was gone. I pictured mermaids swimming in the sea, that the clouds were cotton candy, and that the sun was a Nilla wafer. I played “Where is Thumbkin?” and “Little Bunny Foo Foo” with my fingers. In the back of my mind, I worried I was going completely insane.

  With nothing else to do, I took the scissor blade and carved things into the paint at the bottom of the boat. A star. A bunny. A flower. Then I wrote ATLEE YOUNG. WYATT WATTS. Lost at sea. I couldn’t remember what date it had been, what date it was now, so I guessed.

  “Guess what, Wyatt Watts?” I said as I carved the date into the boat. “It’s Monday. You missed your flight too.”

  One week ago, I’d sat in my kitchen, crying and thinking my life was over. So much had changed in such a short time. But I was glad that I’d lost that stupid job. Turned out, it wasn’t worth having, if my problem was that I felt things too much. Feeling was a damn good thing. It had brought me to Wyatt.

  I had so much more to lose now, but I wouldn’t have changed it for anything in the world.

  I felt like I was carving out our last testament to the earth, as I sat there, scraping away at the paint. Wrinkling my brow in concentration, I carved a little airplane, and then the letters: NYC.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll take a flight back together. First-class, all the way. That’s our deal, remember?”

  Then I carved a heart between our names. Just so someone, somewhere, would know.

  At twilight, I’d pulled him out to the open bottom of the boat, where I told him there was more room for him to stretch out. He didn’t stretch, though, just laid curled in a tight ball.

  It was really for my own selfish reasons. I didn’t want to sleep alone.

  I lifted him under the arms, dragging him the three feet the best I could, and as I laid him back down, he finally stirred. I wiped the tear tracks from my eyes and knelt next to him. “Hey. You’re just in time to see the stars. You hungry?”

  His eyes flickered open and landed on me. They were rimmed in red, diseased, but I’d never seen anything so wonderful. He was awake. A small smile appeared on his chapped lips. He shook his head slightly.

  I didn’t have any fresh fish left, but if he’d been hungry, I would’ve gotten them. Somehow. I would’ve scoured the sea for him.

  I squeezed my body into the space on the cushion beside him. “You know,” I said, touching his hair, his forehead, his jaw. “I was just thinking of home. You know how worried they must be about us?”

  I didn’t expect an answer, but I heard one, a deep, guttural noise in his throat. It was almost a laugh. He was strangely content, lying there with that small smile. It almost made me think everything would be okay.

  “Watts Enterprises is probably shitting a brick right now without you there. When you get back, I bet they make sure you never go on another business trip again.”

  He didn’t answer that.

  “And when I get home, I don’t care that there are no pets allowed in my place. I’m totally getting one. Even if I get kicked out. You only live once, right?”

  No answer to that, either. His breathing was so slow.

  “I bet,” I continued, feeling anoth
er damn tear in the corner of my eye. “They’ll all have the biggest party for us when we get home. And you know what? I’m going to get so drunk. Plastered. I feel like I deserve it, after this. I’ve spent so much time thinking about causes, but you’re right. What’s wrong with thinking about me every once in a—”

  I stopped babbling when he lifted his hand and place it against my cheek. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over the raw, angry scabs on my skin. I leaned into his touch as he said in barely a breath, “You’re so beautiful.”

  My vision blurred with tears. I shook my head. No. Not because I didn’t believe him. Because that sounded like an ending. And this couldn’t end. Not yet.

  “I’m glad I got to know you better, Atlee Young,” he murmured. “It’s been an adventure, right?”

  My hands were shaking. A sob burst out of me, my vision of him blurring even more as my eyes grew wet. For the millionth time, I wished I had my glasses, but this time more than ever, so I could see him better. I nodded. “It has been the best adventure ever.”

  His hand dropped limply to his side, and his eyes drooped closed. His breathing came out in short, ragged bursts.

  His last words to me were almost swallowed by the wind as they fell from his barely moving lips. “Keep believing in the impossible, okay?”

  I couldn’t speak, so I just nodded. Again and again.

  He was so hot, or my skin was so cold. I dropped my head onto his chest and covered him with my body, trying to transfer whatever I had left in me to him. I was prepared to stay there all night.

  Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. I chanted that to myself until I somehow fell asleep.

  ***

  BAAAAHH BAAAAHH

  I jerked awake, my adrenaline shooting through my system as some horribly loud sound pulled me from a deep sleep.

  The sunlight was bright, like fire in my eyes, and I jumped as the sound came again.

  Raising my hand to shade my eyes, I blinked rapidly… trying to see. Needing to see.

  BAAAAHH

  Whirling around, I saw the most beautiful thing my blurry eyes had ever beheld.

  A ship. Maybe a fishing boat. No, a luxury yacht, just like the kind I’d once imagined Wyatt owning.

  At first, I just stared at it, sure it was one of my hallucinations. Or maybe I was dead from dehydration, and this was heaven. Or maybe my failing vision was failing me even more.

  It was still there.

  Jumping up and down, I waved my arms, screaming at Wyatt, “They found us! Look! They found us.”

  When he didn’t respond, I looked down at him… and stopped, all my excitement gone.

  He’d once been so tan, but now, his skin was unnaturally pale, a stonelike grayness settling over it. And he didn’t move. Anywhere.

  Falling to my knees, a sob escaped my throat. The horn blasted again, and I looked up to see someone standing on the deck. It was a woman with long dark hair, in a bathing suit, sarong, and dark sunglasses, waving at me.

  I covered my mouth with my hands and started to sob. I lifted a hand to wave, sure that once I did, I’d learn this was some cruel joke my mind was playing on me. Getting my hopes up, only to have them dashed again.

  It motored closer.

  I nudged Wyatt. “Wyatt. Wyatt,” I cried, over and over again. “There’s a boat. There’s a boat. We’re saved.”

  He didn’t move. I tried lifting him by the shoulders, so that I could prop him up, so that he could see too. It would give him the hope he needed to keep fighting.

  But his skin was cool now, much cooler than the ocean air around us.

  No. No.

  I shoved at his chest. “Wake up,” I ordered. “Wake up, dammit.”

  I threw myself on him, listening for the thud of his heartbeat. But I could hear nothing. The wind whipped around us, blowing his hair, but other than that, he was too still.

  The boat drew closer, and I wanted to scream at them that they were too late.

  But I couldn’t give up hope.

  Now there were four people at the stern, the woman and three men. One called out to me in a British accent. “Hello, are you in distress?”

  What an asshole question. The bitchy part of me wanted to snarl back some scathing reply, but instead I screamed, “Yes. Please. Help him.”

  I looked down at the man in my lap. He couldn’t be gone. He wouldn’t be gone.

  No.

  He’d made me promise to believe in the impossible, and I refused to break that promise now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Wyatt

  Machines, constantly beeping. Too-bright light. Disinfectant, so strong it stung my nostrils. Ungodly pain.

  If this was heaven… frankly, it sucked.

  I spent the next few days drifting in and out of consciousness, having no idea what was going on around me. Everything was foggy, disoriented, incapable of making sense. I tried to open my eyes, but something kept pulling me under. Pain, dizziness… overwhelming fatigue. All the while, voices floated in and out, some foreign, some I could recognize.

  My mother.

  My father.

  Atlee.

  Atlee. So maybe this was heaven, after all.

  When I could finally lift my eyelids, each one felt like it had been cemented shut. They slowly focused on a bare white ceiling. Machines were on my right, tethering me to the bed, which had to have been keeping me alive. I felt the wire, pulling on my wrist, and… and some other pressure on my hand, I couldn’t quite define.

  I looked down and saw Atlee’s cheek, pressed against my hand. She was sitting on a chair at the side of the bed. Her eyes were closed, and she was breathing heavily. There was a stuffed orangutan cradled in her lap.

  Never had anything made me so happy.

  Her cheeks were raw, her lips peeling, but I’d never seen her look so beautiful. That couldn’t have been comfortable, the way she was lying there. How long had she been sitting like that?

  I pulled my hand from her grip and stroked a finger down her cheek.

  She blinked awake, and her eyes lit up when she saw me. Then she started to cry. “Hi,” she said, her voice strained with emotion. “How are you feeling?”

  I looked around. Right then, I was feeling pretty damn good.

  Alive. I was alive. And Atlee was there. What else could I want?

  I opened my mouth, but only a raspy gurgle came out. My eyes threatened to drag closed, but I wouldn’t let them. No, I wanted to stay there and stare at Atlee some more.

  “Just relax. Let me call the nurse.” She pressed the call button at my bedside. “Do you hurt anywhere?”

  Everywhere, actually. I had muscles that felt like they hadn’t been used in years. But it would get better because it had to. I tried to speak, but my throat was dry and sore. I shook my head.

  She sniffled. “Do you know how close you came to dying?”

  I could tell from the look on her face that it was too close. I couldn’t do that again.

  The nurse arrived, an older woman who seemed about ready to climb into bed with me, she was so excited that I was awake. She called the doctor, a Dr. Fu, who came in immediately, followed by my parents. And suddenly, it was a party.

  The doctor said, “You’re very lucky, young man. The wound was a quarter-inch from your abdominal aorta. You’d have certainly died if that had been punctured.” He studied his clipboard and added, “You’ve been on fluids and antibiotics for the infection. You’re expected to make a full recovery. Another couple of weeks, and you’ll be just fine.”

  I closed my eyes, swallowing, and the memory of the hot sun on my face came back, full force. That hopelessness of not knowing whether I’d find enough water to last another day. I opened my eyes and looked at Atlee, who’d taken my hand again. She was the only one who knew how that truly felt.

  “Thank you,” I croaked, finally finding my voice.

  My mother took a Styrofoam cup of liquid and lifted a straw to my lips, I sucked it down
. She kissed me on the forehead. “We were so worried about you,” she said, tears streaming down her powdered cheeks.

  My father nodded and clamped a hand on my thigh. “I’ve been filling your shoes for the past two weeks, but everyone is anxious to get you back.”

  I reached down and took his hand. Squeezed it. “Dad…”

  There was so much I wanted to say to him but my voice didn’t want to seem to work.

  Later. I’d tell him later.

  “It’s okay, son. Get some rest and we’ll talk later.”

  I patted the white sheets beside me, and Atlee crawled in bed.

  I closed my eyes, and…

  ***

  The room was dark when I opened my eyes again. I tried to sit up but the pain in my side convinced me to stay put.

  Someone moved in the chair beside the bed, then a dim light clicked on, and I realized it was my father.

  “You’re finally awake.” He had dark circles under his eyes, and his face looked pale under his unusually rumpled hair.

  “What time is it?”

  “Little after midnight. On Saturday.”

  I stared at him. I’d been asleep another thirty-six hours?

  “Where’s Atlee?”

  “Your mother convinced her to go to the hotel and take a shower, get a little sleep.” He looked at his watch. “She’s been gone a little over four hours. First time she’s left your bedside. Thought the girl was going to fall asleep on her feet.”

  A smile curled my lips. We’d made it. Atlee and I had made it.

  “Can I get you anything, son?”

  Atlee.

  “Water. Please.” Despite the IV fluids dripping continuously into my veins, I was thirsty as hell, and my mouth felt like six cats and an orangutan had taken a shit in it.

  “Here you go.”

  I looked up into my father’s blue eyes as he held the straw for me, and I sipped until the entire contents of the glass was gone.

  Feeling better, I rested back on the pillow again. “Dad…” Now might not have been the place to have this conversation, but I needed to tell him what was on my mind. “I’ve been thinking about it. I learned a lot of things on this trip. It opened my eyes. I’m going to be making changes when I get home. Big changes, and I don’t know how the board will receive them. But it needs to be done.”