by Ward, Alice
“Stop. You should rest.”
“I’ve been resting all night.” He rolled his shoulders, stretching, but his movements were slower, stiffer.
His hair was a crazy mop, making him look a little like a surfer dude. It didn’t suit the typical CEO, but it definitely suited him. I probably could’ve sat there and stared at his perfection all day.
But there were fish to catch.
I knelt at the edge of the boat as the sun climbed out of the clouds and shielded my face with my hand. That was when I saw a dark shape in the water.
Something huge, in the distance, growing larger. Damned my crappy eyesight. I didn’t know whether to be afraid or elated.
“Wyatt!” I shouted. “Look!”
He stood beside me, straining to get a better view. “Whoa. It’s a huge… fish,” he said. “A shark, I think. Two of them. A mom and a baby.”
I blinked, wishing I had my glasses. I’d taken marine biology in school and had a pretty good idea of different marine species. But all I could see were two dark blurs coming toward us. “I don’t think sharks swim in pairs. They’re…”
I leaned closer.
Wyatt grabbed my shoulders. “Hey. Don’t fall in. The last thing we need is to add a bite from Jaws to our list of injuries.”
The fish swam closer, and I was able to make out the familiar mottling on the biggest one’s flat surface. “Oh, it’s a whale shark!” I looked over at Wyatt, grinning. “It’s not Jaws. They’re not a threat to humans. They eat plankton, mostly.”
He seemed impressed that I actually knew something without having to google it. “Really?”
I laid down on my stomach and reached in, swirling my fingers in the cool water. To my amazement, the mother lifted her head out of the water, eyeing me closely.
“Hi, beautiful,” I crooned to her, still patting the water like I was calling to a frightened dog. The mother actually swam closer and tears pricked my eyes. What a beautiful, amazing, wonderful creature. I held out my hand, silently begging her to come closer. It would make my entire world to touch something so majestic.
“Isn’t she incredible?” The baby surfaced beside his mother. “Aren’t they incredible?”
Wyatt sat down next to me and held out his hand too. “Yeah. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
She was only a foot away, then a little closer. Closer. Tears burned my eyes as my fingers grazed her skin. “Oh, wow.” I looked at Wyatt, who was touching her too, then the baby when he came within reach. “They’ll even give humans rides sometimes. Like dolphins. If you’re interested.”
He stroked the baby’s nose. “You know. I just did my hair. It’ll have to wait for the next time I’m stranded in the middle of the sea.”
“Aw. Too bad.”
In all of my life, I never expected to be part of a miracle like this. When they got bored with us and swam away, I felt a lightness inside me that I’d never felt before.
They said that everything happened for a reason. Well, maybe I was too emotional and impulsive, maybe I’d wrecked our truck and those men had come along… just for this.
To learn about miracles. To learn about love.
As their dark shapes disappeared, I silently thanked them for visiting us. When they were gone, Wyatt and I looked at each other, sharing a smile. It helped to know that out here, where we were strangers in a strange environment, some things were gentle and just going about their ordinary, day-to-day business. It felt like a sign.
I hoped it was a sign.
Then a new miracle happened. A stiff wind lifted my hair. I looked up at the sky, shielding my eyes from the sun. The clouds had multiplied and darkened, and they were coming closer. The storm was almost upon us, about a half hour away, I estimated.
I pushed up off the side of the boat excitedly. It was a sign. A sign that everything would be okay. I leaned on the spear as the clouds tumbled over one another, eating up the pale blue sky over us. “Make sure the tarp is ready. Looks like we’re getting that rain.”
He straightened and raised his chin, but whatever trace of a smile he had faded as he watched the clouds. His jaw worked slowly.
Just then, lightning slit through the sky.
“Yeah. All right.” He reached over, pulled the hood over my head, and tightened it around my throat. Then he handed me one of the lifejackets. “We might get some rough seas. Put this on and go under the tarp, okay?”
“But…” I slipped the life vest over my head and tightened the straps. “What about collecting the rain? What about you?”
He ignored me, and I realized that my estimation of a half hour was way off. The sky opened up, and the rain started to fall hard. Cool, glorious rain. I lifted my face to it and silently thanked God as I opened my mouth as wide as it would go. Wind whipped around our faces, and everything turned hazy gray, like nightfall.
But while I stood still and gloried in the welcome rain, Wyatt had become a flurry of movement. He started throwing the cushions and anything that wasn’t nailed down into the holds. I reached down to help him by grabbing the first aid kit, swaying as I tried to get up when he nudged me.
“Just go under the tarp!” he repeated, his words eaten by the roar of the wind.
I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay and catch raindrops on my dry tongue.
But Wyatt was right. All around us, the seas were turning dark to mirror the sky, and starting to get rougher. We needed to secure everything.
Grabbing everything I could carry in one arm, I had to hold on to the side of the boat to stop the wind from catching me and pulling me overboard as I made my way toward the front. Within seconds, the tarp started to sag in the center, and the cords holding it up strained. Too much water. It was going to break.
Just then, the boat pitched violently, sending me stumbling under the tarp anyway. Of course, we couldn’t have a nice, calm rainstorm. The waves began to rock the boat, and my stomach felt queasy as I braced myself against the side. I looked up to see Wyatt, bottle in hand, climbing over the tarp, balancing precariously at the edge as the wind beat against him.
“What are you doing!” I screamed at him. The boat was rocking like an earthquake, and he slipped once, nearly falling before we pitched again. He fell, but into the bottom of the boat, on his injured side.
I screamed his name in horror, reaching for him as the wind whipped the hood over my eyes. I pushed it aside frantically, ready to lunge toward him.
But he’d already begun to scramble toward me, on his hands and knees, bare feet slipping on the rain-slickened fiberglass.
He was holding a water bottle. He shook it a little, and the clear water sloshed inside.
“Hope you’re thirsty,” he said with a grin.
I didn’t take it. I punched him on the arm instead. “You are fucking insane, did you know that?”
He sat down next to me, and we huddled under the console as the rain poured in around us. “Yeah. You may have gotten us fish. But who got us water?”
All right, I had to admit, he was the master. I wanted to kiss him.
I didn’t have time to, though, because a moment later, a gust ripped the tarp from two of its grommets, and it went flying out over the open sea.
“Shit!” Wyatt growled, grabbing the steering wheel and hoisting himself up. The tarp was whipping like a flag off the side. It felt like the storm was right overhead, roaring. He screamed something at me, but I couldn’t hear it.
I threw the bottle of precious water in a hold under one of the seats and jumped to my feet, trying to help him wrangle the tarp back on board. Again, Wyatt climbed to the edge of the boat and tried to grab for it. He was practically hanging off the edge, the lunatic.
But it had been ripped in half. The other piece whipped in the wind as I watched, helpless. How the hell would we harvest more water now?
“Wyatt, don’t!” I shouted from below him. “It’s not worth it! It’s not going to work!”
He lunged for it again, and it slippe
d from his grip.
“Wyatt. Don’t!” I shouted, louder.
He turned to me, and I thought I saw a nod, like he was finally, for once, agreeing with me. He gave one last look at the ripped tarp, acknowledging defeat.
Then, holding on to the frame, he started to step down from the rail, and I let out a sigh of relief.
But at that moment, the wind blew, pitching me forward as an enormous wave crashed over us. I got a mouthful of salty seawater as I stumbled face-first, my head making hard contact with the steering wheel. I slipped back, falling onto my ass, reeling as I found myself sitting in at least five inches of sea.
What the hell had just happened?
I scrambled forward to see how Wyatt was making out when I realized that there was no one else in the boat.
I was alone.
No. No. That couldn’t be.
Forcing myself up, I swept my surroundings furiously. Lightning crackled through the sky overhead. The boat continued to toss, the rain falling in torrents, pelting my face, striking me nearly blind as I fanned out my hands, trying to find the edge of railing where I’d last seen him.
But beyond the boat’s side, all I could make out were churning black waters, angry enough to swallow our small vessel whole.
I screamed his name. Again and again.
But only the wind answered back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Wyatt
The nightmare was unlike any I’d ever experienced.
In it, nothing made sense. I couldn’t remember where I’d come from, or where I was going. I writhed in pain the whole time, hardly able to draw in a breath. There were only dark shapes, screams, and water.
So much water.
When I woke, I found myself sputtering for air. I tried to sit up, but I felt like there was a cinderblock tied to my neck. I stared up at the clear blue sky. Scanning toward my toes, it grew pinker, with wisps of cotton candy. A sunset.
Water sloshed nearby, a sound I’d gotten very familiar with. I was on the boat, but I couldn’t remember the moment I’d laid down to go to sleep.
The storm. The memory came at me in a rush.
I forced myself up, but only managed to get up on one elbow before the pain knocked me down. I squinted in the light of the sunset, which was somehow too bright.
Atlee was sitting there, in the sun, with my jacket wrapped around her. She had her knees pulled up to her chest, her face buried in them.
I opened my mouth to say her name, but only a hoarse, “Lee,” came out.
She raised her head. Scuttling over to me on her hands and knees, her face was twisted like she was crying but she shed no tears. “Wyatt?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my head. “What happened?”
She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and pulled me into her arms. Sobs wracked her body. “I told you. I told you not to go.”
When I started to tell her it was okay, she shook me hard. “Don’t you do that! Don’t you think you’re leaving me!”
“All right. All right,” I moaned, reeling. “Geez.”
Her eyes widened, telling me she’d instantly regretted being so rough with me. She arranged the cushions for me and wiped at my forehead.
“I went overboard?”
She nodded.
“How did you…”
I scanned my memory but didn’t remember getting back on board.
Her voice was dull. “You were trying to fix the tarp, but a wave knocked you in. I tried to find you, but you weren’t wearing a life vest, and you were being pulled farther and farther away. When the storm stopped, I searched and searched but I couldn’t…” Her voice broke and her shoulders began to shake. “Then I saw you. You were so far out, I didn’t think I could get to you.”
I held her tight. “But you did. Somehow, you did.”
She sniffed and ran a hand under her nose. “I tied a rope around my waist and jumped in, kind of like towing the boat behind me. I swam after you, but you kept getting farther and farther away.”
With an arm that felt like it was made of jelly, I brushed away her tears. “That would have been something to see.”
She scowled at me, knocking my hand away. “I followed you for what felt like hours, and when I finally caught up to you, you were clinging to an oar. I thought you were dead. I’ve never been so scared.”
My eyes found hers, big and wide with worry. It killed me to see her like that. Not only that, without the tarp, she’d had nowhere to hide from the sun. I took in her face. Her nose and cheeks were covered in angry red welts, her lips were blistered and looked raw. “God, Atlee, I’m sorry. But we got water, though?”
She lifted a half-full bottle of murky liquid, then dropped it listlessly.
“I thought I’d filled that.”
“You did. I’ve been feeding it to you.”
I sat up, or tried to. Pain was like a bolder pressing me back down. “What about yourself?”
She shrugged and looked down at her feet.
“Dammit, Atlee, drink!” I reached over and felt her skin. She was hot, probably because she was overheating from lack of water. “Did you drink anything at all today? Or eat?”
She shook her head and it made me even more furious. Didn’t she realize that she was the only one of us who had any real chance of surviving this?
It was too late now to even think about fishing. That meant that daylight had been squandered, and we were in for another long, cold night of drifting about on this ocean. She knew that as well as I did, but the hopelessness in her eyes told me she no longer cared. “Atlee… you need to take care of yourself. You need to get out of this.”
“But what about you?” She was picking at the edge of the cushion. “I’m not doing anything without you.”
“Yeah. Me too. Of course.”
She swallowed. “I saw something. Out there.” She pointed into the distance.
I followed her finger but saw nothing. “What? What did you see?”
“I don’t know. Everything is blurry without my glasses. I tried to paddle us toward it. But the harder I paddled, the farther away it got.” She sniffled and swiped at her cheeks again, wincing when she connected with raw skin. “I’m sorry.”
And then she laid her head against the side of the boat, and the sobs really started to come.
My heart broke as I watched her, pulled her into my arms, felt the heat of her tears scorch my chest.
What was this? So, she thought she lost me, and she gave up? If that was the case, I knew I couldn’t ever leave her, not until we were safe on dry land. “Hey. Look at me. Don’t be sorry.”
She didn’t look.
I reached for her, pulling her up to my eye level. She had no choice but to meet my eyes. “You saved my life, Atlee. You’re stronger than anyone I know. You can get through this. You got it? We’re going to be fine.”
I tried to pull her into a hug, pressing her against me, wound be damned. But my arms felt rubbery. They wrapped around her body like jellyfish tentacles. Now, it wasn’t a stabbing pain in my side anymore, more like a dull, overall ache. I would’ve liked to think that meant I was getting better, but I thought I was just getting used to being in agony.
To distract her, I asked, “Which way is the thing you thought you saw?”
She sniffed and lifted her head. Blinking rapidly, she looked around, squinting until almost all the hazel was gone. “Maybe that way?”
Pushing myself to my feet, I held on to anything I could find. Even though the boat was no longer pitching, I was. I felt drunk.
That wasn’t good.
I blinked, and my vision bent, growing dark around the edges. I begin to fall, but Atlee jumped forward, taking some of my weight. Together, we somehow got me to our makeshift bed in the bottom of the boat. At least we still had that. The only thing I wanted to do right now was go back to sleep, for maybe another twelve hours.
There was probably something wrong with that too.
But I’d feel better tomorrow
. With a good night’s sleep, I’d be stronger.
Yeah. I was going with that.
When the stars slipped out again, I couldn’t manage to look at them. All that glory up above, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
Atlee kissed my cheek and whispered something in my ear that I couldn’t make out. Sweet nothings that felt like everything. I dragged open an eye to see her staring at me, those cute little lines of worry creasing her forehead. Love.
Yeah. It felt like love.
“You know,” I murmured to her as my eyes fell closed again. “You’re pretty cute, even for a vegan.”
A sweet, unexpected laugh burst out of her mouth. “You’re not terrible… for a scumbag,” she said back, her voice so fragile.
Warm droplets fell on my face. Tears. As I was dragged down deeper to sleep, I convinced myself it was sea spray.
“And you know something, Atlee Young? As annoying as you are, you’re the first woman I could imagine being with for the long-term. It’s different with you, you know?”
I was babbling now, but I couldn’t stop myself.
I was worried it could be the last time I’d have the chance to say it to her.
“You… you make the impossible feel possible,” I murmured, but I was so tired I wasn’t sure I actually finished that out loud, or if it was only in my head.
The last thing I felt before I fell away was the warmth of her forehead pressed against mine.
And the last thing I thought?
I would’ve liked more time with her so I could’ve known what being in love was like.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Atlee
I didn’t sleep that night.
Not at all.
I laid with my head on Wyatt’s chest, just listening to the rise and fall of his breathing, his softly thudding heartbeat.
Yesterday, when I nearly lost him to the sea, I thought I was going to die. I was swimming as hard as I could but didn’t seem to be getting closer. Maybe that was a metaphor for my life in general.