by K. M. Galvin
Could be a good thing. Don’t want to get eaten by a puma or some crazy cat. Besides, who can complain about lack of company when you have that, I think as a giant spider scurries away.
Shuddering slightly, I keep moving, placing my feet carefully now that I know there are all kinds of creepy shit crawling everywhere. Too bad I didn’t have something to kill that spider.
“Ha!” I would never eat a spider. Not that hungry yet. Maybe tomorrow if I’m not successful.
I wonder if East is having better success?
God, I hope so. We have the coconuts, but I’d kill for some water.
A tree root comes out of nowhere and trips me up. Yelping, I fall flat on my face. “Come on, jungle!”
Rolling onto my back, I notice the tree has what looks like gigantic green grapes dangling from around its center. Wait a second…
“Jackfruit!” I squeal, recognizing it almost instantly. Jamie is a vegan and would substitute jackfruit for meat all the time. I even got good at cooking it myself.
Jackfruit tastes wonderful and you can even eat the seeds after boiling. Downside? They weigh a ton; larger ones can weigh up to eighty pounds. I need to find a smaller one that’s ripe. Hopping to my feet, I roam around the tree and finally find a few ripe ones.
“Come to mama!” I lean down to pick up the one closest, but I can’t lift it on my own. “Ok, not that one.”
I move to the next, which is smaller, but this big bitch has to weigh nearly twenty pounds. Huffing in frustration, I consider my options. Try to find my way back to camp and hopefully remember how to get back here or take it now and roam around the jungle with twenty pounds of fruit in my makeshift backpack?
There’s no choice, I have to take it with me.
Kneeling down, I try to fit it in the survival bag, but it’s too big. Sighing in frustration, I realize I’m going to have to use both my hands. There goes any form of balance or defending myself if anything happens. Again, no choice, Taylor, just try not to walk into a den of jungle cats.
I look up to the sky to see if I can position myself with the sun, but the canopy is too thick.
“East!” I yell on a long shot, wondering if he’s by some miracle nearby. Only silence greets me. “You’ll be fine. You’re on an island, just find the beach.”
I go to the right and walk carefully through the brush, keeping my eyes on the ground for any sign that I’ve come through here before. I should leave some kind of marking along the way next time I venture out. Supposing I don’t get bit by a giant spider or something equally treacherous.
After about twenty minutes of walking, I have to take a break. My arms are killing me and I’m pouring sweat. If I have to take a break every ten minutes there is no way I’m getting back before nightfall, and the idea of spending the night away from the beach has me climbing to my feet instantly.
“East!” I yell again, but again there’s nothing. God, how far away did I walk? He promised not to go too far from our makeshift camp.
The further the sun sinks behind the trees the darker it gets, and a sick feeling settles into my stomach. I won’t be able to keep walking without daylight. It’s hard enough as it is now. I’m going to have to find somewhere to stay, I think, tears welling in my eyes at the idea.
“Dammit,” I gasp and keep trudging, keeping my eyes open for anywhere that looks safe. How much time has passed?
I walk for another hour, stopping intermittently before finding a fallen tree. This is definitely the wrong way; I didn’t pass any fallen trees.
I close my eyes in defeat, trying to slow my breath, when I hear it.
Waves.
I gently set down my prize, relief flooding me, and rub my eyes to clear away some of the sweat. The difference in humidity in here compared to the beach is startling. My skin is slick with it; my clothing sticking to me so much I feel suffocated. I shake out my arms and wince when I see how red and irritated they are from gripping the spikey fruit so tightly.
I do my best to rub the sweat on my arms onto my clothes and pick the fruit back up, groaning loudly. Twenty pounds now feels like a hundred, and I know I’ll be sore as hell tomorrow.
Glancing down, I see my feet are riddled with cuts and dirt. I’ll have to wash those as soon as possible. My leather boat shoes I threw on the night the boat sank offer little to no protection. If they couldn’t be used for something else, I’d have thrown them into the woods by now.
The trees begin to thin out the closer I get to the sound of water and soon the ground is softer as I hit sand. When I finally clear the trees, a small cove greets me. It’s a small U-shaped beach, but it doesn’t look like it goes all the way around. There goes walking along the beach and eventually finding East.
I could swim…
But that takes energy I don’t have and who the hell knows what’s in the water. Dusk is feeding time for sharks. Or at least that’s what the television tells me. I place the fruit down in the sand and decide now’s a good time as any to at least give myself a makeshift bath. At least there’s still some light.
Kicking off my shoes, I strip quickly and move into the water. It’s cooler here than at our beach, probably because of all the shade the trees provide, but holy shit, it feels glorious.
I’m too chicken to go further in the water so I stop where it reaches my knees and sink to my bottom, letting the water cool my body down. I sink my hand into the sand at the bottom and rub it along my body.
“God, that feels good,” I moan and rinse off the excess sand with water. Leaning back, I rinse my hair and do my best to finger comb out the snarls.
I look behind me where I left my things and sigh loudly. I squint at the sun and see it’s nearly sunk behind the trees. Shit. Looks like I’m making this beach my home for the night. Dunking my head one last time, I leave the water and do my best to air dry before shrugging on my dirty clothes.
I do my best to clear out the area I’ve designated as my bed for the night. Sinking to the ground, I pull the fruit close and let exhaustion overtake me. I should be scared but I’m too tired. My last thought before drifting off to sleep is of East. Hopefully he’s ok and not freaking out.
I JERK AWAKE WHEN I hear something loudly crashing through the woods behind me. Sitting up quickly, I’m grateful the sun is high enough to give me a visual and I still completely, searching between the trees to see whatever is running towards me.
Damn, I wish I had that knife. Something to protect myself.
My hand falls to the fruit. I guess if I have to use it as a weapon, I can do my best to throe this at it. Twenty pounds of fruit hitting something should at least hurt it enough so I can attempt to get away.
“Taylor!” East’s voice cuts through the silence and I’m immediately on my feet, running towards him.
I see him almost instantly, pale and clearly scared. “East!”
He whips towards me and mouths my name before running straight towards me. I notice he doesn’t have his shirt on again, but instead of chastising him like I normally would, I take my time and check him out. His muscles bunch and flex as he runs, his skin brown from the sun glistening with sweat, and his face…
No one has ever looked at me like that. Like everything he needs is right there in front of him.
Before I can say anything, I’m in his arms and he’s squeezing the life out of me.
“Where the fuck have you been? Are you ok? Did you get hurt? Where did you sleep? Taylor! Say something!” His frantic hands search my body for injury and I bite my lip to prevent a snarky comment. Now is not the time, Taylor, he’s clearly upset.
“East, calm down.” I feel his hands shake as he frames my face and studies my eyes for signs of concussion. “Hey, hey,” I say soothingly before drawing him into a hug, wheezing slightly as his arms band around me again. “East, I’m ok. I got lost and slept on the beach over there. I’m ok.”
“I thought you died. Or you were lying somewhere hurt and wondering where I was. I couldn’t think—t
hat you might need me and I wasn’t—” His breath catches and he leans back to look at me again. “Don’t ever do that again.”
I roll my eyes and detangle myself from his embrace. “I didn’t do it intentionally. And besides, you went off by yourself too. This could have easily happened to you too.”
“No,” he shakes his head, following me as I make my way back to the beach, “it wouldn’t have. I had a knife and I’m—”
I pause and turn around with my hands on my hips. “You’re what?”
He says nothing, just exhales hard and moves around me to take the lead.
“Come on, East. You’re what? A man? Don’t go all chauvinist now, you were doing so well,” I say sarcastically.
“I’m not getting into this with you.”
“I’m going to contribute just as much as you. I have as much stake in this as you. No way am I going to sit around while you do all the work,” I tell him firmly.
“I’m sorry. You freaked me out. I can’t lose you, Taylor. I’d go insane here by myself,” he says, refusing to look at me.
I sigh in defeat because it’s the same for me. We need each other to survive and it’s starting to blur the lines. The level of responsibility I feel for him and obviously him for me could cause problems.
“I feel the same,” I give in and it’s a sort of apology for scaring him, “but I found food.”
He turns back with a hungry look on his face and grabs my hand. “Show me.”
I lead him back to my sandy bed and explain to him about the jackfruit, getting excited all over again. It’s such a great find and I’m proud I found it. I tell him all about yesterday. How scared I was, how lost, that I lugged this thing for God only knows how long. He watches me intently, eyebrows rising when I tell him there are fruits bigger than this one and he laughs when I tell him about that fucking spider.
He listens to everything intently and it takes me a moment to realize I haven’t had this kind of attention since my father. Someone genuinely interested in what I was saying; it warms my heart and I find myself smiling wide at him.
“What?” he asks softly, tucking some hair behind my ear.
I shake my head, feeling slightly stupid, and point to the fruit. “You get to carry it back.”
Who else is he going to listen to, Taylor? There’s no one else here but you.
Feeling foolish, but doing my best to hide it, I slap his arm and get up from where we both sat, wiping the sand off my butt. “You remember how to get back?”
East gets up and picks up the fruit easily before quirking a brow at me. “Yes, luckily at least one of us has a good sense of direction.”
I scoff, “Careful or I won’t show you how to cut and eat this.”
“You’re not going to refuse to feed the guy that found fresh water, are you?” He grins over his shoulder as he leads me through the trees.
My mouth drops open in delight. “East!”
“There’s a river, a couple of miles from our beach. I already purified some, but waited to drink it.”
“Aw, Easty, you waited to drink our first batch of clean water with me?” I tease, but am secretly pleased.
East stops abruptly and I smack into his back. “Never call me Easty again, Tay-Tay.”
I gag. “Deal. If you never call me Tay-Tay again.”
“You got it. And of course I waited, we’re a team,” he explains easily.
There’s no way he knows what that means to someone who has no one left in the world. To be able to count on someone other than yourself, even if it’s just while we’re stuck together.
Warmth blooms in my chest as I watch him walk in front of me, the strength in his back obvious as he moves. It reminds me of how he refused to give up, paddling for hours until we found this island. He shifts the jackfruit in his arms and I watch those muscles flex, remembering how he stayed still for over an hour until he grabbed a fish straight out of the sea.
I have to stop checking him out.
“East,” I say softly and he stops, glancing over his shoulder.
I close the distance between us and hug him from behind. His body tenses and I grip harder and eventually he relaxes into me. I squeeze my eyes shut and bite my bottom lip to prevent myself from spilling every thought I have.
“Are you ok?” he asks in a hushed tone, as if feeling the weight of the moment too.
I nod against his back, giving him one more squeeze before stepping back, “Sorry—I—” I clear my throat and start again, “I want to thank you. For everything. For providing for us and never giving up even when I had. For not giving up on me.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I do. I really do.” I cut him off and then laugh, trying to break the tension, but it’s obvious and loud. “Hop to it, I’m dying of thirst,” I joke, but it falls flat.
East shakes his head and continues walking.
We make it back to camp a little over an hour later and I immediately set to showing East how to open the jackfruit. We eat in comfortable silence, watching the water for boats, before East grabs the now empty pot of water and gets up. “Want to come with me?”
Shading my eyes, I look up at him and think of the awkwardness of the walk back here. “Nah. I’ll collect some more firewood and see if I can find some large rocks so we can make a sign on the sand.”
East hesitates for a moment. “Please don’t go far off.”
I want to argue, but after last night I know I don’t have a leg to stand on. My silence is apparently too much because he squats down in front of me. “Please, Taylor. I—I can’t come back here and find you gone. The waiting—I can’t do it again. Please don’t wander off without me. I know how that sounds, but I can’t help it.”
I place my hand on his knee to stop him from rambling. “I won’t.”
His green eyes are bright with urgency. “Promise?”
My heart squeezes at what I put him through. I was scared last night, of course I was, but if I would have come back yesterday and waited around for East only to never have him show up, I would be terrified. “I promise.”
Truth is I want to go with him. After a week of being in very close proximity to him, I loathe the idea of being without him. But the last thing I want is to make things awkward or become clingy. His presence makes me relax and now, after he came for me, I know it’s because he has my back. No matter what. And that feeling is quickly becoming addictive.
I blink, realizing he’s still staring at me, so I laugh and give him a big smile to calm his nerves. “East! Go!” Please stay. “You’re being weird.” I love that you care.
He runs his hand over my hair in a brief caress before promising to be back soon.
I ignore the chills running down my back from the spot he touched and look back out over the ocean.
“What are you doing, Taylor?” I whisper, and the wind grabs it, taking it out to sea where I left the rest of my sanity.
THE NEXT WEEK WE FALL into a routine. It helps distract from the fact that it’s now been over two weeks without a sign of anyone else or rescue. The worst part is the routine lures me into this false sense of security. I wake up in the morning and the fear that used to grip me when I realize where I am is no longer there.
Over dinner, I find myself looking into East’s laughing eyes glinting at me in the firelight and wonder if it would be so bad if they never came for us? I have no one waiting for me. I don’t have a job and all my “friends” were just colleagues I no longer speak to. The only person who would miss me is marooned with me.
I blink and look back at my portion of our little island feast. During another one of my foraging trips, I was able to find some oysters and crabs. Once I figured out how to dig them out, we had protein with our fruit.
“What’s up, sad face?” East asks.
I shrug, not really wanting to confess my selfish thoughts. He’s such a good person, a selfless person, at least with me. All my initial impressions of him were wrong. All that matters is w
hat we do and how we act now.
“I’m fine,” I tell him and even slap a smile on my face to prove my point.
He continues to eat, considering me before putting down his giant leaf we’ve been using as plates and moving to sit next to me.
“They’re going to find us,” he promises.
I shrug again; there’s nothing to say to that. He’s so hopeful and I don’t want to remind him that they give up searches fairly early in these situations. I mean, realistically, how long are they going to look?
“They will,” he growls, forcing me to look at him, and all at once I’m angry.
“How can you have such hope?” I snap at him.
His dark eyebrows slam over his eyes and he looks at me incredulously. “How can you not?”
“Whatever.” I throw my food on my plate and sink my hands into the sand, gripping it and letting it cascade through my fingers.
“My brother will never stop looking for me, even if everyone else does. I would never give up on him, so I’m not going to give up on myself.”
“What a luxury that is,” I snarl, throwing a handful of sand between my feet as I get up.
“What is?” he pushes, following me.
“To have someone who gives a shit! I have no one looking for me. No one. This is all I have, and every day that passes I’m starting to be fine with it.”
East grabs my arm and swings me around. “You don’t want to be saved?”
I rip my arm out of his grip. “Of course! I don’t know. What would be the point? I don’t have anyone waiting for me back there. I’m by myself. It’s been nearly seventeen days, East. Seventeen!”
“I can’t believe you’ve given up!” East shouts, getting in my face. “The Taylor I know—”
Unrelenting rage explodes inside and I shove him away. “You don’t know me! You don’t know a fucking thing about me, East! We were strangers before and we’ll be strangers after. Stop trying!”
“You’re wrong,” he says quietly, and it’s too much.