Unseen Messages

by Pepper Winters

  Every day, I kept avoiding what’d happened between us in the woods. And every day, it grew more awkward.

  But we kept going.

  Kept enduring.

  Kept believing that one day soon a boat would pass by or a plane would fly over. Anything to get us off this island and away from the maddening lust and hardship.

  We’d returned to the crash site hoping to gather whatever fuel we could from the broken gas tanks for the largest signal fire we could muster. However, they’d bled dry over the past weeks, soaking into the soil. There was a chance the foliage around the chopper could catch fire, but even if it did, it was buried in the forest and would have to burn for a while to be visible. Plus, we needed the helicopter. It still held supplies that could be of use...depending on the length of time we remained.

  As the days stretched on, we embraced our certain tasks. Galloway flat-out refused to discuss my need to find more food. Only one of my scratch tests had swelled with an allergic reaction, meaning the bush marked XI was safe to eat. Whenever I tried to bring it up, he shot me down like an arrogant asshole.

  I knew he was only looking out for me. I knew he wanted me and tried to protect me and possibly dreamed about making love to me (like my constant dreams about him). But there was a potential food source. We were starving. And I didn’t know how much longer I could agree to keep the peace by not eating it.

  A few days ago, we’d found a black and white banded sea snake that’d washed up on the beach. Conner had come across it while collecting clams. He’d poked it with a stick, giving me a damn heart attack.

  Galloway had studied it, deemed it fresh (how would he know?) and gutted and skinned it. He tossed the head back into the sea and the body became our dinner. I’d sniffed the meat to make sure it wasn’t rotten, and Galloway decided it was much more appealing to eat a dead sea-creature than a sampled and half-verified plant.

  Men.

  I couldn’t understand his logic.

  At all.

  Not that it mattered, because the flesh of the snake (stabbed on a stick and roasted over an open fire) had been a delicious delicacy (even for a vegetarian).

  Conner and Pippa had sounded like a rabid carnivores. Moaning with each mouthful, sucking their fingers, so grateful to have a decent meal for the first time in weeks.

  The next day, Conner disappeared into the forest, returning with a stick half as thick as his arm and almost as long as he was. He and Galloway spent all day carving the end into a nasty spike and hardening it in the fire.

  To his credit, Conner took it upon himself to hunt. Inspired by the sea snake, he waded into the ocean, his arm raised to strike, his spear deadly in the sun.

  For two days, he attempted to spear anything that moved. No fish, manta ray, octopus, crab, or eel was safe. However, no amount of willingness or hours spent glaring for prey granted him luck.

  All he earned for his troubles was sunburn and wrinkled extremities from spending all day in the sea.

  Yesterday, he’d traipsed back, sopping wet and pissed off—unsuccessful again—but with an odd-shaped prey harpooned on his spear.

  A starfish.

  Poor thing.

  Conner had dumped it by the fire with full intention of devouring it. However, Galloway had instantly forbidden it.

  He was right to do so.

  I’d actually tried starfish once at a sushi restaurant. Knowledgeable chefs with experience in culinary specialities like urchins and puffer fish had prepared the dish. A cook with expertise needed to prepare all three delicacies as some elements were toxic.

  It hurt that he’d killed a creature we couldn’t eat. It hurt even more to throw away fresh food. But we didn’t know the repercussions of such a meal. It didn’t make sense to risk it...no matter how much we wanted diversity.

  We’d survived this long by being smart; we wouldn’t let our stomachs lead us to an early grave.

  While Conner turned into a spear-thrower—single-mindedly focused on his task—Pippa suffered a relapse with her grief. She lost interest in everything, preferring to spend the day beneath the umbrella tree, stroking her mother’s ring and bracelet, weeping herself to sleep.

  I tried to be there for her.

  I did my best to hold her and let her know she wasn’t alone. But that was the nature of death; the ones left behind had to continue living but occasionally the memories stole us, and no matter how much time passed, no matter how many hugs were given, it couldn’t stop sadness from winning.

  As life crawled onward, I turned to my own activities. My hands became sore from plaiting flax rope as I focused on making as much as possible.

  Once Galloway could move around without hopping (if that day ever came), we would have supplies ready to build. We could finally have shelter.

  Not that we suffered too badly in the open-air home we’d become accustomed to. But a roof would be nice when the rain came.

  A few weeks ago, I’d offered to build. I’d argued that Galloway could give Conner and me instructions and we would be his labour.

  Fat lot of good that did.

  Galloway vibrated with self-loathing, masking it with rage. He would’ve bowed to the idea if I’d pushed (I knew that), but I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t strip him of his worth.

  I still didn’t know much about him. I didn’t know his likes or dislikes. I didn’t know why he carried such a curse around his shoulders. But whatever it was, it didn’t let him find peace and I couldn’t stress him further.

  Hopefully, we would be rescued soon and shelter would be moot; and if we didn’t, well, we only had time.

  Lots and lots of time.

  We would make a house...eventually.

  The island kept us both bored and never able to rest. Bored because hours stretched from dawn to dusk where the usual chaos of life wasn’t there to keep us occupied. There was no TV, no books (my e-reader and Conner’s hand-held gamer didn’t survive the crash), no bars or social media. My phone provided some entertainment with saved movies I’d loaded before my flight, but we learned how to relax in silence rather than commotion.

  For four people living together, we remained strangers for the most part. Conner and Pippa clammed up whenever I asked about their old life because it hurt too much to talk about their parents. And Galloway had a perpetual sign warning personal questions were off-limits.

  We didn’t take time to speak or chat or play games. We’d been here five weeks, yet we weren’t entirely comfortable with each other. Galloway suffocated in his secrets. The children alternated between being young and swimming happily to staring into space where nothing and no one could reach them. And I languished in fear over what had happened to my world. Was my cat being cared for? What about my recording contract? Was Madeline okay? I hadn’t sorted out a will and had no beneficiaries to make it easy on whoever annulled my life.

  We each had demons, and unfortunately, we dealt with them alone.

  We have to talk to one another.

  It wasn’t enough to be island companions; we had to be what we were.

  A family.

  Orphaned.

  Lost.

  Forgotten.

  I shook away my thoughts, my eyes flicking to the forest behind me. The sun had set, but it wasn’t late. Pippa and Conner had gone for a walk, and Galloway sat carving another spear. His hands flashed white in the darkness, his eyes narrowed with the small amount of illumination coming from the fire.

  That was another thing I couldn’t get used to: the dark.

  We had a torch from the cockpit, which never died thanks to a windable charge. The beam of light was handy when we used the latrine in pitch black.

  I’d dug the facilities a week into our stay, doing my best to keep it downwind and far enough from the camp not to attract smells or insects. We kept a mound of sand beside it to act like a flush, and leaves functioned as another use rather than just a potential food source.

  The only other form of light we had was my phone. T
he torch app had come in handy a few times, but I missed the ease of pressing a switch and harnessing brightness. I missed the convenience of being able to see, regardless of the hour.

  I’d taken a lot of things for granted, but most of all, I missed Madeline’s friendship. I missed her easy laugh. I missed the way she pushed me when I needed to be pushed and gave me peace when I’d reached my limit. But most of all, I missed her advice.

  Along with every major event in my life, she’d been there when I broke it off with Todd after four years of mental abuse. He’d never touched me, but his mind manipulation turned me into more of a social phobe than I naturally was.

  Her advice had been key to me leaving. And if she was here, she’d give me no choice but to deal with the tense awareness between Galloway and me.

  She’d force me to answer the ultimate question: did I lust for him or did I love him? And if I loved him...what did that mean? What could it mean on an island like this? What if we were never found? What if we had sex and then hated each other? It wasn’t as if we could vanish and never see each other again.

  Our survival relied on our linked resources. It wasn’t safe to jeopardize all of that.

  Is it?

  Sighing, I rubbed my eyes and stood. I needed a walk, and a few days ago, I’d come across a clearing in the forest where a thicket of bamboo grew. Long and thin and strong. I loved to listen to the rustle of their skinny leaves as the breeze made natural music.

  I’d also found a cloud of butterflies hovering in the middle of the thicket, dancing like papery short-lived angels.

  It relaxed me.

  I need relaxing.

  Ever since Galloway had caught me taking pictures on my phone, we’d shared the creation of memories and often recorded parts of our new life. We had home movies of fishing and digging and diary moments with no censorship on the mental toll and weighty depression that tarnished everything.

  It helped...admitting such things. I was happy to share the device. However, I had one secret I didn’t want him to know.

  My notebook and lyrics.

  My music was for me. Not him. Not the children (apart from the occasional lullaby for Pippa). Not for anyone. Scratching melodies and forming singable patterns was a therapeutic activity I wanted to keep hidden.

  Not that my pages were immune to the hardship of the island.

  With every rainstorm, my notebook grew damp, smearing verses, and washing some ink away entirely.

  My bare feet slipped over the cool sand as I reached into my bag and hid my notebook in front of me. Staying as inconspicuous as possible, I headed away from the camp.

  I wanted to compose but not around him.

  He wouldn’t understand the confusion inside me and I had no intention of telling him—not when he refused to tell me anything about his past. All I’d learned was he’d been on his way to Kadavu to build homes for underprivileged locals as part of a charity.

  The fact he could build told me he was in that profession and the knowledge that he’d donated his time told me he was either a selfless human being or someone who had to atone for something.

  Either way, I’d never know because he would never tell me.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Galloway stopped carving his spear, his eyes catching blazing tendrils from the fire.

  Damn.

  I wasn’t as discreet as I hoped.

  Keeping my book hidden, I paused. “Going for a walk.”

  “To find Pippa and Conner?”

  I kept my back to him, looking over my shoulder. “No, just...to clear my head.”

  “You can’t clear it here—” He glanced down. “With me?”

  The anxious, unfinished situation between us sprang deeper, demanding closure. For a week, we’d used the children or talks of island life as a way to avoid a messy confrontation.

  I was just as guilty as he was for pushing it under the proverbial rug.

  But I wasn’t ready to deal with it.

  I didn’t think I’d ever be ready.

  Don’t do this...

  His hands curled on the half-carved spear. “Estelle...you can’t keep avoiding me.”

  “I’m not avoiding you.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Yes, well, you made me come. You took pleasure and layered it with punishment.

  “It’s not bullshit. I’m not avoiding you. I’ve just been...busy.”

  I flinched, hating the way my voice wobbled and chest emptied into a cavernous ache.

  Neither of us spoke for a moment.

  He cleared his throat. “We need to talk.”

  My heart swooped. “No, we don’t.”

  “How about I make this easy for you?” He shifted, his splinted leg rustling in the sand.

  Every day, he seemed slightly better. He hobbled now rather than hopped, but the injuries still hadn’t healed.

  “For the first time, we have the camp to ourselves. We can be honest. No cryptic talk, no games. I need to speak to you, to clear whatever the hell is going on between us, because this—” He waved at the space between him and me “—is not working.”

  I sighed heavily. My fingers clutched my notebook, dying to run away and ignore him. What could he do? Chase me?

  Turning to face him, I kept the book behind my back. “Well, we’re alive, and it’s been five weeks, so something has to be working.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I widened my eyes deliberately. “Truly, Galloway, I don’t know what you want from me. You said it perfectly the other day when you had your hand down my shorts.” I blushed when his mouth parted, and he licked his bottom lip. “You know I want you, but you’re right, I’m afraid of you. And fear should never be part of a relationship.”

  “Wrong,” he growled. “It should have everything to do with it.”

  “What?”

  He watched me beneath hooded eyes. “You don't fear me, Estelle. You fear what I can make you feel. If you didn’t feel when I touched you, then there wouldn’t be anything between us. And there is something between us. Something that deserves to be explored.”

  I hated that he was right. I hated that he could see right through me and didn’t give me anywhere to hide. I’d tried so hard to ignore him. I forced myself to forget the delicious sensation of his fingers inside me. I downplayed the epic release under his control. And I definitely didn’t let myself dream of stealing him into the forest and finishing what he started.

  I wanted him.

  So, so much.

  But he was right. I was frightened. For reasons I still didn’t understand.

  Galloway looked into the fire, granting me a brief reprieve from his gaze. “I don’t know anything about you, Estelle. You won’t talk about where you’re from or who you are. You won’t let me in. But this is our life now. We don’t know how long we’ll be here. And I’m sick to bloody death of lying in bed at night so damn hard from wanting you and not knowing where I stand.”

  His English accent. His words. They dripped like morphine through my blood, blocking my concerns.

  My temper hissed. “I don’t tell you stuff? What about you? Whenever I ask the simplest question you shut me down. Don’t be hypocritical, Galloway, it doesn’t suit you.”

  I would never tell him I understood his pathological need for secrets. I wasn’t comfortable sharing pieces of myself, handing over my history, and willingly opening my world to another’s criticism. I respected his need for space because I demanded the same.

  Besides, I already know more than he thinks.

  “Hypocritical? You want to play that card?” He bared his teeth. “Fine. Let’s focus on who’s the true hypocrite, shall we?”

  My mouth fell open. “You can’t mean me.”

  “Got it in one.”

  “How?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You kissed me first, remember? You’re the one who started this.”

  “That kiss was a mistake. We’d just crashed and were so thirsty we were a day a
way from dying. Excuse me if I gave into a spur-of-the-moment decision to have some happiness before I died.”

  “And it was a bloody amazing kiss.” His hands tightened on his spear. “Do you deny it?”

  I gritted my teeth. I wanted to deny it. If I did, it might put an end to this ludicrous conversation. But I’d never been a liar. I ran, yes. I hid, yes. I went out of my way to avoid a fight from anyone. But I’d never been a liar.

  I hung my head. “It was good. That I can't deny.”

  “And the other day, when I made you come. Didn’t that feel equally amazing?” The smugness in his tone irritated me.

  My hackles rose. “Besides the point.”

  “No, it’s the point. Answer the question. Did you or did you not like what I did to you?”

  How dare he put me on the spot? What if Pippa and Conner could hear us?

  “Galloway, stop—”

  “No, I won’t stop. Not until you put me out of my goddamn misery.”

  I breathed hard. “How?”

  “Tell me the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “Can I have you or not? Will you let me take you to bed? Will you give in to whatever links us and put us both out of pain, or will you be stubborn and continue to avoid me?”

  Keeping my notebook a secret was forgotten as I brought the pages in front of me and hugged it. I squeezed it as if the answers Galloway demanded could be found in its lined papyrus. “I—I don’t know what to say.”

  “Do you want me or not? Simple question. Simple answer.”

  I sucked in a breath.

  Nothing was simple about that. It was layered with commitment and the strength of putting my heart on the line when nothing was assured about our future.

  “I don’t know.” My voice was a moth, fluttering and soft.

  “Yes. Yes you do, Estelle.” Galloway propelled himself upright, grabbing his crutch and hobbling closer. “Tell me. Right now. Yes or no.”

  “Yes or no to what?”

  “To us, goddammit!”

  I looked at the moon-silvered beach, fearing Conner and Pippa’s return. “I can’t answer that.”

  And don’t ask me why because I don’t know why.