by Matayo, Amy
“I’m sure she’s somewhere on board. Did you check the casino? Maybe one of the more obscure bathrooms? If she’s sea sick, she could be trying to find an out-of-way place to—”
“She isn’t sick. She’s not anywhere on this ship. Why aren’t you listening to me? Chad, tell him to listen to me. Tell him everything you know.” She turned to a younger man next to her, a redhead that looked a little like Ed Sheeran if Ed were a little taller.
“I’m not sure what else to say…” Ed-lookalike trailed off, his limbs fidgeting as though he would rather be anywhere else. He had already spilled his story, and the captain made it clear there was nothing he could do.
The captain also wondered if the guy could sing. The entertainment on the cruise was questionable at best. The last musician they hired showed up drunk every night—fine for a comedy routine, but disastrous for a concert. The notes were off key, he slurred the words. The ones he could remember. This guy sure looked like Ed. Maybe he did impersonations?
He should probably ask. And he would if this lady would calm down for a second. This happened so often he could recite the parental meltdowns nearly word for word.
We can’t find our child! We’re worried he fell off the ship!
We can’t find our souvenirs! We’re worried someone stole them!
We can’t find my mother. We’re worried she wandered into a stranger’s cabin and got herself killed!
For the most part, cruises were harmless and uneventful, but there were always exceptions in the form of passengers who could not—would not—relax and have a good time. Drinks were plentiful and free in some cases, but for a select few even those didn’t help. Maybe they should start handing out free tranquilizers.
“Ma’am, I am listening to you, but I need you to calm down and let me do my job. Your daughter will turn up eventually, I’m sure of it. They always do. You say you were on a dolphin excursion? She probably just came back when it was over and found a place to herself for a while. Sixty people on one excursion can be a lot to handle for some people. I know it would be for me.” He kept his eyes on the water. This wasn’t the time for laughter.
“I’ve already told these people that she wasn’t with us.” The woman fairly shrieked. Her husband whispered for her to settle down. “She went off on her own at the last minute and—”
At this the captain paused, the penny dropping inside his chest. Surely she didn’t…
“She went off on one of our approved excursions, or an independent one off the ship? Because those are not authorized by us. There are posters everywhere, and announcements are made on a daily basis to warn people against them. Are you telling me that’s what she did?”
The woman blinked as though caught. Something told him she had been meaning to keep this bit of information to herself. As common as parental meltdowns happened on every single cruise, unauthorized private excursions did not. Most people followed the rule, because most people listened to warnings about safety and took them to heart. Most people had no desire to put themselves in unnecessary danger. But there was always one. Always one person who thought the rules didn’t apply to them. Who thought they wouldn’t be negatively affected. Who believed they were the exception, somehow invincible…above obeying the rules that everyone else managed to follow.
And those people, as sad as it was, got left behind if they didn’t show up to the cruise on time. It was the universal rule of cruising. Pick a cruise line, and those are listed in the bylines. Take excursions, take as many as you want. But be back on board at the instructed time or risk the ship sailing on without you. As far as this girl was concerned…if she wasn’t on board now, her luck just ran out. It was up to her to make it to the next port.
“Yes, but—”
“Time to go,” he said, looking straight at the lady before turning his attention to the water again.
Time for her to leave, and time for the ship to sail.
CHAPTER 9
Day Two—morning
Liam
My arm bumps something hard, and I startle awake. The blazing sun shocks me the most, odd that it would be so high in the sky when only a minute passed. Hasn’t only a minute passed? It’s hard to know, except the sun is obvious evidence that I’m wrong. We’ve been out here for hours, maybe an entire day. My legs feel like jelly and my hands are pruned and white. But my throat. It hurts in ways it’s never hurt before, even when I had strep so bad that I had my tonsils removed. I was eleven years old then, but I still remember the tears that came when the pain took longer than the doctors predicted to subside. A stubborn stitch refusing to dissolve, they explained. This feels like dozens of stubborn stitches pulling against each other in all directions, a tug-of-war inside my esophagus. I lick my lips in an effort to ease the pain, but it’s like pouring alcohol on a fresh paper cut. I’m sunburned everywhere, likely blistered in parts, and every muscle on my body hurts. I close my lips and my eyes, drifting again for a moment. Thinking of showers and swimming pools and a large bowl of vanilla ice cream…
My arm hits something again, and I turn, already forgetting it was the reason I woke up in the first place.
It’s a branch from a palm tree. Odd that it’s all the way out here.
Until I see them.
Trees. Standing tall in green and brown clusters in front of me. Forty, maybe fifty yards away.
An island. Tiny and insignificant, so small that if one were to squint and measure the land by holding a thumb and forefinger together in that childlike way we used to do, it might only span a half-inch or so. But it’s something. It’s solid ground and covered in green. God help me I’ve never been so relieved in my life. Without thinking to wake Dillon up, I start to move in a one-handed back stroke, taking care to keep her head above water. After only a few awkward attempts, she rouses against me.
“What are you doing?” She rolls over to rest her chin on my chest. If we were in bed this might arouse all sorts of ideas within me. In our current circumstance, I sink a little and water fills my ears.
“Land, Dillon. There’s an island right over there. We need to swim to it. Do you think you can?” I shake my head. Seawater rushes down the sides of my face.
“What?” She spins around, looking for evidence that what I’m saying is true. “But how did we—? Why is it—? When did the sun come up? I’m so thirsty.”
I can’t disagree. It’s the only thing I know other than an urgent need to swim.
“I’ll answer your questions later, I promise. Can you swim? We need to swim, okay?”
She nods, disoriented and likely a bit delusional. I recognize my own emotions in her lost and shell-shocked expression.
“Okay, yes. Let’s go.”
I look at her to make sure she’s okay. To make sure she’ll make it. When she nods at me once, I manage what I hope is a reassuring grin. My lips hurt too much to move more than slightly.
“Let’s go.”
So we do.
We go.
What can’t be more than fifteen minutes later, even though it feels like days and hours and weeks rolled together, we collapse side by side on the sand. Exhausted, dehydrated, and spent.
“I found this, but I don’t know how to open it.”
When I open my eyes, two separate images of Dillon appear above me. I blink a few times, and they slowly meld into one. She’s sunburned badly, her bottom lip split open like it’s been sliced with a knife, and her hair is knotted and tangled, but we’re alive. We’re on land, and we’re alive. It hurts like hell, but it counts for everything.
I gingerly sit up, her words finally infiltrating my foggy brain. My skin feels like it’s been branded with an iron, one that spent extra time on my shoulders, nose, and tops of my ears. My lips feel as awful as Dillon’s look, except for me it’s both of them. That’s what I get for licking and biting on them in an effort to temporarily ease the pain. Picking at a scab might feel nice for a second, but you always regret it in the end. My lips feel like two thick sca
bs crying out to be soothed.
“What did you find?”
“This. It’s green, but I think it’s a coconut. I’ve never seen one like this before.”
I slide onto my knees and examine it, certain it’s a coconut. The only problem? I’m certain I don’t know how to open it either.
“We need a knife.”
“I know, but we don’t have one. I had a metal nail file in my bag, but that stupid man took it. I’m going to kill him if I ever lay eyes on him again.”
“You can’t. I already called dibs when we were floating in the water. You were asleep so you must not have heard me.”
“Fine, you can kill him. But first can you open this coconut?” She holds it next to her ear and shakes it. “I hear milk, and it’s making me crazy.” Her voice is a string of croaks, like someone who hasn’t spoken for weeks and is just now testing it out.
I take the coconut and shake it. She’s right, there’s milk inside. But there’s also no way to contain it without—
“Do you still have your passport?”
“Yes, but I don’t see how that will be strong enough to cut anything.”
I smile a little. “I need the plastic bag it’s in.”
Her eyes brighten at the idea. “I’ll get it.”
It hurts me to watch her walk toward her life jacket because of the effort she’s exerting to do it. She’s wearing a bikini, every inch of her upper torso bright and blistering pink. The only thing saved were her legs—our legs. I thank God all over again that we never encountered a shark.
She hands me the now empty bag. “Here it is.”
“Thank you.”
I open the bag as wide as it will go, then set the coconut on top of it. Step one complete. Now we just need something strong enough to crack it open.
“Look for a rock, one with a sharp edge.” I scan the sand until I see a few pebbles floating like silt at the edge of the water. None look very large, but maybe we’ll get lucky. “Come on, I’ll help.”
I stand and take her hand in mine without thinking, then quickly release it. After gripping it all afternoon and night, it seems like the most natural thing to do. Until it’s not. The bright light of day casts shadows on reality, and holding Dillon’s hand isn’t something I have a right to do, even if I held it all night long and even if I’m so incredibly grateful to have her here with me.
“Sorry. Force of habit, I suppose.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t think anything about it until you let go.” My chest tightens at her words at the same time a little stab of guilt jabs at my conscience. Chad likes her. And if dibs are a thing, he already has a claim.
Dillon squats down and drags her hand through the sludge, but only sand and a few strands of seaweed fall through her fingers. I kneel a few feet away and do the same, also with no luck. Dillon props her hands on her knees and scans the area, then stands up and walks down the sand. I pace the area, looking for anything that might work.
“Will this work?” She picks up a stone that could pass for an arrowhead in the way it’s shaped and holds it out for me to see. I jog over to join her. “There’s a lot of rocks here. Maybe we should use them to spell out SOS or something? Isn’t that what people do in the movies?” She’s right, there are so many in different shapes and sizes, and it is what people do in movies. Of course in movies, they also walk around in sexy loincloths and make friends with volleyballs. So far we haven’t been that lucky.
“Good idea. Here, let’s move these over by your life jacket. Maybe you could spell out the letters while I try to open that coconut.”
“Okay.” She seems grateful to have something to do. So am I. The mind can’t race sideways when there’s a mission right in front of it, or at least it can’t race away that easily. I’ll get this dang coconut open if I have to work at it all day.
That determination doesn’t take long to vanish. A short time later, helplessness has taken up space in my mind and is already charging rent. It’s the milk. It keeps sloshing around out of reach, and the sound is making me crazy.
“Any luck?” Dillon asks me again. She’s already spelled out SOS with the rocks, and traced the letters in the sand around them with her finger in order to make them extra visible. Then she gathered up driftwood and dried up palm tree branches to use to make a fire. There’s a nice pile off to the side of me. She’s been rubbing sticks together for several minutes with no luck. I’m grateful for everything she’s doing, but as for me…I feel rather useless.
“Not yet. I’ve barely made a scratch on this thing.”
“It will open. Just keep trying.”
I do. It doesn’t help that I can hear her stomach growling from here. Or maybe that’s mine. I’ve been seized with sharp pangs since she first showed me this coconut. Anticipation is a cruel thing. I wasn’t even aware I was hungry until faced with something to eat.
“We probably need to find some shade soon. Your sunburn is bad, and I think it’s getting worse.” The breeze kicks up a bit, scattering some of Dillon’s dried branches across the beach. She curses softly and lunges to retrieve them. I peel my eyes away from the cleavage she inadvertently displays while kneeling in front of me. Ogling her was a fun pastime on the ship; out here it feels like a violation. She’s been through a lot in less than twenty-four hours. She doesn’t need my sex drive added to her list of life’s worries. “I wish you still had your cover-up.”
“You and me both. Walking around in a bikini isn’t exactly helping my self-confidence. Especially in front of you.”
It’s an odd thing to say. “Self-confidence? Babe, you just floated all night in the ocean and lived to tell about it. Hate to break it to you, but you’re officially the most badass woman I know. Probably that I will ever meet too. Believe me, you have nothing to worry about in the self-confidence department. I’m officially in awe.” I strike the coconut again with all the force I can muster. The pounding helps to take my mind off the smile she just gave me.
I won’t deny that she looks good in her suit. I’m still a guy, albeit a tired, filthy, and hungry one.
The coconut cracks.
“Hey, I think it’s breaking!” I shout the words like I’ve just discovered gold during the rush of the nineteenth century. Not surprising, because I’ve never felt richer. Turns out the man who dreams of becoming a lawyer that drives pricey automobiles, and lives in fancy apartments, and attends upper-class parties with upper-class dates…really only ever wanted a coconut. “Help me hold the bag in place so that nothing drips out.”
Dillon rushes over and grasps the bag on both sides. “Be careful,” she says. It’s impossible not to hear the hope in her voice.
“I will. Hold it up a little more while I try to pull it apart.” I jab the rock further inside. The sound of splitting coconut fills the air like music. Liquid begins a slow stream up and out. “Keep it steady. I’m going to pull harder, okay?”
“I’ve got it.” Her words sound like thirst and desperation, because they are.
A couple hard pulls later, and it splits, coconut milk emptying from the fruit and sliding into the bag. It’s chalky white and watered down, but there’s a lot. It fills the bag more than halfway up, much more than I imagined it would.
I nod to Dillon. “Drink some.”
She doesn’t ask permission and takes two long gulps before carefully extending the bag toward me. “It’s so good.”
I don’t respond. I’m too busy drinking. After a long second, I force myself to quit and hand the bag back to her. “Finish it.”
Dillon shakes her head. “You need more. Besides—”
“If you found one, we’ll find more. Finish it, and then we’ll find out what coconut fresh off the tree tastes like.” Dillon drains the bag, then drags the back of her hand across her cracked lips. If the movement hurt, she doesn’t complain. I scrape off a long strip of fruit and hold it toward her, along with half of the coconut. “You go first.”
She takes it from me and eats. I d
on’t miss the moan of appreciation that escapes her throat. The sight of her eating makes my stomach clench, so I peel off my own piece and chew. The fragrant smell reminds me of Pina Coladas and suntan oil. A cruel slap in the face, a reminder of where we should be instead of where we are now.
“A couple days ago I saw this girl at the pool—”
“I’m sure you did,” Dillon quips. I give her a look that she doesn’t see. She too busy scraping out fruit with her fingers.
“As I was saying, I saw this girl drinking a frozen Pina Colada inside the biggest coconut you’ve ever seen. The drink was mounded up on top and had pineapples and strawberries coming out of it on toothpicks. It looked so good, I told myself I was going to order one the next day. Sit by the pool and drink it slowly the way they do in the movies. That was my plan for today.”
Dillon sits back on the sand, crossing one ankle over the other. “And instead you’re here. Movies and real-life are not even remotely close.”
“I’ve decided Hollywood is one big lie.”
“Yep.” I watch as she scrapes a thumbnail along the bottom of the coconut where the fruit meets the shell, then drags that same nail over her lip. She repeats it a couple more times.
“What are you doing?”
“Hoping coconut oil is an actual thing. I think it is, because this seems to be helping.” She presses her lips together and closes her eyes, breathing deeply as though the oil is hurting and healing at the same time.
Coconut oil. She’s a genius. I try it, and she’s right. It does help. I scrape a little more out and reapply, then stand up and tuck the shell under my arm, saving it for later. I think it might work better if we heat the coconut later, something we can’t do without that fire.
“Can you show me where you found this one? We should probably look for more. We should also look for a spot in the shade before our sunburns get worse. My shoulders feel awful.”
