by Matayo, Amy
“Mine feel like someone held a flat iron to them and didn’t let up. But somehow my nose feels worse.” Dillon stands and looks out over the water. “I’ll show you. Do you think anyone knows we’re missing yet?”
“They have to by now. And knowing Chad, he’s probably scared out of his mind and kicking himself for letting us leave.”
She shields her eyes to look at me. “He’s a good guy, isn’t he? Your brother.”
I nod. “He is. One of the best.”
Her eyes don’t leave mine. “He’s liked me for a long time. I feel a little bad for ignoring him the way I have.”
“So it’s been that obvious?”
She shrugs. “Very obvious.”
“Well don’t feel bad about it. If it isn’t there, it isn’t there, you know?”
She sighs. “I know. I just hope he isn’t too mad at me to help.”
“He’s not that kind of guy, and he has nothing to be mad about. I promise he’s doing everything he can think of to help find us.”
Dillon smiles, but it’s small and sad. I don’t tell her that she has nothing to be sad about where Chad is concerned. I meant what I said: if the feelings aren’t there, they aren’t there. I’m the only one who should feel awful in this scenario.
Because for every moment I spend with Dillon on this island, my feelings keep growing. Something tells me it’s only going to get worse.
CHAPTER 10
Day Two—afternoon
Dillon
There’s only so long you can stare at something without actually doing anything about it. But whatever that time on record is, Liam and I have it beat for sure. We’ve been looking at this cluster of coconuts forever. I suppose we’re both praying for one to fall—I know I am—but so far they’ve stayed put and so have we. I turn at the waist to scan the water, and my hopes dash again. There’s still nothing. Nothing in the sea, and nothing in the sky. Whoever plans to rescue us needs to hurry. I cross my arms in front of me and try not to wince. For one, my skin hurts everywhere. For two, I want my cover-up or at least a towel. Walking around in a bikini is not something I’m comfortable with under any circumstance, stranded or not. It’s one thing to lay by the pool or swim in one; having no other option is killing my pride, one literal step at a time. I’m not sure it can take much more.
Also, it’s hard to walk on this island without any shoes. I’ve cut the bottom of my feet twice on upturned sea shells. Liam has suffered the same fate. We’ll both be walking with permanent limps if someone doesn’t rescue us soon.
“You could always climb on my shoulders,” he says. “I can hold you steady, we just have to figure out a way for you to get on top of me.”
I was wrong. My pride just took a sharp nosedive straight into the sand.
“Wearing this? I’m not climbing on your shoulders like this, Liam.”
He rolls his eyes. “Do you honestly think I’m going to make a pass at you? I’m starving and quite literally dying of thirst. Not to mention you floated on top of me all night, and I didn’t try anything then. And in case you didn’t notice, I’m not wearing a shirt, and I’m not liking the way it feels either. Not the sunburn or the way you keep openly lusting after my body.” At this, I giggle. He winks. “Look, I promise not to make any comments about your lack of clothing if you promise to stop staring at my chiseled chest. Deal?”
“Chiseled? Whatever.” I make a point of rolling my eyes, but he’s definitely chiseled and we both know it. “You have a deal. But don’t make me regret this.” I blow out some air and twirl a finger in the air. “Bend your knee a little and lean sideways. Like this.” I demonstrate, feeling ridiculous and so incredibly naked. Get it together, Dillon. You are not defined by your clothes. Or…your lack of them. Liam copies me, sort of. “A little further, yes like that. Now take my hand.” I grab onto his hand, plant my foot on his thigh, and hoist myself up and onto his shoulders, using the tree trunk for support. “Hold my ankles like that, yes.” I wobble a bit and clutch the tree, then slowly let go when I feel steadier. I exhale to steady my nerves. “Okay, I’m going to stand on my toes and try to knock a couple down. Watch your head.”
My fingertips graze a low coconut, but the only thing that falls is a little dust straight into my eyes. I blink a couple times to clear my vision. Independence is a pain in the butt.
“You okay?” Liam asks.
“Yes, just give me a second.” I rub my left eye to clear it. “Okay hold me steady again.” I swipe a couple times and one falls free. “Did you see where it landed?” I call down to him. When he says yes, I bat at another. In a matter of only a few minutes, I knock down five more. That should do it. Now I need to climb down somehow.
“Just jump forward and out, I’ll catch you,” Liam says.
“You’re sure?”
“Trust me. I’ll catch you.”
I was a cheerleader in high school, so I know what he’s asking. I’m just not sure he’ll know how to catch me. Still, I jump forward and out. He catches me and sets me on the ground. Every part of me hurts in all the places he touched.
“Nice catch,” I say.
He shrugs. “I took gymnastics as a kid. Helped with coordination. For basketball, of course.”
Despite everything we’ve been through in the past twenty-four hours, this manages to surprise me. “You did?”
“Yes, and if you make fun of me, next time I’ll drop you.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I was a cheerleader in high school.”
“I know. Teddy told me.”
There’s so much innuendo in that statement that I blush. My face is already on fire from the sun, so it’s safe to assume he doesn’t notice. I quickly change the subject to something more interesting.
“I saw banana trees over there, and I saw some bananas on them.” As I thought he would, Liam whirls around to find them.
“Where?”
I point through an open patch of trees, ones further away from the water and closer to the center of the island. I couldn’t see much on Liam’s shoulders, but I could see enough to know that this island is even smaller than I thought. Water circles it much closer than I assumed it would. In a particularly bad storm, half of the land could potentially be submerged. We need rain, but I’ll start praying for a little instead of a lot.
“About thirty yards that way. They’re up high, but maybe if I found a stick and climbed on your shoulders again…”
“We’ll find a stick.” His determination makes me believe him, so we walk. It’s a slow process dodging sticks and rocks and other sharp objects with bare skin and feet.
“Turn here. No, here.” I’m momentarily lost, but keep walking. I only remember seeing one cluster, but I’m certain there are more. I remember my grandfather explaining the laws of fruit trees to me when I was younger and begging to plant my own fig tree in his back yard. At the time, I lived with my parents in an apartment downtown. I was six, maybe seven. I had just read one of the Ramona books, I can’t recall which one. In it, Ramona spent her days climbing trees, staying perched in them for hours. When she got hungry, Ramona ate green apples. I didn’t like green apples, but I was a big fan of figs. Hence the desire for fig trees. I had never climbed an actual tree in my life, but my grandparents had a big patch of grass on the outskirts of town, so finding one to climb didn’t pose a problem. Finding a fruit tree did, however. The only thing they had were oaks and a couple of maples. Great for syrup. Not great for pretending to be Ramona.
“Now sweetheart, you can’t just plant one fig tree or you’ll never get any fruit. Fruit trees need other fruit tress nearby to pollinate.”
“What’s pollinate?” I asked, not understanding him at all. I just wanted a fig tree. No didn’t seem like an acceptable answer.
“It’s like having babies. That takes two people, not just one. Think of fig trees like people; you need two of them to create more figs.”
“I thought babies came from God.” They did, because my grandfather told me
so the year before when I asked him where babies came from. God, he said. And then he asked me about school.
This time he cleared his throat. “Well, they do come from God. But they also come from people. So, you see now how that makes sense.”
I nodded, because I did. Maybe.
And then I stared at him, waiting.
Instead of answering any more questions, he took me to buy two fig trees. It took three more years for any figs to show up, and by then I’d outgrown Ramona and moved on to Judy Blume books about getting your period—I really wanted to get my period so that I could finally be a grown up—but I still loved figs. Those trees still stand in my grandparent’s back yard. What I wouldn’t give to climb one now.
At any rate, they taught me something. Fruit trees need more fruit trees to reproduce, so with those odds there’s bound to be more bananas. I veer to the right and stop at the base of a tree that looks like one I saw, then look up to study it. Liam stops just behind me, his arm resting against mine.
“Is this it?” he asks.
“I think so, but I don’t see any—wait, there they are,” I say, pointing up. “Think we can reach them?” I ask. This tree is taller than the palm tree, and I’m a little frightened.
“We will reach them if I have to shimmy up like Tarzan. I’m starving, and coconut has never been my favorite.” He takes a few steps to look around, then picks up a long twig. “Here, hold this.” I take it from him, and we do the whole weird cheerleader routine again. Within a couple seconds, I’m back on his shoulders, and he’s gripping my heels in a death clutch that makes me feel only marginally secure. I grip the base of the tree hoping it will support me.
This time it takes only one good swing for the first bunch to fall. They’re green and unripe, but edible. Eventually I manage to knock down a yellow cluster, then Liam sets me on the ground. In all, there looks to be over twenty bananas. I’ve never been much of a banana fan, but we have exactly two options on this island. Eat these, or starve.
“Now we have to figure out what to do about water,” Liam says. “When it rains, we need something to gather it in to save for later.
I’m almost desperate to find some. The coconut milk helped, but you don’t realize how much the body craves water until none is available. We walk slowly while he looks around—examining upturned shells, crevasses in the ground, and leaves. Finally, he sighs in defeat.
“I can’t find anything. The good news is that it should rain later. Let’s go back to the beach and lay our face masks out. It’s all we have to collect water in. When it does rain, we can use them as a cup.”
It’s a good idea; one I wouldn’t have considered. A glimmer of hope in what seems like an increasingly hopeless situation.
We sit on the sand with the bananas in front of us. Liam reaches for two bright yellow ones and hands them to me, then takes three of the paler ones for himself. I silently count the rest. Thirteen. Along with the four coconuts, those should last for a while. At least I won’t have to attempt to gather more right away. The thought should bring me comfort, but it only ushers in a wave of despair.
“Where are they?” I’ve struggled with insecurity my whole life. Am I pretty enough? Tall enough? Is my hair long enough? Are my breasts full enough? It’s the reason I majored in psychology in the first place, my internal heroic effort to understand and reform myself. It didn’t work. Nowadays I make a nice living counseling others, but I’m bankrupt when it comes to fixing myself. Lots of girls have daddy issues. No one talks about younger-sister-of-dead-brother-she-never-met-and-likely-never-measured-up-to issues. They’re real, and they’re hovered over me my entire life.
Even thinking that thought leaves me steeped in guilt and shame.
“I have no idea,” Liam says. “I thought someone would be here by now.” His voice matches the desperation in my heart. The sun is starting to set. It won’t disappear for a couple more hours, but darkness looms ahead of us in more ways than one. Where will we sleep? More importantly, how?
I peel the second banana and chew it slowly, contemplating a third but not wanting to make myself worse than I already feel. Waves crash against the shores, the only other sign of life besides me and Liam. I study them for a while, watching the whitecaps peak and dissipate, listening to the rise and fall, the in and out. Seagulls soar overhead and make an occasional nosedive for a fish, a couple birds land and stroll along the beach. I’m envious. They don’t have a care in the world because they’ve known of this island’s existence all along. They’re not lost, they aren’t waiting to be found.
The ocean with its beautiful waves and serene imagery has always been one of my favorite things to experience, something I looked forward to since the first moment I heard about our cruise.
I wonder if it will ever be the same for me after this.
I lie back and prop my head on the lifejacket, using it as a pillow. We’re close enough to the trees that this patch of sand is now shaded. I close my eyes and will the sound of a plane to reach my ears, believing that if I concentrate hard enough, a miracle will happen. I picture my parents, frantic with worry. I’m their only child and we were sharing a room on the boat. There’s no doubt in my mind that my mother is blaming herself, blaming my grandparents, blaming anyone who spent the last three days criticizing my love life and lack of romantic prospects. No doubt.
Especially considering the last conversation I had with her.
“I wish I’d never come on this trip. If I had known you’d be trying to set me up the entire time, I wouldn’t have. The waiter, Mom? Seriously?” I fell across my bed like the teenager I was resembling and pulled a pillow over my head. She spoke over me, attempting to tug the pillow off my face. I gripped it tighter.
“Is it so wrong for me to want grandchildren? You’re not getting any younger, Dillon. We’re all just trying to help.”
“I’m twenty-eight, Mom. I have friends who haven’t even finished college yet. Others who still work as waitresses because they don’t know what they want to be.”
“Because they have no direction in life. Is it really so bad that I’m trying to point you in the right direction?”
“Yes, considering your idea of direction only includes kids and homemaking.”
“Is there something wrong with homemaking?” I heard the hurt in her voice. My mother had always been a homemaker, and I loved her for it. I just didn’t like the same expectation being so roughly thrust on me. So, I pushed back.
“There’s something wrong with thinking it’s the only thing you’re good at. I want more for my life.”
That’s when the bathroom door slammed, the only sound coming from the shower turning on. We were supposed to meet downstairs for the dolphin cruise in a half-hour but my mother decided to unnecessarily clean herself in protest. That would show me.
It certainly did.
That’s when I made my decision to leave. I told her I would meet her downstairs, and left.
I’ve regretted the words I spoke to her ever since. Sometimes the words we speak in anger are so much more powerful than the ones we speak out of hurt. The hurt can be washed away with tears and apologies. Mean words can too, but you never quite forget the impact.
Still, I meant what I said even if I regret the way it was delivered. I do want more for myself…something I can call my own. An accomplishment. A goal. Something outside of people I will love and ultimately watch leave. Something for later. But I regret making my mother believe she wasn’t enough or that her life decisions were somehow beneath my own.
They weren’t. My mother gave up everything for me, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.
I just wish she could see that my choices aren’t any less valuable.
Now though, I just wish she could see me. Period.
A shadow falls over my face, as though someone is standing over me. I open my eyes expecting to see Liam. Instead, I see an unexpectedly dark sky. When I look next to me, I see Liam asleep.
“Hey, wake up.”
I shake his arm. “Liam, I think it might—”
The first drop hits my forehead before I finish the sentence. Raindrops splash against his chest, and he bolts upright.
“What is that?”
“It’s raining!” The sky opens and showers us in sheets. I open my mouth to catch as many drops as I can. Most hit my lips, nose, and forehead. And then I remember the goggles. “Hold your goggles up. It’s working, Liam!” In seconds my mask fills, and I drain it in one long gulp. When I glance at Liam, he’s doing the same. I’ve never been thirstier in my life. When I’ve had three mask-fuls, the rain stops. Leaving as suddenly as it started. It isn’t until afterwards that I realize I forgot to save some. Liam must be thinking the same thing.
“We still have coconuts if we need them again.”
I nod, watching the storm cloud slowly recede, leaving like a much-needed friend who stopped by for a brief second to soothe a bit of loneliness.
I lie back again, listening to my stomach growl, once again worrying about water. Two days ago, I was worried about having enough romance novels to read, and today I’m worried about water. It’s true what they say: life can change in the blink of an eye.
I turn my head, trying not to think about why no one has found us yet. Or worse, how long it might take.
I shiver, a cool breeze descending over my newly-wet skin. I’d give just about anything for a blanket.
CHAPTER 11
Day Three—morning
Liam
Something pulls me from sleep, a sharp sting or prick. It hurts like fire, but I can’t find the source. When I sit up Dillon is already awake, slapping at her arms and breathing quickly. That’s when something bites me on the back of the thigh.
“What is it?” She jumps up to run toward the water, so I follow her. I’m a sleepwalker who shouldn’t have been roused, panicked and disoriented and unsure of what’s happening. Another bite sinks teeth into my shin and survival mode kicks in anyway; I suppose it always trumps everything.
