Withering Hope

by Hagen, Layla

  It’s also in this third week that I insist we build a fence around our plane. Just the idea of having a perimeter—something—separating our space from the forest makes me feel better. Tristan doesn't see the point of a fence, since we can't make one strong enough to keep big predators out in case they decide we're interesting, but eventually he gives in, and we start building one from the bamboo-like tree. The process is arduous and tiring. I'm not used to physical work, nor skilled at it.

  Tristan becomes a bit more talkative, but his answers remain mostly monosyllabic. I want to respect his privacy. I really do. Unfortunately, at this point, I am too starved for human interaction that doesn't consist of working together for food procuring or wood gathering not to push him for more. So while building the fence, I make another attempt. "What did you do before working for Chris? Were you an airline pilot?"

  Tristan sighs, and I brace myself for a yes or no answer.

  "You should concentrate on what you're doing with that knife. You could cut yourself, Aimee."

  I wince at the sound of my name.

  "Are you all right?" Tristan asks with concern, his eyes darting to the knife in my hand.

  "Yeah, perfect. It's just… it's weird, but when you called my name right now, I realized I haven't heard it in the three weeks we've been here." Goes to show just how starved for human interaction I am. "It feels good."

  "I can do it more often if you like," he says, shrugging.

  Tristan and I jump as a sound splinters the air. It sounds like thunder. That is usually a sure sign a storm will follow.

  Usually, when that happens the canopy protects us, and even when the sky explodes in thunders, we have enough time to make a run to the plane before the rain soaks us. The first wave of raindrops floats on the leaves in the canopy, only small ribbons of water trickling down to the floor of the forest. But as more water falls, its weight bends the leaves, and everything gets soaked. That’s the usual course.

  But this time, there is no rain. We listen for a while—no other thunder sounds.

  "I'd like that, you saying my name."

  "It's a nice name, by the way. It means loved in French, right?"

  "Yeah. My mom spent some time in France and loved it. She spelled my name the French way."

  "Aimee," Tristan says, in the same accent my mom did. I wince again.

  "Yep, you nailed it."

  He grins. "I'll call you like that if you stop pestering me to talk."

  I grin too. "No deal. We need to talk, or I'll go insane. I'm used to being surrounded by people all day in the office. And talking to them."

  "I'm used to being on my own either in the cockpit flying Chris all over the country, or in the driver's seat in the car. I'm used to silence, so I’m good."

  I blush, ashamed that I didn't try to talk to him more often when he was driving me. But he always seemed so unapproachable, so preoccupied with his own thoughts.

  "Well, you're stuck here with me. Unless you want me to go berserk, which wouldn't be in your best interest, you'd better put some effort into talking to me. I promise you I'm not as boring as you think."

  "I don't think you're boring," he says, stunned.

  "Excellent. There's no impediment then."

  "Except for the fact that lengthy discussions can break your concentration and distract you."

  "I'll take my chances."

  Tristan shakes his head. "You must be a damn good lawyer."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "You just don't give up."

  "A spot-on assessment of my skills. I was dyslexic as a kid. My therapist told me I should get a job that didn't require much reading or writing, because I'd have a hard time keeping up." Tristan's eyes widen. "But I always wanted to be a lawyer, like my mom. So I worked hard and became one."

  "That's impressive."

  "Thanks. It helps that I only need about four hours sleep at night. Lots of time to practice the exercises my therapist gave me. Your turn."

  "My turn to what?" he asks a little too innocently.

  I scowl, elbowing him. "Where did you grow up?"

  "Washington." There it is, the predicted one-word answer.

  "Do you have brothers, sisters… did you have a dog growing up?"

  He throws his hands up; I've defeated him. I smile and so does he. I finally broke the ice wall—or whatever that was between us. I find out he doesn’t have brothers and sisters, and he had two dogs growing up. His parents moved to Florida after they retired, and he visits them a few times a year. From that moment on, whenever we're doing a task that doesn't leave us out of breath, I start a new round of questions. To my surprise, he answers every time, unless I ask about his private life or employment before he started working for Chris. I learn fast to steer clear of those topics and rejoice at every little piece of information he reveals about himself, no matter how unimportant.

  Discovering more becomes a sort of guilty pleasure. The process of gradually discovering things about someone is fascinating. I've known most of my friends forever. I went to college in L.A, where I grew up, so college wasn't much of a discovery experience either. Even my relationship with Chris… well, there wasn't much room for discovery. I felt like I'd known everything about him forever, too. There weren't many surprises or secrets between us. I'd secretly been jealous hearing my friends talk about a first date or the beginning of a relationship, as they learned more about their partner. Of course, when said partner turned out to have a second girlfriend, or was a drug dealer instead of a vet, I'd been grateful there was no unchartered territory between Chris and me. Still, I can't deny the thrill of discovery. Now I have the privilege of experiencing it in snippets the size of teardrops every day.

  I wipe my forehead as I scrub one of my two T-shirts on one of the washboards Tristan made two weeks ago. Next to me, Tristan's doing the same with his shirt. We're sitting on one of the massive, fallen tree trunks we use as a bench, each with a washboard between our legs. We’ve been here a little over a month, and I swear washing clothes is one of the best workouts there is. I glance at my pile of clothing—underwear, two dresses, one pair of jeans and one T-shirt—waiting for me to wash them and curse. I've started wearing some of my dresses, impractical as they may be, because the thin fabric works well in this humid heat. Now I’m wearing a long, red dress with short, wavy sleeves. There’s still one dress, aside from my wedding dress, that I didn't touch. The white chiffon dress with navy lace. It's just too long and impractical to wear. It's at the bottom of my suitcase along with other useless things such as my makeup bag.

  Tristan pours a few drops of shower gel over my board and then over his. It's not enough to clean the clothes, but it makes them smell better. That's as high as we can hope given our circumstances, and we're very careful to waste as little shower gel as possible.

  "What's your favorite color?" Tristan asks. At last he's enjoying our little questioning game and initiates it almost as often as I do.

  "White."

  "That's a non-color," Tristan says with a smile, tsk-tsking.

  "Well, it's the one I like most," I say defensively.

  "That's why you have so much white clothing?"

  "Yeah," I say, surprised he noticed that. I wore white a lot in L.A.

  He nods, as if considering something. "You look good in white."

  I blush slightly. One of the wavy short sleeves of the dress I’m wearing falls off my shoulder. I raise my hand to put it back in place as Tristan does the same. Our hands meet mid-way, and when our fingers touch, electricity zips through us. It’s so intense, I feel a burning sensation in my fingers even after we break contact. The warmth spreads from my fingers, rising to my cheeks, and I blush, confused, even more so when I realize Tristan is avoiding my gaze.

  "You look good in everything you wear,” he says, “Aimee."

  I flinch a bit at the sound of my name. I usually do when he says it. And he says it often, ever since I asked him to. I can’t pinpoint how or why, but i
t sounds different now.

  After a few minutes I ask, "What's your favorite meal?"

  He doesn't miss a beat. "Omelette."

  I snicker. "That doesn't qualify as a meal," I say, seizing the chance to get back at him for mocking my favorite color. "No one dreams about an omelette. That's a last resort food anyone can cook. Pick something else."

  "Well, that's what I like. I love an omelette for breakfast. It's a privilege to be able to eat one while sitting in a comfortable chair, reading the newspaper."

  That's a bit weird, but I let it go. Every day here must be a privilege for him since we eat eggs almost every morning, though boiled, not an omelette. Maybe it's his guilty pleasure. Like coffee is for me.

  I would understand much later that the privilege is not about the eggs at all, but something else entirely.

  "I don't know about omelettes, but I like my coffee in the morning."

  "I know," he says, smiling even wider. "At 7:00 a.m. sharp. With one spoon of sugar."

  "You're perceptive," I say. "What else did you notice about me?"

  "You like to change your haircut every six months and—”

  "Wow. You'd make a perfect boyfriend," I say, stunned. "Most men don't notice things like that."

  His expression hardens, and I bite my lip. Stepping into forbidden territory again.

  "I meant it as a compliment," I add, though I have the feeling that won't help.

  "I just like to observe… the little things," he says, clipping out the words. I mull them over for a few seconds in silence.

  "Your hands are almost bleeding, Aimee," he says, alarmed. "I'll wash the rest of your things too."

  I look at my hands and notice the skin has peeled off. If I continue rubbing clothes on the washboard, they'll be bloody in no time. My eyes dart to Tristan's hands. They are flushed, but in much better shape than mine.

  "Thanks," I say. The tension in his posture ebbs away, and I sigh in relief, glad to be out of the forbidden territory. Why is he so sensitive about his personal life? Maybe he'll open up. A week ago I couldn’t get him to talk at all, and now he's asking almost as many questions as I am. But he changes when I accidentally step into his forbidden territory with my questions. His eyes widen, while something I never associated with him creeps into his dark, vivid eyes: vulnerability. So much vulnerability that I want nothing more than to hug him and find a way to lead him to a place of safety. I can’t stand the torment in his eyes, the tension that suddenly claims him. Tristan grows on me more and more every day, with every kind thing he does to make things bearable for me, and every soothing word he speaks.

  As I watch him rub my jeans on the washboard, I wonder why the employee rumor mill in Chris's parents' household, which was a reliable source of news about everyone's private life, never mentioned anything about Tristan's love life… like the fact that he had been married. I suppose he was as tight-lipped there as he has been with me.

  I remember him telling me in our second week here he isn’t seeing anyone in L.A., and I wonder why. I can imagine women would knock themselves out trying to get a date with him. He's stunningly good-looking, with a body so well-sculpted he could give most underwear models a run for their money. His face has beautiful features, with black eyes and high cheekbones. Though for all their beauty, his features are peppered with a harshness I can't place. Like tiny shards of glass in the sun—shimmering bright and beautiful, like diamonds, but cutting at the touch. It's not his looks, though, that make him excellent boyfriend material. It’s his heart-melting protectiveness that leads him to taste weird-looking, potentially harmful, fruit himself instead of letting me do it; it’s his thoughtfulness to do things for me just to put me at ease, from washing stuff to making sure he calls me by my name a couple of times a day because I asked him to. He’ll make a woman very happy one day—if we ever get back to civilization. I remember what he told me about his wife, and I can’t imagine why anyone would fall out of love with him.

  I rub my numb feet and stand up. "I'm going to look for some fruit for dinner."

  "We have plenty of grapefruit, and I'll see if I can catch something. Just rest a bit; there's nothing wrong with resting."

  "I feel guilty just sitting here and staring at you rubbing the skin off your hands on that thing."

  He laughs, a few strands of dark hair falling into his eyes. He pushes them away, and I can tell he's annoyed with his long hair, but I like it. He asked me to help him cut it a few days ago but I declined, afraid I'd poke his eyes out with the knife.

  "No need for guilt. You work a lot. I never imagined you'd be able to do so many outdoor things so well." He says the words with a tinge of incredulity as if he still can't believe it.

  I put my hands on my hips, pretending to be offended.

  "I bet you thought I was a spoiled, rich girl."

  That isn’t far off. My family was rich. Not like Chris’s parents, but rich enough. My grandparents had been wealthy, and passed their wealth to my parents, trusting they'd continue the family business and multiply the wealth. But my parents dedicated themselves to humanitarian causes. They donated most of their fortune, though they kept enough for us to have a privileged life. We didn't have household employees, like Chris’s parents, which is why I was always a bit uncomfortable when I was at their place, where there was someone ready to meet my needs every moment of the day.

  "Well, no, I mean I knew you were down-to-earth, but I was expecting you to complain a lot. You adapt well," he says with approval, and I feel childishly proud.

  "Thanks. By the time we leave this place, I'll feel more comfortable outside than inside."

  Darkness slithers over Tristan's face and he doesn't reply. Sometimes he’s so negative. Despite Tristan's ominous predictions that the forest holds dangers at every step, we’ve managed to survive unscathed for more than a month, except for discomfort from fruit that failed the edibility test. I may have a false sense of security, but I believe we stand a good chance of getting through the months until the water recedes just fine. These weeks are proof of that.

  It won't be long before I realize these weeks have been nothing more than the calm before the storm that never ends.

  "This was a definite treat," I say a few days later, rubbing my belly. Tristan hasn't managed to catch a bird in two days, so we've feasted mainly on fruits. Tonight we got lucky. After we're done eating, I announce that since we still have about half an hour left before the darkness sets in, I want to inspect our wood supply, to see if we need to gather more wood first thing in the morning. I still make the signal fire every day. Tristan cleans out the carcass of the bird we ate. While I have no problem eating it, I still get nauseous when I see the bare bones. I wish we had some vegetables to go with the meat, but we haven't had much luck finding any we can tolerate.

  I lift myself from the ground with an acrobatic sway caused by a wave of nausea. I regain my balance, shaking my head. I've come to expect this, but that doesn't mean I'm used to it. The humid, choking heat strains my body, and I often find it hard to concentrate on what I'm doing. The mud muffles my footfalls as I make my way to the depleting wood shelter. I inspect the remaining branches, assessing whether they'll be good for starting a fire or just maintaining it. Tristan joins me before long.

  "These are no good for starting a fire. Tomorrow morning I'll…" I begin to say when I feel something crawl up my arm. For a few seconds I’m petrified. Then I lower my gaze, and my sweat turns to icicles on my body. My arm is covered with spiders. A twinge of relief wedges inside of me, because they aren't very big. My moment of relief lasts one second, as a horrifying pain grips me, starting where the spiders are. I begin to scream, trying frantically to rub them off, but Tristan shouts something, grabbing my arms, stopping me. How can something so little cause so much pain? It's as if they have sharp knives instead of claws.

  "Get them off me," I cry hysterically. "Get them off."

  In a swing of his arm, he brushes them away. But the pain persists.


  "It's important to—” he begins, but the rest of his sentence transforms into a howl. The spiders get him too. But I don't see them anywhere on him.

  "Where is the pain coming from?" I ask.

  "My back," he pants, gritting his teeth.

  I start unbuttoning his shirt, but he shakes his head, and I understand what he means. No time for unbuttoning. I turn him around and rip open his shirt. I can tell he's trying to say something, but his words mingle with grunts of pain, and all I can manage to make out is the word palm.

  There they are. Two spiders, on his lower back, right next to his spine. I slap my palm over them as hard as I can, and they fall off. Tristan's grunts don't stop.

  "Let's get inside the plane," I say.

  Tristan nods and we half-carry, half-drag each other inside the plane. My arm stings like hell, but I am more concerned about Tristan, who keeps stumbling. His stings were very close to his spine. I shiver. There are a lot of nerves in that area.

  "There is insect cream in the first aid kit," he says once I lower him in one of the seats.

  "I'll get it." I don’t have much faith that the cream will help. We also use the insect-repellent wipes every day, and they aren’t very useful.

  Tristan makes me apply the cream on my arm first. It looks dreadful. There are red, swollen blotches all over, not just in the places where I was stung. I almost throw up when I see Tristan's back. His entire lower back is little skin hills.

  "Your stings look much worse." I apply the cream as best as I can. "What were you trying to say when I was trying to get rid of the spiders on your back?"

  "I wanted you to brush them away, not hit them with your palm, because their claws break off and remain inside the skin."