Chapter Seventeen
Haveyou ever had one of those dreams? You know, the ones where you are surrounded by water, but no matter how much you drink, you are still dying of thirst? That is where I am right now. I am so thirsty, my back feels tight and sore, and there is a scratchiness happening whenever I move. I move my legs and can feel the grittiness underneath them as I thrash them around, trying to get comfortable. This doesn’t feel right. Where am I?
I open my eyes to darkness and slowly sit up, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness of wherever I am. How did I get here? I feel around, and my hand knocks into something next to me. I can barely see the outline of a table and a lamp. Reaching out with my hands, I flip the switch, and the light comes on. Closing my eyes to the brightness of the light, I peek my eyes open, looking around at my surroundings. My room? How did I even get in here? The last thing I remember is being on the float plane with Coop. Oh my gosh Coop… Did he carry me in here?Does that mean he carried me from the plane to the truck to my door? How did he find my keys? Did he change my clothes? Am I naked!?!?!
I start to panic as I swing my legs out of bed, throwing the comforter off of me, revealing my swimsuit top and boardshorts from before. Phew. Thank goodness. I mean, I didn’t think he was like that, but I also don’t know the man very well. The bedsheets are covered in sand, and every time I shift, it moves right along with me. It is in my sheets, in my shorts, up my shorts, and in the crevices of my butt cheeks. Lovely…
Standing up from the bed, I begin to brush the sand away from the sheets. Sleeping with sand in the bed is not something I can tolerate, which means I must have been really tired. Just as I lift my hand to swipe at the mattress again, the room starts to spin before me, and I start to sweat, my mouth doing that salivating thing that happens right before you barf. I run for the bathroom, the world tilting on its axis as I try to make it there. I drop on my hands and knees and crawl the rest of the way before emptying the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I guess I should have drunk more water, like Coop said. Dang it all.
Once I am sure that there is nothing left, I lay my body on the floor, the cool tile a balm to my sunburned back. I need to get some electrolytes in me, but everything is still moving like a tilt-o-wheel. Maybe if I close my eyes for a few minutes, everything will calm down.
I’m notsure how long I laid there on the floor, but it must have been long enough for me to fall asleep again. I crack my eyes open, and wait for the room to start swirling, but it doesn’t, so I sit up slowly. Once I am on my butt, I scoot my way back into the room, and grab my phone from my backpack, along with a bottle of half drunk water, before propping myself up against the side of the bed. I unscrew the lid and slowly take sips, remembering from the first aid class I took a while back, to not rehydrate too quickly. Lucky for me, my cell phone still has about 10% battery left. Thank you battery saver mode, so I check my messages.
I have two text messages from Clara, and one missed phone call from my dad. It’s 4:30 a.m. where I am, so that means it is 1:30am where Clara is, so I will have to call her back later. Might as well read her texts, just in case something happened.
Clara: Hey Molls. I know you are on the island today, but I just wanted to check in to see how things are going. Love ya.
Clara: Molly, it’s like 10pm here, which means you should be checking in with me soon. I can’t wait to hear about all of the baby nests! ??????
Crud. I never called, so hopefully Clara isn’t freaking out. No. That would be something I would do. Clara was super calm, so she probably just went to bed, and figured I got in late. I better check my voicemail.
“Hey, Molly, it’s your pops.”
“And Lindsay. Tom, don’t forget to say I’m here too.” I hear another voice come through the receiver.
“Oh, yeah. And Lindsay says ‘hi’ too. Just wanted to tell you hi, tell you we love you and that we are headed to South Dakota to check out the Black Hills of Dakota. Remember that song from ‘Calamity Jane,’ Mollygirl? Such a good movie. I have always wanted to see that place.” I hear a wistfulness in his voice, as if he is imagining our late night movie sessions, sitting together on the floor in our apartment, the snacks spread out before us replacing our dinner.
“Anyways, I hope you are having a blast in Emerald Bay. I know it was always your dream and I know you will do awesome.” I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye as he finishes the last bit.
“Love you, Mollygirl. Forever and for always.” We say at the same time as the voicemail ends. We always end everything with that.
I set my phone down on the floor beside me and finish off my water, knowing it isn’t near enough. Especially if my eyes continue leaking like they are. I swipe at my eyes again, and focus on what I need to do. I can feel nostalgic about my pops later, but right now, I need to get more water, before I throw up again. I can already feel the saliva accumulating under my tongue.
Grabbing my cell phone from the floor, I move to stand, using the bed to help stabilize my shaky limbs. I move to plug in my cell phone and notice a note, a bottle of water, a bottle of Advil, and the aloe from the plane sitting on the nightstand near the lamp. I grab the bottle of water and twist the lid, continuing to sip on the water bit by bit as I pick up the little note.
Molly,
Thought you might need some of these, and I’m not sure what you have around here. So, if you wake up with a headache or your burn hurts, here’s some Advil for the pain. Also, here is the aloe from the plane. I know you can’t reach all the spots, but hopefully it will help the ones you can reach. Oh, and I left you some water. Because… well… Water, water, H2O, dehydration NO. NO. NO. I still don’t get it, but hopefully it made you smile. See you tomorrow.
Coop
I laugh out loud as I read that last part again, and my head pounds with the sound. Opening the bottle of Advil, I swallow down two before standing again. I’m not sure I have enough willpower in me to take a shower, but at least I can change out of my swimsuit and into some pajamas.
Shimmying out of my swimsuit, I grab a pair of undies, some yoga-type booty shorts that I would never get caught dead in outside of my house, and an old soft t-shirt that has the faded image of a sea turtle across the front surrounded by the words ‘Save the Turtles, Keep Our Ocean Clean’. I slowly slip into my clothes and tread barefoot to the kitchen. I fill up my reusable water bottle from the water in the fridge and add some electrolyte salts to the water before making my way back to my bed.
I sip on the water as I read the note a couple more times. This isn’t at all what I remember my pops being like. If I got sick as a kid, I pretty much just had to take care of myself. He tried, he really did, but there is a reason people say mothers have a ‘maternal instinct’ about them. Dads can have it too. My pops was awesome. But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t throw a bag of everything on planet Earth at me and high-tail it out of there when I started my period in sixth grade. I remember sitting on the toilet trying to figure out what to do with the plastic applicator of the tampon before giving up and sticking the thickest diaper pad onto my underwear. Thankfully, our next-door neighbor, Sally, was a bit more helpful about those things, and the next time I had questions about anything of that nature, she was the one I went to. I wonder how Sally is. I really need to call her.
I settle into the bed and flip to my other side, and just like before, the room starts spinning. My eyes feel like they are detached from my body and are shaking from side to side, making the room not only spin, but shift in all directions. I roll out of bed and drop to the floor, pulling the blanket with me as I head for the bathroom. I make it just in time to empty all of the water from my stomach into the toilet before dropping to the ground, pulling the comforter over my shivering body. I don’t have my phone, I don’t have my water, and I just lost everything that was helping my body recover from being dehydrated. Am I going to die? Are the last words I think to myself as I pass out on the floor.