Chapter Twenty-Eight
My feet crunchthrough the underbrush as I try to remember where I left Molly. Things look different now that the light is coming through the clouds, and the little breadcrumbs I had memorized as a way to find my way in the dark don’t make sense to me anymore.
“I’m over here,” I hear her shout from somewhere to my right. I push through the trees and find her standing stock still, eyes wide with terror, and that”s when I see them. Two giant iguanas perched on a branch just a few feet away. I start to laugh, and Molly’s eyes glare at me, her lips turning down into a frown, wiping that laughter clean from my face.
“You had me scared for a minute there, Sunshine. Those are iguanas. They are practically harmless. Except for their tails, they can pack a bit of a sting if they get ya with them.” I rest my hands on my knees, out of breath from the running. “Wait… How do you not know what an iguana is? Aren’t you a biologist?” I’m laughing now, and the lizards skitter away as Molly yelps, jumping in my direction, her hands flailing about her like spiders are crawling all over her body.
“I’m a sea turtle biologist, Coop. I have only seen them in pictures, and only briefly. Turtles aren”t lizards. How am I supposed to know that those things aren’t poisonous?” I shake my head at her and grab her hand, pulling her in the direction of the camp as she continues to do the heebie-jeebie dance behind me.
I take a step and wince as a branch scrapes across the back of my leg. Pulling Molly to a stop, I try to angle my leg so I can see the back of it, but she sees it first, and I hear her suck in a breath. Looking up at her face, I can see the concern there before I even have the chance to look at my leg. When I finally get it at an angle where I can take a look, I see blood trickling out of the reopened wound. I must have cut it somehow–probably the broken window from the plane–but how did I not notice it until now? The cut is about three inches long, on the back of my calf, and I’m not sure how deep it is because it is caked with sand and dried and fresh blood. I choose to ignore it for now and take Molly’s hand, tugging her toward our shelter.
“Coop, we need to take care of that.” She whispers to me as we walk.
“I know. I have an emergency kit. I’ll clean it up when we get back.” I squeeze her hand, trying to give her some comfort as we walk to the shelter in silence, the cut on the back of my leg burning the further we go.
Once we arrive, I pull out the kit and sit down on the blanket, readying myself for the pain that is sure to come. We have some water that I saved from the plane, and I need to rinse out the cut, or it will get infected. There’s a small spring on the island where we can refill our bottles, so using some of the drinking water shouldn’t be too big of a deal.
I angle my leg off the blanket and, little by little, pour the water over the cut. But I can’t see it well enough to know if it is clean.
“Here, Coop, let me do that.” Molly takes the bottle and grabs some gauze from the kit, wiping away the sand from the wound as I try not to cry out in pain. I look away and clench my teeth as she continues to clean it.
“Coop, this is really deep… Like, needs stitches deep.” She moves from her spot and starts rummaging through the supplies on the sand. “I can’t stitch you up, but I do have a few things that I brought that can help.” She continues going through the soggy boxes of supplies until she finds what she is looking for. “Aha. Found it.” She brings over a little bag and sets it down on the blanket, kneeling next to it before removing a little plastic syringe, a bottle of something clear, and a bottle of something brown, setting them to the side. She opens the clear bottle, fills the syringe up, and moves to my leg. “This will help me rinse out the cut better.” She starts squirting the syringe, and I wince as it hits the cut. Grabbing the brown solution, she dabs it onto a swab and brushes it along the cut before grabbing some antibiotic ointment from the first aid kit and slathering it on. She sticks a large bandage over the cut and wraps it with gauze before bending over to kiss the wrappings.
“There. All better. We will check on it later, and if it starts looking angry, I have some sea turtle antibiotics we can give you that might help.” This woman. Just when I didn’t think I could like her any more than I already do, she kisses my wound like I’m a two-year-old who just scraped his knee, and my heart can’t handle it. I never felt this way about Abby… ever. She never showed me even an ounce of the compassion that Molly has shown me in the one week since I met her. One week. Has it only been one week since I met her? How the heck can someone have an effect on a person so quickly?
I absently rub at a place on my chest over my heart as I watch her clean up the supplies she used. I can’t take my eyes off of her as I think to myself about all of the similarities and all of the differences between the one woman I thought I loved and the woman I’m starting to love. Maybe love isn’t what I thought it was. I start thinking about all of the people I have loved in my life, trying to compare my feelings for them to the overwhelming emotions I have for Molly. But they don’t compare, because this is different. This is all-encompassing and all-consuming to the point where it almost hurts. I guess sometimes all it takes is a storm to wash away the past and show you the love that was there all along.
I watch her for a little bit longer and move to stand, and Molly rushes over, helping to pull me to my feet. I can’t sit here and do nothing just because I have a small injury. There are things that have to be done before nightfall, especially if these clouds don’t clear up. “Wait here a minute. I will be right back.”
“But shouldn–,” I cut her off with a peck on the lips and point to the blanket, telling her to stay. She complies and sits on the blanket as she watches me disappear, a small smirk on her face. I come back moments later, with a coconut in hand and a bushel of bananas.
“Did you just go to some island grocery store I don’t know about?” I set the bananas on the blanket and move over to her backpack, where I know Molly has a metal probe and a rubber mallet for marking the turtle nests.
“I wish. I forgot I saw some banana trees when you were in the little girl’s room.” I set the coconut on a nearby rock, and after a few whacks with the mallet, using the probe to pierce the flesh, the coconut has a nice hole in it for drinking the water inside. I sit down next to her and offer her the coconut, and she drinks as I peel an underripe banana and take a bite, making a face at the chalky/bitter taste. “They aren’t very good, but at least they’re food.”
She takes the banana from me and eats the rest of it as I watch in disgust. “Doesn’t that bother you?” I ask, motioning to the empty banana peel in her hand.
“Does what bother me?” She looks confused as she looks from me to the banana.
“The taste of the green banana? It’s like eating a rubber band.” I shudder as I try to rinse the taste from my mouth with the coconut water.
“No, it doesn’t. It tastes like a banana.” She grabs another one and peels it, taking a huge bite out of the fruit. She holds it out to me, waiting for me to take it, and I grab it from her, knowing full well what it will taste like but questioning my judgment of the underripe fruit. Because… well… because she doesn’t seem to mind it, and she has me questioning everything. I bite down on the fruit and instantly regret my decision. The chalky/bitter taste clings to my teeth as I try to swallow it down.
“What is wrong with you, Coop? Isn’t this how you eat them? I have always eaten green bananas.” I stick my tongue out, trying not to gag at the taste in my mouth, shaking my head at her in response.
“No, Molly. Just… No. This is not how anyone eats them. You’re supposed to wait until they are nice and yellow before eating them.” I stick out my tongue and try to scrape the taste from my tongue with my teeth.
“No, my dad and I have always eaten them green.” I cannot believe what I am hearing. What is wrong with her dad? Why would you ever do that to a child?
“Wait a second. Are you telling me you haven’t ever eaten a yellow banana before? And haven’t you ever heard the rhyme about when to eat them?” I clear my throat and recite my poem as Molly’s hand flies up to her mouth, suppressing her laughter.
“When bananas are green, they’re something mean and taste like rubber bands. Wait a few days, and when they are yellow, they are quite a nice treat for a fellow. Next, they turn brown, but please don’t frown and don’t throw them in the trash. Just mix them with flour and wait about an hour, and you’ll have a banana bread bash.”
“What… Was… That?” She falls back into the sand and holds her stomach as she rolls around, laughter spilling out of her. “I have never heard such a ridiculous rhyme in my life.”
“Seriously? You’re not joking?” I pull her up from the sand and brush it from her hair and shoulders as she continues to laugh. “I have a feeling there are a lot of things I am going to have to teach you, besides the kissing.” She sobers as I speak the words and scoots toward me on her knees, a mischievous look on her face as she gets closer.
“I don’t think I am proficient in that yet. I think I need you to show me again how it’s done.” She giggles and throws her arms around my neck as I fall back in the sand, trying to avoid hitting my calf on the ground, and that’s how we spend the next hour. Only, by the end, I think it”s her who is teaching me a thing or two about kissing, and I am not disappointed about her taking the lead. Not. At. All.