23. Adrian
TWENTY-THREE
ADRIAN
I wake up the next morning to the sound of birds.
I don’t even get the courtesy of that moment of confusion when you’re not quite sure where you are or why.
Oh no. I remember everything at once in clear detail, which means the urgent sense of disbelief mixed with shock settles back in the moment I emerge from sleep.
As far as rest goes, it hasn’t been great.
Nightmares about crashing waves and fire that engulfs everything were interspersed with moments of lucidity and thoughts about Dylan, my family, and Freya.
Freya.
I force myself to breathe.
Does she know already? Did somebody call her? Some bored, detached voice from the other side of the world. Was she alone when she found out that her whole world has just collapsed?
I close my eyes, and I drift into some in-between state of being awake and walking through a nightmare. A cruel film created by my own imagination.
If she thinks I’m dead, what is it like for her? My imagination intertwines fear and guilt in my chest. I can see Freya in our apartment, curled up in our bed. The life we’ve built together, the spaces we filled together with laughter and love will feel unbearably empty.
Our future, the one we’ve been planning together has vanished with the blink of an eye. Every laugh we’ve shared, every moment of joy and passion, every whispered “I love you,” is suddenly in the past tense. Had instead of have .
She thinks I’m gone. Just like that. Dead.
The weight of it seems to crush me from the inside.
I open my eyes again and clench my jaw.
I’m going back. I don’t know how yet, but I’m getting us off this island, and I’m going back to her. Somehow.
Last night, after we’d sat and tried to process the fact that we’re stranded, Dylan and I made our way back to the beach.
It seemed safer somehow than the thick jungle that surrounded us.
As far as luck goes for us so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dylan was right, and there actually were cannibals and tigers encircling us right now.
There’s a persistent dull headache pounding away in my temples that’s most likely caused by dehydration. I’m starving, and my skin is dry and gritty from salt and sand.
I turn to see if Dylan is up, and then nearly piss myself because he’s not here. The patch of sand he settled on next to me last night is empty. I roll onto my knees and jump to my feet, looking around wildly.
I find him a second later. He’s not too far away, hobbling around at the edge of the jungle on his crutch.
My heart is still beating sickeningly hard and fast, and it takes a while for it to calm down to something that doesn’t feel like an approaching heart attack.
By that time, Dylan has walked almost all the way back to me.
“Don’t wander off on your own,” I blurt.
He quirks his brow at me. “Well, well, well, how the turn tables.” His expression softens a bit at whatever remnants of that earlier heart attack remain on my face.
“I was never out of sight, I swear. I was just looking around. I couldn’t sleep.
” He absently rubs his temples with his thumbs.
His breathing is labored, and I’m not sure how much of this is the effort to hobble around on essentially one leg, and how much of it is dehydration.
I force a smile to my face and gesture toward our sleeping spots with my hand. “Don’t tell me the beds here at our premium One Season aren’t up to your usual standards.”
“It’s your ‘guests have to scavenge for their own food’ policy that’s earning the one-star review right now.”
I snort out a laugh and shake my head. My shoulders relax. It feels good to laugh. I feel less out of control and desperate for a moment. “Right. I’ll put a note in the suggestion box. Food. We should get some.”
This is not the kind of climate or environment either of us is used to, but surely we can figure out something.
I try to recall anything that might be relevant about what kind of climate Fiji has.
Tropical, I’m guessing. Which means, if nothing else, it should rain at least fairly regularly?
I would give a lot for a good dose of rain right now.
“Food and water,” I say. “Water is probably more important, right?”
Dylan pats me on the cheek with a smug look. “Don’t you worry that pretty little head of yours. I’ll take care of it.” He looks behind him and thinks for a second. “Okay, I’m probably gonna need some help, but don’t use your brain for it. Just brawn.”
“You want me to be a pretty piece of meat?”
He taps me on the nose. “And people say you’re slow on the uptake. If only they could see you now.”
He turns around and starts to walk/hobble off.
“Who’s they?” I call after him.
He laughs. “Just come on.”
We go a bit farther down the beach and reach a palm tree.
And underneath that palm tree?
Coconuts.
“Food and drinks are served,” Dylan says. “I found them, so you have to figure out how to open them.”
He looks so pleased with himself, and I feel marginally better. Less anxious. Even the headache seems to be more manageable for the moment.
I look around, relieved to have a plan. There’s a problem to solve, which means I don’t have to think about all those things I can’t do anything about. This coconut is a thing I have to figure out here and now, and it’ll take my mind off everything else.
“Rocks?” I suggest.
I can’t say I’ve eaten too many coconuts in my life.
They’re not exactly native to Massachusetts.
And the ones I have eaten didn’t come with the husk attached like this one does.
The husk itself is a light brownish color.
I have no idea what color it should be, but I’m guessing the green ones aren’t ripe yet.
I’m not sure what shade of brown would be the best though. I guess we’ll find out.
My stomach rumbles loudly at the thought of food, and I sway a bit.
I’ve been feeling dizzy, and my feet feel heavy when I try to move them.
Squeezing my eyes shut for a moment helps, but finding something to drink is getting increasingly crucial by the minute, so I guess we better figure out how to open a coconut.
For a while, we bang the coconut against the tree trunks and everything else sturdy we can find with very little success and steadily growing frustration, because it doesn’t even seem to make a dent in the thing.
It’s us versus the coconut, and the coconut is winning.
We have no tools. No knives. No hammers.
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this useless.
Maybe I’ve been sent to this island to learn some humility, and if that’s the case, lesson learned.
I try throwing it against the tree trunk. It only bounces back and hits me on the hip because my brain is too sluggish to tell me to move out of the way.
We kick it. We fling it around. We smash it against rocks.
It takes hours, but when Dylan takes the coconut and hurls it against a rock with a frustrated shout, we hear a crack.
For a moment, we both freeze in our spots. Then we both rush forward.
The coconut splits unevenly, but it splits.
We stare at it dazedly. I’m not happy or relieved. Just fucking exhausted.
My hands start to shake at the sight of the liquid inside, and I almost cry when some of it spills into the sand. What a damn waste.
“Here.” Dylan hands the coconut half to me. My hands shake even more when I tilt it to my lips. It’s warm, so it doesn’t feel like it helps at all with the thirst, but I figure it’ll postpone death at least a little bit.
I hand the coconut over to Dylan, and he drains the rest of the water, then we eat.
It doesn’t taste like the ones I’ve had from a grocery store.
This one reminds me very slightly of the taste of cucumber.
Faintly sweet, but not too sweet, with a hint of sourness.
I’ve mostly had shredded coconut from the store, and that’s always been very sweet. This is better.
After we’re done, we take the next coconut.
With a bit of food inside me and some water, thinking becomes a bit easier.
I toss the next coconut up and down in my hand for a bit.
We take a few rocks and create a nest for the coconut to hold it steady.
Then we take a bigger rock and drop it on the coconut over and over again until it splits.
It takes most of the morning to demolish the coconuts we find under the tree.
At least half of those taste bad, so they’ve clearly been there too long.
Now the sand underneath the tree is clear of coconuts, though, so tomorrow we can tell which coconuts are the fresh ones.
We manage to salvage a few shells for collecting water in case it ever rains.
Dylan drops onto his back in the sand. His face is flushed, and I’m not sure if it’s because he’s wearing too many clothes or if it’s sunburn kicking in.
Either way, we need a moment to rest before we can go and look for water.
We’ve been here a day and a half. Coconut water won’t sustain us.
We need a spring. A creek. A fucking puddle. Otherwise we really are dead.
“I’m beat,” Dylan says.
“Yeah, me too.” We go and lie down in the shade of some trees, both silent for a little while. I wonder if he’s thinking about home too. Probably. Neither of us voice those thoughts, though.
“They have to be looking for us, right?” Dylan turns his head toward me. “They’ve figured out that the plane’s missing by now.” He swallows audibly. “Right?”
I have no answers and a lot of fears, but I’ll keep those hidden and put as much conviction in my tone as humanly possible.
“For sure. There’s no way nobody has raised the alarm yet.”
Dylan nods and goes silent again, eyes on the ocean in front of us. It’s the vastness that makes it terrifying. Yesterday, after I climbed that tree, I could see the whole island around us. And nothing else. No sign of land anywhere else. No boats. No planes. No people.