Chapter 18
Villain
I use a little less toothpaste today. Usually I do the little pointy mountain peak thing they be doin’ on the commercials, but now I see how wasteful that shit is.
After I get myself fresh, I sit down with Ari for breakfast. Today, it’s artisanal crackers that she divided into quarters like that’s gonna make us forget we’re only eating five crackers each. We got dried apricots, too, and cranberry juice. I didn’t even know we had that.
We eat in silence for a while, the crunch of the crackers loud in the quiet. Then she tells me, “I saw the black box yesterday.”
I look over her, cute and bright in her yellow dress. “How that happen?”
She swallows a dry ass bite of crackers. “I went in there to look at it. It’s intact and bolted to the plane. In the tail area.”
The apricot tastes sour in my mouth. “Why, though?”
Her eyes flick toward the trees, then back to me. “Just in case there was something to your theory.”
“Oh, word?” I grin at her. “So you listenin’ to a nigga now, huh?”
She rolls her eyes. “I need a screwdriver. Or maybe pliers. Maybe both.”
“Damn,” I say, snapping my fingers. “The one time I forget to pack my toolbox.”
“Shut up.” She thinks for a minute. “Maybe I could pull it loose with the edge of the axe blade.”
“Might damage it.”
“Yeah. True.”
The last place I wanna go to is the back of that metal coffin where my friends and family are burnt to ash. The thought of it makes my chest hurt.
As if she read my mind, Ari says, “I don’t mind doing it.” Her voice is softer now. “I just need to figure out how to get it unbolted.”
“Nah. I’ll take care of it.”
Her brows furrow. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
She tilts her head, eyes narrowing like she’s trying to make sense of me. “Well since you’re in the mood to do stuff, can you also help me take out my sew-in?”
“Sorry, sweetheart. I’d rather go camping in the back of that plane than do your hair.”
She snickers, shaking her head in exasperation. She thinks I’m funny, and probably a little annoying, which I kinda like. It adds a little playfulness to our…friendship? Relationship?
Whatever the fuck this is.
She glances upward, and her body stiffens.
I follow her gaze to the sky, way off in the other direction, where grey clouds are rolling in like high tide. “It’s gonna storm,” I say.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” She looks around our little spot. “How are we supposed to stay dry?”
“I mean…get under them leaves at the house—“
“It’s not a house, Villain!”
“You know what I mean. The leaves should help, but it ain’t no way to stay completely dry out here.”
That’s all it takes. She starts breathing all hard, her hands start shaking, her eyes darting all over the place.
“We need to protect everything! Our clothes, our blankets. Our food. The little we have left. If our stuff gets wet…” she trails off as her voice breaks.
Now she’s crying, and I’m staring at her wondering why she’s freaking the fuck out over some raindrops.
Still pretty, though, even when she ugly cries. Prettier, actually. All that emotion is putting color in her cheeks.
“Hey. Ari. Look at me.” I crouch down, but she won’t meet my eyes. “It’s gon’ be okay.”
She shakes her head.
I stand and move over to the luggage, rifling through each bag until I strike gold: two clear plastic rain ponchos balled up in the bottom of Ms. K’s suitcase.
“Here we go.”
Her sobs quiet just enough for me to concentrate.
Moving fast, I wrap our clothes and shoes in one poncho, cinch it tight, then bundle the blankets, food, and toiletries in the other.
Each poncho goes into an empty suitcase, then I wedge them under the platform where we sleep. I’m racing the storm, and I’m winning.
By the time I finish, the first drops are falling.
“Go,” I tell Ari. She was sitting there watching me. “Now. Go get in the house.”
She scrambles over there while I hack at fresh leaves with my axe. It’s pouring by the time I’m done, coming down in sheets, battering everything around me.
It’s too late for me to fortify the canopy, so I drop the leaves and make my way over to Ari. She’s sitting there hugging her knees, her shoulders shaking. Rain is already dripping through the roof—not nearly as much as outside, but enough to get us wet.
“Come here,” I say as I settle beside her. She resists until I put my arms around her and tug her closer. I pull her tight against my chest, curling my body over hers like a human shield for the storm. Water runs down my back, soaking me through, but her warmth comforts me from the other side.
Thunder cracks overhead, loud enough to rattle your teeth. I murmur in her ear, trying to soothe her. “It’s okay. I got you. It’s almost over.”
I’m trippin’ though, because I’ve already seen how she moves under pressure. She was a rock on that plane, even after it was clear that something was wrong. To see her like this now got me confused and lowkey worried.
Ain’t shit else to do but wait it out. My back is getting sore from the way I’m positioned, but it’s keeping her out of the rain, so I stay where I’m at. Gradually, her breathing steadies, syncing with mine. Her body's still holding tension, but she’s not shaking anymore.
When the storm finally rolls out, I’m drenched down to my bones. Ari shifts under me, hair wet but the rest of her mostly dry. She tips her face up, eyes shining in the emerging sunlight.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“It was nothing,” I say, even though my back and shoulders are screaming at me right now. “What happened? Why’d you freak out? You scared of thunder?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I panicked.”
“Yeah, but why?”
It takes a while, but she finally answers.
“I guess…it felt like I had finally come to terms with where we are. I finally accepted…whatever the hell this is. I had—we had a weird little routine. It was becoming bearable. And then this. A curve ball.” She sniffs.
“I don’t know why something so small felt so big.
Maybe it’s because I’m outside of my comfort zone.
Everything here is out of my control, and it’s just like… what else can go wrong?”
“I can see that.”
She sighs. “I’m tired.”
“Take a nap,” I say. “When you wake up, we’ll walk down to your ocean so you can do your routine.”
She stares up at me looking hella confused.
“What?”
She shakes her head again, then reaches up, curls her fingers at the back of my neck, and pulls me down.
Her lips brush mine, soft and tentative, like she’s testing the waters.
My dick gets hard instantly, of course. She pulls away, blinks a few times, closes her eyes, and presses her lips onto mine, a little harder and a lot more urgent.
I’m turned on and shook at the same damn time, but before I can really kiss her back, she pulls away again.
“Sorry,” she mumbles.
“Ain’t nothin’ to be sorry for. Matter of fact, run that back.”
She chuckles softly. “I shouldn’t have done—“
“We’re on a deserted island. We don’t know if we’re ever goin’ home. Ain’t no should or shouldn’t out here. This our world.”
She looks like she’s thinking about it, but in the end, that shit don’t work. She untangles herself from me and stands, stretching her hands toward the sky before leaving me sitting here with a hard dick and a tiny shred of hope.