Chapter 14
14
M aeve
The coconuts take over my body a couple of hours later. I wake up with an urge to pee. Like right now.
I peek my head outside of my shelter to check for any bystanders—meaning to see if my neighbor is taking a leisurely stroll under the stars. A useless task, really, since my ‘house’ doesn’t have decent walls. Or a roof. I pretty much sleep outside. Which wouldn’t be bad considering we’re in a warm tropical place, but it’s the beginning of the rainy season, and it’s only a matter of time until I’ll be soaked to the bones.
The darkness is pitch black—I can’t even see my feet. Where the hell is the moon? Oh, right, it’s covered by the clouds, so I see nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I could pee right here, but he might hear me. What’s more embarrassing than that? So I decide to walk a little bit farther, hoping I can find my way back .
The roots of numerous plants are painful on my bare feet, and I jump, trying to avoid the edges poking out of the ground, only to end up landing on something so sharp, that I fall on my knees, crying out in pain.
“Ouch!” I shift my body so I’m sitting on my butt instead of praying to the rainy gods on my knees. Feeling my knees with my fingers, I find one of them busted open. It’s cut and bleeding and already stings. I wipe the dirt off it, feeling warm blood seeping under my fingertips.
“Fuckity fuck,” I mumble, angry at my own clumsiness and the stupid darkness and the damn moon which has checked out on me when I could actually use her help.
When the pain subsides a bit, I crawl on my battered knees to the nearest palm and hold on to it for dear life while I try to pull myself together. When I’m almost up, my foot lands on something sharp, and I go down again.
“C’mon!” I yell into the universe just as the first raindrop falls on my face. Then another. It’s not long before my face is drowning in the tropical downpour. The water is warm, but it’s not so gentle beating on my face.
I give up on the idea of ever getting up and lean my back on the palm. How long can people survive under the heavy rain?
As I stare into the darkness ahead of me, I feel the darkness staring back. Like the shambles my life is in, it mocks me with its inevitable destruction. Because once we get rescued, my family will tear me into pieces. For running away in the first place. And then for running back.
My parents are not bad people per se. They just live in a different reality than the majority of people. I was born into the same reality and thought it was the only one for a long time. When my views didn’t align with theirs, I was forced to find another reality and leave.
Suddenly, something gigantic and steely hits me on the shoulder. “Fuck!” I yell as I jump to the side, grabbing my shoulder. “What was that?”
I try rotating my shoulder but can’t figure out if it’s broken or just bruised because it feels like it’s going to fall off all together.
“What the fuck happened?” King’s voice echoes from the darkness around me.
“My luck happened,” I mumble, not caring if he hears me or not. “If you don’t want to get hit by lightning, I recommend you move as far away from me as possible because this,” I point my index finger at the sky, “is the last thing that’s left for me to make my life totally miserable.”
His sigh is so loud, I can hear it through the heavy rain. A big body places itself next to me, I can feel its presence to my right. It’s demanding and hard to miss.
“What happened?” he repeats his question calmer as if sensing my last nerve dissolving into nothing.
I sniffle. “I think a coconut fell on my shoulder.”
“Damn.” This is the first genuinely emotional emotion I’ve heard in his voice. “Are you okay?”
I try rotating my shoulder again and wince. “Hurts like a son of a bitch.”
“Is it broken?” The sudden concern in his voice makes me feel sorry for myself, and my lips start trembling.
“I don’t think so.” I try moving it a little but instantly stop when it starts hurting. “I don’t know. Most likely bruised.”
“Let me see.”
I snicker. “Good luck with that.” I can’t even see him and he’s sitting right next to me.
“I’ll feel it.”
A moment later, I feel his careful fingers probing in search of my shoulder. When they finally land on my elbow, he slides his hand up to my shoulder where his fingers start probing carefully. I don’t think I’ve truly comprehended how big the man really is before because the way his palm covers my arm makes me shiver.
“Tell me if it hurts.”
When his hand moves to one particular spot on the top of my shoulder, I cry out. He retreats from the painful spot but keeps moving toward the back. Then his other hand joins in, and he tries moving my shoulder a bit.
“Oh,” I exhale in pain, and he instantly retreats.
“I don’t think it’s broken, but definitely very bruised. It’ll hurt more tomorrow.”
I chuckle darkly. “Love your optimism.”
“I’m a realist,” he deadpans.
I look at him—well, toward his direction—but don’t see his face very well obviously. What life has he had that made him so jaded? “Shocking.”
It takes me a second of sitting in the rain before I’m quickly reminded of why I came out here in the first place.
“What were you doing here anyway?” he asks as if reading my mind.
“I came out here to pee.”
A pause. “Here? Why here?”
“Because it’s far enough from the camp to be decent.”
Another pause. “Why can’t you pee there?” He sounds so puzzled, it’s almost hilarious.
“Where?”
“Next to your place.”
“Because I sleep there!” I exclaim in horror.
“The rain will wash it away before it even hits the ground,” he contradicts in that robotic tone of a machine answering service I totally hate.
“Okay, fine.” I roll my eyes to the sky—a big mistake since it gets flooded with the forceful rainy stream. I don’t know if my retinas will survive it. “Because you sleep there.”
“Me? ”
“You can hear me peeing.”
He chuckles at first. Then some more. Then it grows into a quiet laugh—a very tasteful one. In fact, it’s so nice and soothing that for a second there I forget that I need to go. Why is his laugh so beautiful? It was already unfair that a grouch like him was given the body and face of a fallen angel, and now he also has a nice laugh. C’mon, Universe, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
“Have you?”
“What?” I ask, too lost in my own thoughts to follow his.
“Peed.” He laughs again and mumbles under his breath. “Can’t believe I’m talking about this.”
I lift my chin up even though he can’t see. “No, I haven’t. The roots and then the coconut attacked me before I could get to business.”
Something like a snort makes me narrow my eyes and stare in the darkness, trying to see his face. “Go, I’ll wait.”
“Go where?”
“Pee.”
“Not with you here!”
“I won’t see or hear anything. Trust me, the rain and the ocean are loud enough to cancel out any noises around here.”
I sigh but don’t move. There’s no way I’ll be doing my business in his presence.
“Do you need to do it here? I can wait over there.” I suspect he indicates a direction, but I can’t see him clearly enough to confirm and have to trust he means far from me.
“Okay,” I reply grouchily because I really don’t have a choice. It’s either I pee in my already wet pants—which won’t change the situation much—or I do it as a decent human would with pants off. “Can you at least step away a little bit?” I ask with a resigned sigh.
His laugh gets farther away.
Sighing again, I find a tree with my hands and crouch behind it. It’s funny to think I’d be hidden behind a twig like that, but it gives a mental barrier between me and him.
It takes me a while to relax even though a moment ago I was about to pee my pants.
“Can you walk a little farther?” I yell to him.
I swear I hear his grunt from here, but he does as I ask. Now I can go about my business.
When I’m finally done, I come out from behind the palm and head toward him. I don’t make it far because my feet get caught between roots, and I fall down again. The whole body forward from all my five-five glory.
“Ouch!” I cry out, trying to scramble back. My knees and palms took the worst of it, and I feel like they’re bleeding.
“What happened?” His voice is right next to me.
“Lost my dignity,” I mumble and hear a loud snort before I feel big hands wrapping around my shoulders and pulling me up. Once I’m on my feet, one of the hands grabs mine and pulls me with him. A blink later, I’m in his arms bride-style.
“What are you doing?” I squeak, feeling like a total idiot. I’ve never been carried in someone’s arms. Never. My twig-like prom date my parents found for me could lift only a spoon. Guys I’ve dated in New York weren’t into carrying or caring. I’m sure there’s a good guy out there who can do all of that—I just haven’t found him yet. And I refuse to believe that King can be one of those . Because he is not. Nope.
And he just proves it by talking.
“Making sure you won’t break a leg. I don’t want to cater to your needs tomorrow.”
“Right.” I roll my eyes. For a moment there, I thought he was actually worried about me. Nope, my wishful thinking was squashed into the ground like an annoying bug. He just doesn’t want the only other person on the island to get injured, so he doesn’t have to stay here alone. Humans are communal creatures. Even this one .
“I can walk on my own just fine,” I say grouchily as I nearly stumble over some overgrowth. He pulls me along with him, saving me from a face-plant.
“Yeah, I saw that,” he mumbles back, not raising his voice to a normal tone. When we come out on the clearing of the beach, he heads left, and I pull my hand away from his.
“What?” he asks, sounding annoyed.
“My house is that way.” I point at my place, not knowing if he’ll see it.
“Your house is a piece of junk about to fall apart. You can stay at my place.”
I exhale loudly like a bull before an attack. “My house is just fine, thank you very much.” I cross my arms over my drenched chest to keep from going for his eyes with my broken nails. “I appreciate your help. Farewell now.”
“Farewell now?” he repeats like he has some problem understanding.
“Yes, meaning goodbye, arrivederci, go away.” I accompany my explanation with a dramatic wave of my hand.
A laugh would be a good word to describe this exhale he makes, but he is him, and by now I’m sure he doesn’t possess a sense of humor.
“Farewell to you too.”
With that, he heads toward his shelter. A very dry shelter, most likely. And cozy. With a good roof.
I’m not jealous. I am not.