Chapter 10
I WADE THROUGH THE crystal-clear ocean, trying to see if there is anything we can collect from the shallow pools.
Aggie and Tatiana swim beside me, enjoying the warm sun far more than they are helping, but I don’t mind.
Sinking to my feet, I look over to where Aggie has her head tipped back, eyes closed, letting the sun shine on her face.
“So,” Tatiana says, eyes focusing on me. “What’s with you and Ace?”
Aggie’s head snaps forward, and her eyes pin mine, too. “I was going to ask the same thing.”
I knew the questions were coming.
Of course they were.
I exhale. “Honestly, I don’t know. I just know that he makes me feel safe, and I need that right now.”
“I say this with all the love in the world,” Aggie goes on, “but honey, you’re risking a lot sleeping with a man out here, unprotected.”
She’s not wrong.
It has been playing on my mind all day.
Ace pulled out, but still, many a baby has been born using the pull-out method.
“I know,” I say, closing my eyes for a second. “God, this is so fucked up, isn’t it?”
“Do you think we’ll be out here for much longer?” Tatiana asks, a fear deep within the depths of her eyes. “I don’t... I’m scared of what might happen if nobody shows up.”
I feel my skin prickling at the question, not from the heat, but from the honesty of it.
Aggie flicks water at me, smirking, and I know this is her way of trying to lighten a very difficult subject. That’s just what she does. “So long as you’re gettin’ it, Grace.”
I flick water back at her with a smile. “There are two other good-looking men you could be getting it with,” I tease.
She wiggles her brows. “Not a bad idea. Kellen is all kinds of fine.”
Tatiana is still frowning, and my heart breaks for her. “I wonder what my parents are thinking right now.”
We all fall silent. A thought that makes our chests curl up within ourselves, but for very different reasons. Tatiana has a loving family, and Aggie has a mom who would die for her. Me, my parents are probably celebrating that they don’t have to pay for me anymore. My father...
No.
I refuse to give him a thought.
Aggie swims closer to Tatiana, draping an arm around her. “They’re searching for us, honey. No way they aren’t. People vanish on yachts sometimes, but not the whole damn ship.”
“I don’t want to die here,” Tatiana says. It isn’t dramatic. It’s terrifyingly normal, the way you’d say, I don’t want mayonnaise on my sandwich. Plain and simple truth.
I swim up to her now, too, and take her hands in mine, squeeze until she stops trembling. “We’re not going to die here. We’re too pretty to die. Nobody could be that cruel.”
A small smile from Tatiana.
Aggie sighs and flops backwards, letting the ocean cradle her. “All I know is, if I get eaten by a shark, I want it to be one of those giant sharks that look like they’re straight out of Jaws. I want to be famous. Don’t let me get taken by a tiny girly shark. That would be shame...”
Tatiana laughs, and the tension loosens just enough.
We float in a lazy circle, the ocean’s water so clear it is almost unbelievable. I kick my heels gently and look at the sky. “You know what I think about?” I ask. “Hamburgers. Just massive, greasy burgers. My first meal off this island is going to be the biggest burger I can find.”
Aggie snorts. “I want an iced chai and a proper pedicure. My feet look like Hobbit feet. Look.” She lifts a foot out of the water. Her feet look just like anyone's, except for her, that is a problem as she always has perfectly pedicured feet. “A crime.”
Tatiana sighs. “I want noodles from that place on 14th, the one with the ocean-style toilet seats.”
We float there until the sun begins to shift, sharpening the edges of the shadows splaying out over the water.
The tide nudges us inland, toward the split in the rocks that leads to our camp.
While we’re swimming, I notice Tatiana’s arms, and they are covered in thin, angry red lines climbing up the crook of her elbow, some half-healed, others fresh.
I reach over, fingers gentle, and trace the injuries with one finger. “Tati,” I say. “These... have you been doing this?”
She tenses, and for an instant, I think she’ll pull away or lie. Instead, she looks at the water and says, “It’s nothing. I just... it’s stupid, I know it’s stupid—”
“Not stupid,” I say. “Never stupid.”
She shrugs. “It’s just, the last few months, I’ve needed—like, with me being stood down and the stress, I started with anti-anxiety meds.
My doctor said it was normal, but I never told anyone.
And then, this.” She gestures at the horizon, the island, the strip of beach we now call home.
“I ran out two days ago. I’m scared, Grace.
I don’t know what happens to me if I don’t have them. ”
Aggie is silent, which is rare.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I ask, carefully. “We would have never judged you.”
Tatiana closes her eyes, exhaling softly. “I don’t know, I guess I was embarrassed.”
I take her hand. “Girl, don’t be. We all have things we’re hiding from. Mine is just—less obvious. But it’s always here.” I tap my head.
“Yeah, trust me girl, I am a mess inside this head,” Aggie nods. “We got your back.”
“I love you guys,” Tatiana smiles, a smidge of relief on her face.
“We’ll get you through this,” I promise her.
Aggie cuts through the silence as we walk out of the ocean. “Okay, serious time over. Let’s talk about Rachel. Do you think she’s going to lose it completely?”
It’s a valid question.
I look up at the boat and our ragged little shelter. “I think she’s in shock,” I say. “It could get worse, or it could get better. I guess we won’t know right now. All we can do is give her the space she needs. Adrian, on the other hand, might find himself in an early grave.”
They all laugh.
“Gosh, he is so weird,” Aggie giggles. “Yesterday, I was walking past him on the pee trail and he stopped and told me that he is constipated and asked if I had any remedies. When I told him that he is gross, he told me he has got his eye on me and pointed to his eyes, then to me. Like what the hell, dude.”
We all lose it laughing.
“He kind of breaks up the tension,” I admit. “He’s entertaining.”
“He’s something,” Tatiana mutters.
We all fall silent again.
“We’ll get through this. We will,” Tatiana says, a strength in her voice that wasn’t there a few minutes ago.
It hits me then, how every one of us is fracturing, coming apart in private ways and then fusing back together by necessity.
We’re a whole girl tribe, patched with desperation and loyalty and bad humor.
I look out to the horizon, searching for a dot, a sail, any sign of civilization.
There’s nothing. Just the ache of the tide and the soft, infinite blue.
But for now, I have my friends, and we have each other.
That’s enough.
“IT’S FUCKING GONE,” Zeke growls, rummaging through the first aid kit, pulling things out and then putting them back in. “Who the fuck has been sneaking shit out of here?”
We’re all sitting around the fire, waiting for the sun to set after finishing a fresh papaya and fish dinner.
I generally don’t like fish, but after being that hungry, it turns out everything tastes amazing.
Now, I take what we can get, because if we run out, we will wish to God we had all the fish in the world.
I try not to think about when the seasons change, and the fish aren’t so easy to catch.
What then?
“What are you talkin’ about?” Kellen murmurs, leaning back, legs crossed at the ankles.
“There were painkillers in here, strong ones. They’re gone. Who took them?”
I frown. “Are you sure?”
“I have been keeping track of everything, because I know how fuckin’ important this shit is. Someone took them.”
“Maybe they fell out?” Aggie offers.
“They didn’t fuckin’ fall out.”
Her brows shoot up. “Listen here, buddy, talk to me like that one more time...”
I bite my bottom lip.
“Did we give them to Iris and just not realize?” Ace asks.
“No, because they were here the other day. Who took them?”
Zeke is very over the top with the medications after Iris, but I also think there is more to it.
He has seen some things, that much I know.
He served for a while and then became a fighter.
He holds an energy that tells me he has had to survive before, and it wasn’t easy.
He rations everything, keeps on top of our water, and makes sure everything runs smoothly so we can survive for the ultimate length of time.
“Calm down, brother,” Ace mutters, pushing to his feet. “It’s more than likely they got dropped. We’ll find them.”
“I’m tellin’ you, they fuckin’ didn’t,” Zeke growls.
“We did clean up today,” Tatiana offers, “maybe we dropped them?”
She’s right, we did clean up the area today and rearranged a few things to make it more comfortable.
“We did,” Aggie agrees. “We’ll have a good look in the morning, we might have accidentally lost them.”
Zeke doesn’t look convinced. “Where’s Rachel?”
“Zeke,” I say, shaking my head. “Just because she lost someone, doesn’t mean she is stealing drugs.”
“Well, to be fair,” Adrian pipes up from his spot on the sand, where he is making himself a spear to catch fish. It doesn’t look like it’s going well, but he seems determined, “drugs do give a person that euphoric feeling which can take away the unpleasant sensations of grief.”
Zeke looks to him. “Seriously, dude?”
Adrian looks up at him, shoving his glasses up his nose. “You look like the kind of man who has tried a drug or two. Are you telling me I am wrong?”
“Mind your fuckin’ business,” Zeke snaps.
Adrian shrugs. “Maybe it was Aggie.”
Aggie spins on him. “Excuse me, just because I wouldn’t help you with your constipation problem doesn’t mean I am a thief.”
Adrian looks to her, pointing two fingers to his eyes, then to her.
I bite my lip, because it’s hilarious but now is not the time to laugh.
“Stop doing that,” Aggie protests. “You’re starting to creep me out.”
“Anyway,” Kellen claps his hands, snapping them out of it. “We need to ask Rachel.”