Chapter 19
Catalina
"I’m going to hold you to that promise,” she shouted in response, a smile flashing on her lips because she couldn’t help it. Catalina meant it because she planned to give him reasons as well—to reward him for not giving up on them when he easily could have.
The problem was, what did safety look like?
Were they just going to run until the sun rose in the sky and the crabs returned to their sandy bunkers?
Or until they collapsed from exhaustion?
She had a good amount of adrenaline pumping through her from rescuing Trey, feeling she could take on a whole beach of critters, but this wasn’t something she could count on forever.
Of course, this was before Trey had spoken low in her ear, his tone sincere in his regret.
Also, she was going through her own turbulent emotions.
Catalina hated that she kept putting up her wall when she didn’t want to hurt him anymore.
She wanted this one agonizing part of her life to be done with.
Never more so than that moment he’d been running behind her and had suddenly vanished.
Her heart had dropped into her gut when she’d turned and witnessed him being dragged away in the dark like a poltergeist had seized him.
Realizing it had been a crab, the chill in her blood had turned to absolute rage.
Nature couldn’t have him because she wasn’t done with him, not even close. She was going to fight with her life because the thought of a world without him was too unbearable to consider. Catalina would battle every crab on the beach for another chance to be with him.
Pivoting in a different direction to avoid another crab, she tripped on her feet and almost dragged Trey down with her before he pulled her upright again to support her.
Wordlessly, they took turns supporting each other until the muscles in her legs were like jelly, her lungs burned, and she ran out of adrenaline.
They were so focused on getting away, they stopped short at a weird-looking rock, almost colliding with it. “What is that?” she panted. The texture was different from what she would expect from a large boulder. It was smooth with vertical ridges, its pale color shining in the moonlight.
“Maybe we can climb it,” he said.
He let her go, and she instantly slid to the ground in exhaustion. “You go ahead. I’ll wait here.” There was no way her limbs had the strength for climbing anything.
Trey made a few attempts before slipping off, having nothing to grip to pull himself up. “Actually, you know what…” The rest of the sentence died as he walked around the perimeter of the strange object. “Oh my God. Do you know what this is?” he said excitedly from a few yards away.
“If it isn’t the world’s smallest hotel with a soft bed and all-you-can-eat buffet, I’m probably going to be disappointed.” At this point, her exhaustion hit her in full force and it took everything in her not to collapse on the ground and let the crabs drag her away.
“Come over here! It’s pretty close.”
She doubted the object was pretty close to being a luxury hotel, but she managed to get to her feet again, stumbling her way to him. “What is it?”
He grabbed her hand, continuing to pull her along the outside edge. “I think… It’s a conch shell.” He removed the cell phone from his pocket, activating the flashlight app.
With the answer revealed, she could see it.
The light hit the edges of an imperfect seashell, some tips and edges broken off, but it was almost intact, partially buried in the sand.
The main swoop of the shell gracefully arched upwards like a modern piece of art.
From what she could see, the inside portion of the shell was ghost white and shiny as though carved from marble.
Touching the cool surface was like running her fingers over glass.
“Yeah, I think we should stay here for the night,” Trey said, sounding confident.
Hugging her remaining water bottle to her chest, she peered suspiciously into the dark abyss further inside the shell. The flashlight wasn’t strong enough to penetrate all the way to the back. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
“Are you afraid after having to share a hotel room with two beds, you won’t be able to resist me once we’re in a one-seashell type of situation?”
“I mean, what if there’s something living in there?”
Trey stopped and appeared to be listening intently. “I don’t hear anything. Do you think crabs live inside of shells? They’re basically made of shell.”
“What about hermit crabs?”
He tipped his head as though giving this some consideration until there was a scampering noise coming from a short distance away from them.
They shared a brief moment of eye contact before arriving at the exact same conclusion: hiding in a conch shell was worth the risk of running into a hermit crab or some other creature.
Trey led the way with his flashlight as she nervously followed close behind him.
The surface was slippery, but the sand, which had made its way inside, made it easier to walk deeper into the shell.
Sound echoed around the interior, and there was a constant atmospheric hum, reminding her of electricity but softer, more natural.
The further back they went, the more they could stand upright, and Trey’s flashlight revealed no creature ready to spring out and eat them. Feeling safer, she could appreciate the beauty of their shelter. It was something ethereal and unworldly but still beautiful.
“This is amazing,” Trey said, taking her picture as she leaned against a shell wall to set down their remaining stash of food and water. They had almost nothing remaining. Catalina tried to focus on what they did have, rather than what they didn’t.
She held up a hand to block him. “Stop. I look even more disgusting than the last picture you took of me.” She still had the occasional dried meat chunk flaking from her hair. Why couldn’t they have found a conch shell with a warm waterfall shower or something?
The top center of the shell had been broken at some point, creating a jagged natural skylight.
It allowed some of the moonlight to spill into the shell.
Trey turned off the flashlight, returning his phone to his pocket.
While it was considerably less bright when he did this, at least they weren’t plunged into pitch-black darkness.
Her husband was merely shadowed as he continued to watch her.
“You look like a badass crab-fighting queen, and therefore you’ve never been more beautiful to me. ”
“Trey.”
“What?”
She sighed, pushing herself off the wall, coming to where he stood. “How’s your leg?”
He looked down at it. From what she could make out, there were angry, red slashes, and it looked a little swollen, but considering what it could have been, they were lucky it wasn’t worse.
Trey lifted his leg, twisting his ankle around.
“I think it’ll be okay. It was just more of the shock and getting the wind knocked out of me.
Plus, he ruined my clothes even more.” He fingered the ripped edges and holes in his T-shirt and shorts.
Both their outfits became more distressed the longer the day went on.
At this rate, they would be naked in a week…
Not that she would mind seeing him that way.
Catalina hmm’d and worked her fingers over the worn fabric of his T-shirt before coming to the hemline.
He didn’t fight her when she raised it up, peeling it over his head and arms. The sight of bruises dotting his chest pained her, even if she had to be sporting her own.
“I’m sorry you got hurt.” She pressed a kiss on one bruise and then another.
His chest lifted in response as he took a deep breath.
“That’s nothing as long as you’re safe.” He slid his arms around her, pulling her close, and pressed his face into her hairline. “Your hair smells like delicious empanadas.”
She snorted a laugh into his skin. “Great. Just what I want to smell like.”
The amused, rumbly noise he made in his throat vibrated all the way through her. “I love it. It’s going to make for some interesting dreams tonight.”
“I guess we should get some rest. That would be the smart thing.”
Disappointingly, his arms fell away from her.
He took his T-shirt and folded it until it was pillow-shaped, putting it on the ground.
She studied him, thinking she had to look like a discarded rag doll while he continued to look beautifully rugged and tanned.
Watching his muscles move smoothly under his skin as he peeled off her cover-up and attempted to make a resting spot for them was hypnotizing.
Her fingers itched to touch all of him, to inspect him with her hands, to find and kiss all the tender spots he may have gotten throughout the day.
“We can use this as our bed. I should warn you, though. I also might smell like empanadas and sweat,” he said.
“I hope that’s not where you’re going with reason number nineteen.”
He smiled easily. “No. Reason number nineteen is I just love you. I love you with every part of me, whether I’m over six feet tall or just over an inch.
Somehow my body is still able to contain everything I feel for you while also feeling it’ll never be big enough.
And every silly reason I invent is just a different way of expressing the same thing over and over. ”
“I know, babe.” Catalina did know because she was experiencing something similar. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. What she had with him was important. Their love was important.
“Don’t you babe me, unless you mean it.” Trey growled low and dangerously.
His expression was mostly shadowed except for the parts lit by the night sky coming through the shell’s skylight.
Shadow and light accented the muscles across his chest and arms as though lovingly trying to enhance them like a Rembrandt painting.