Lexi
Lexi
He’ll say he’s not, but he’s weak from the blood loss, and the pain of his wound is drawn all over his face. Earlier, when he got up to pee, he almost collapsed and ended up hunched over the kitchen counter for a full five minutes before he could stand properly again.
He’s good at pretending. But he’s not OK.
“You’re hovering,” he says mildly, as I adjust the cushion behind him.
“I’m helping,” I say. “You’re welcome.”
“You’re hovering,” he repeats, a little more firmly this time. “And I can tell every time you look at me, you’re wondering if I’m going to die in a minute.”
“And you’re telling me that’s not relaxing?”
I get a faint, tired smile for that. His eyes have turned kind of hollow; there’s a grayish semicircle beneath each one, a thumb-swipe in charcoal.
“Honestly, I’m fine as long as I stay lying down,” he says. “I just need rest.”
I am craving Google. The thing I want to find out most of all is when I can stop worrying. I want to know when the danger will have passed—the moment a doctor or a nurse would say, He’s made it through the first however-many hours, so the worst is over now .
“This place needs a tidy,” I say, turning my attention to the bloodstained towel still sitting in a heap in one corner, and the wardrobe door hanging open to reveal the mess inside. “I’ll just get it sorted around you and you’ll hardly notice I’m here. I’ll be popping out to check for boats all the time anyway.”
He says nothing, but when I glance over my shoulder at his face I notice his expression—I think he’s just clocked I don’t want to be alone. I flush, grabbing the dirty towel and taking it out onto the deck to wash with seawater when I next haul up a bucket.
When I return to the bedroom, Zeke has his eyes closed. He opens them when I arrive, but it looks like an effort, like he’s lifting something heavy.
“Big ship out there, right? Waiting to rescue us?” he says.
“I told them now’s not a great time, can they come back later,” I say, though I don’t enjoy the joke. The very thought of rescue makes my whole being ache for it. We are both working so hard to stay strong for each other today—the strain is like a constant white noise in the air between us.
I examine the mess in the wardrobe. Both Zeke and I have half unpacked, but left various things in our luggage, too—a halfway house between settling in and being impractical. Those ship’s logs I found when we rescued Eugene are still sitting lopsidedly on top of our bags; one has slid down the back, another almost ending up in the inside pocket of my open holdall.
“You know,” I say, “you’ve got some reading material, if you feel up to it today.”
He doesn’t answer. I figure I’ve pissed him off—he’s been very clear about not wanting to discuss the logbooks, after all—but when I turn, I realize he’s unconscious.
“Zeke! Zeke!”
I’m at his side immediately, my hand gripping the bare skin of his upper arm. There is an awful, time-stopping moment when he just lies there, sallow-faced and still, and then his eyes flutter open.
“You OK?” he says, his voice sticky. “Did I drift off? Sorry.”
“God, no, sorry,” I say, staggering back and leaning into the cupboard next to the wardrobe. “I shouldn’t have woken you. You rest. You…I’ll just…”
“I thought you wanted to tidy,” he says, frowning slightly. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” I say, crouching down and reaching blindly for my holdall. “I’ll just take this out onto the deck and sort through it properly, check there’s nothing I missed in the pockets, OK? Go back to sleep.”
By the time I reach the deck chair in the thick, midday sunlight, my heart is still thundering like rain on a tin roof. Eugene is out here, sunning himself in his box, unfazed by our ongoing state of disaster. The door slams shut behind me and I jump, even though that sound is now as familiar to me as the click of Mae easing my bedroom door open when she can’t get to sleep.
Zeke looked dead. He looked dead, and for a moment, I thought he’d left me.
The idea of being alone here, of Zeke being gone , and just a—just a body …
I sit, dropping the bag to the deck between my feet. I’m trembling all over. I need to calm down. He’s not dead, we’re still afloat, and all is about as well as it can be, given the circumstances. Panic is useless. I loathe being useless. But fuck . His face, all smoothed out and still against the pillow…
I stare down at the holdall. My makeup bag is in there—I’ve ignored it up until now, but maybe there’s something useful inside it that I’ve not considered. I unzip it, rifling through the concealer, foundation, blusher, brushes, mascara. Unless this tube of lipstick is one of those cool James Bond gadgets that turns into a helicopter or something, this is all totally redundant. I briefly despise myself for being a woman who packs three shades of foundation instead of useful things like tissues, or snacks, or a small inflatable dinghy.
I can’t bear this. I know Zeke needs rest, and I should really be out here watching for boats, but I don’t want to leave him alone. I don’t want to be alone. I want to get off this boat, off off off off off it, and as I press my hands hard against my face, I think to myself, Would I survive if Zeke was gone?
Yes . I ball my hands into fists. I would survive. I would . I’m strong. I’m still here. I would do what I had to do, just like I did when I stitched Zeke’s skin up.
I reach into the holdall again and find the hard edge of one of the logbooks. It must have slid fully into that inside pocket as I dragged the bag from the wardrobe. I pull it out and let it lie on my knees, smoothing the surface of the leather cover.
Just don’t read them, OK? he said. But why? This is a ship’s log—won’t it contain information about the houseboat? It might tell us the exact capacity of the water tank, something we’re always trying to guess at; it might say there’s a phone hidden in some other secret compartment Zeke’s dad created way back when. It’s something , and we have so little out here.
I’ll just look. I’ll flick open the first page. It would be crazy not to. I’ve got to be sensible—I can’t be sentimental. Zeke is injured. There is no room for emotional decision-making right now.
I open the book.
It’s obvious within just a few pages that this isn’t really a logbook—it’s a diary. I scan pages of cramped, tiny writing: The rain is endless today, and the sound on the tarp reminds me of camping in the garden with the boys, Lyra refusing, of course, sitting indoors watching Charmed…I ate well tonight, a stew. The children would have hated it no doubt, too many vegetables…If I had known sooner, would it be different, could it be different, I wonder?
I should stop reading. There is no detail about the boat here. But I keep turning the pages, telling myself I’m just scanning for information, not really reading, not really taking in anything personal.
There is such a freedom to this life. No tethers. Only me, the water and my puzzles. I am doing just fine today. Even the problem with the sump for the shower hasn’t got me down—the valve needs replacing, but I keep forgetting because the children have been here. I know I’m getting it wrong with the three of them, I can feel I am, with Zeke especially, but of course, he’s different…
I blow a loose strand of hair out of my face. My heart thumps as I scan on.
Paige thinks I should tell him the truth…I sometimes long to, but I know when he finds out, he’ll never come back to this boat, and…
“Fuck,” I whisper, slamming the book closed.
Why have I done this? I hate secrets. Knowing things I shouldn’t stresses me out, and there’s plenty of stressors in my life right now—I do not need an extra one.
Eugene suddenly lets out an outraged squawk. I startle, then turn to glare at him.
“What?” I say.
He stares back at me with his judgmental little bird eyes.
“You know what?” I say to him. “You should just go. We should just chuck you back into the bloody ocean. We can’t afford to keep giving you stale bread. We need the stale bread, OK?”
He remains infuriatingly unblinking.
“This isn’t some CBBC show,” I tell him, my voice rising. “You’re not our cute animal sidekick. Scram. Scram!”
I’ve started to cry.
“I know you can hop around,” I yell at him. “I’ve seen you do it so you can shit on our sofa cushions. Get out of the box. Go. Just go.”
“We gave him food, so he’ll probably stick around as long as possible now,” comes Zeke’s mild voice from inside the boat.
I spin around, wiping my face, shoving the logbook back into my bag.
“What are you doing up?” I say with horror, standing and yanking the door open to find him leaning against the kitchen counter again, head bowed, a fresh towel bunched up beneath his T-shirt.
“I needed the bathroom,” he says.
His voice sounds too light and breathy. He turns his head to look at me, still bent over, forearms resting on the counter’s edge. “We need Eugene. He’s good for morale. He’s our therapy animal.”
I want to say, Lie down. Please. Rest. I am so, so afraid you’ll die . But instead I say, “Bloody hell, could you be any more Gen Z?”
He chuckles slightly, then winces. I think he’s swaying more than he should be, even taking into account the movement of the boat.
“He’ll be well enough to hunt fish for himself soon—look, he’s on the move,” he says, nodding behind me.
I turn. Eugene is right by my feet, taking uneven steps and letting out a faint, chatty bok bok sound, like a chicken.
“Oh, so now you get out of the box, you little shit,” I say through my tears, and when I turn back, Zeke’s smiling at me.
“Please lie down,” I say. “I am not a woman who says ‘please’ very often. But— please .”
He sobers, eyes steady on my face. “I’m OK, Lexi.”
“You think you’re OK. But you look terrible. I need you to rest.”
He straightens up slowly, taking a step toward the bedroom and gripping the doorframe with both hands.
“When I’m better,” he says, voice almost too quiet to hear with his back to me, “I’m going to make you a proper breakfast.”
“Zeke, we’re…”
“Lost at sea, rationing food, I know. Let me have this, OK?”
I stay silent. I’m not really one for fantasies and daydreams. I don’t want him to make plans—it feels like tempting fate.
“We don’t have a lot of brunch ingredients,” I say eventually.
“I like a challenge.” He leans forward to crawl onto the bed. “And all’s not lost yet. We still have a cafetière.”