Chapter Eighteen
Allie
We have an hour until we get to the puffins and it is pouring down. We are so wet, Milo and me, that every time we take a step, our feet squelch. And my ankle hurts too, which blooms and blooms with bruising and desperation to sit down, to have the pressure taken off.
Because the thought of sharing a cabin with Milo after what has passed between us today feels almost too . . . dangerous.
‘Well, Captain, this is . . . well. Yeah,’ trails off Milo beside me. Water streaks his face. Raindrops dot his eyelashes, run off the tip of his nose. He would never say it, of course, but he thinks it’s crazy to continue on in this rain.
‘I know.’
‘I mean – is it OK?’
‘What? It’s rain. Of course it’s OK—’
‘I didn’t say is it OK,’ he says, over the loud white noise of the rain. ‘I said, are you OK?’
‘Oh. Um . . . yes. I’m fine.’
‘It’s just you’re hobbling a little.’
‘Am I?’
I swallow. I am. And the thought of hobbling anymore makes me want to cry.
My walkie-talkie crackles. Iris’s voice comes through once again.
Let’s hope she says it’s stopped raining where she is, or at least that the wind has slowed from these rageful gusts to a manageable breeze.
It can be like this sometimes, here. Extremes.
Sudden extremes. As if here is where earth lets out all its bad moods. Beats its proverbial pillows.
‘Hey, R2 crew,’ she says, ‘Still breathing? Over. Still ignoring my advice to find a cabin and chill for the rest of the day?’
‘We’re OK,’ I respond, but even I want to roll my eyes at myself. We aren’t OK. Not at all. My ankle being the first thing that isn’t. My bag is heavy on my back. Our clothes are soaked and sticking to our skin. Our faces are shining with water, as if we’ve had buckets of it thrown over us.
‘Did you hear the thunder?’ she asks. ‘Over.’
‘No,’ I radio back. ‘How’s it on your side? Clearing up?’
‘Oh, completely dreadful,’ she says. ‘We’re all in the tents. Battened down the hatches. Please do the same.’
I feel Milo’s eyes flick over to me. I don’t meet his gaze.
‘And how’s the ankle?’
I turn then, glare at him. He gives a heavy shrug. So Milo had told Iris earlier, even though I told him not to. ‘What?’ he says under his breath. ‘We all promised to keep each other – abreast – so that was me. Just. Abreasting.’
I speak into the radio. ‘It’s . . . fine, it’s .
. .’ Thunder rumbles in the distance. A gust of wind halts us in our tracks.
Milo puts his arm out to steady me. ‘It hurts,’ I say with a big sigh.
‘OK, it . . . it really hurts actually. This day’s been a bloody disaster, from start to finish.
’ I let out a breath and give myself over to it.
‘Oh, mate,’ comes Iris’s voice.
‘OK. Where do I go?’ I turn to Milo, who stands, arms folded, face being pelted with rain.
It’s obscene how he looks as though he’s posing for an artsy, wet photoshoot.
His cheeks, pink, eyes wild, his slick, soaked hair dangling over his face.
‘Are you OK with this? Going to a cabin. Maybe until morning. We have enough supplies.’
Milo smiles with relief. ‘Hell yeah,’ he says, blowing out a long breath. ‘I am super down for a cabin. I am beat.’
Iris gives me extremely rough directions of the cabin near the puffins. ‘You’ll see the rusty mine tracks first and then the old wagons,’ she explains. ‘Just keep going north, then you know you’re near.’
And Milo leans his head back, smiles, as if someone has just handed him the top prize.
It makes me smile. There’s something about doing fieldwork that does it.
It highlights what’s really important. When I’m home, I suddenly care too much.
I get wound up about temporary traffic lights, about finding the right wallpaper.
Yet here. It reminds you that the little things are the big things.
A sunset. Rainfall. A log fire. A comfortable bed. A warm meal.
‘We’ll let you know once we’re there,’ I say, and when I look over at Milo, as we walk – those caramel brown eyes, the tiny kink on the bridge of his nose, I think about what he said about pretending, and realise in this moment, even if it feels dangerous, being in a cabin in the wilderness with him is all I want, and I don’t need to pretend about that. Not at all.