Chapter Fourteen
I stare at the jug in Jackson’s hands like it’s a bomb about to blow us all up. It feels about that dire. We’ll be dead in a couple days if that half jug and two water bottles are all we have to share between the four of us.
Like I said, death by dehydration is a bitch.
Once we run out of water, we’ll slowly get weak and confused.
Our bodies will divert energy and blood flow to essential organs, until eventually our kidneys will start to fail.
Waste will build up in our bodies, and our livers, our brains, and eventually our hearts will stop.
Systematic organ failure.
My dad treated a kid for dehydration a few months ago.
He was medevaced in from Eastern Oregon after he and his dad got lost during a hike.
They ended up wandering the desert for almost a week before they were discovered, and despite medical treatment on the ground, en route, and in the ER, he died soon after he touched down in Portland.
He was only seven. His dad survived.
When my dad got home, he gave me a long lecture about how easy it is to die of dehydration if you get lost on a hike—not that I’ve ever willingly gone for a hike in my life—or worse, anywhere dry and hot.
So now, I know way too much about multiple organ failure and—
“Hannah!”
I jolt. “What?”
“I said your name ten times. You checked out,” Jackson says, and I’m surprised to find him right in front of me. I automatically take a step back to put some space between us. He clocks the movement with a frown, but I don’t need to give Emmy anything else to comment on.
I slip around him. “I’m going to go check that the hose is still draining,” I mumble.
“I was just back there. It was fine—” Jackson starts to say, but Emmy cuts him off.
“Let her go, Jack.”
A wave hits the side of the boat as I’m going down the stairs, and I all but fall into the kitchen.
I catch myself on the countertop and hang my head.
Rage, frustration, and impatience war for the top spot in the hierarchy of my emotions, and I honestly don’t know which one is going to win out in the end.
It seems like every hour on this boat is worse than the last.
I check the water level to distract myself, and I’m relieved to see it’s dropped significantly.
The siphon is much more productive than our bucket train.
It still has a ways to go, but at least one thing is going right.
I peek out the porthole in the kitchen, and the boat is definitely sitting higher in the water with all that weight removed.
I don’t know if it’s enough to keep us afloat if the storm gets really bad, but that elusive hope starts to build in my chest again.
It could be enough. Which is more than we had before I found that hose.
Too bad we’re going to die of dehydration.
I sink down on the bench seat and hug my knees.
I hear footsteps on the stairs, and I know it’ll be Jackson before I even lift my head. He sits on the top step, gallon jug still dangling from his fingers, and frowns. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Nope.
I spot a bucket on its side in the water and kick it toward him. “Do you want to make another line and see if we can get more of this water out?”
He ignores that. “What happened with you and Emmy? I heard you yelling on the bow.”
I’m not about to admit the part about him. “She said I didn’t care about her travel plans, and it all went downhill from there. Because apparently worrying about her getting murdered by a stranger makes me unsupportive.”
“I don’t think too much worrying is the problem, Hannah.”
“Then what is?”
He jumps down into the water and places the gallon jug on the counter. “It doesn’t take a psychology degree to notice that the more excited you get about Linfield, the more she talks about her trip.”
“That’s not true. Emmy’s been planning that trip forever.”
“Planning, yes. Obsessing? No. She’s always had a Pinterest board of destinations, and I don’t know how many times she’s barged into my room to show me some new travel video of an obscure town in Romania or Japan.
But it’s always been… I don’t know. Hypothetical.
A collage of ideas rather than an actual plan.
When you got your acceptance, she went all in.
Start dates. Possible hotels in different cities.
Bus routes. Which flights are easiest and cheapest. The works. ”
An uncomfortable itch works down my spine. I didn’t know any of that.
“So? She needs a plan if she’s going to make this trip happen. Graduation is right around the corner.”
“I just find it funny that the more steps you take toward your future, the more she seems to panic-plan her own. And she’s not getting a lot of support.
As long as you’ve wanted to be a trauma nurse, she’s wanted to see the world.
But she watches your dreams get celebrated while she gets lectured about ‘wasting too much time wandering around.’ My parents are the worst offenders.
They keep calling it a ‘gap year’ or a ‘pitstop’ while she figures out what she wants to do in life.
Everyone’s being a little rude about her plans, honestly. ”
“I’ve never been anything but supportive of Emmy’s travel plans.”
“You’ve also sent her links to pickpocket-proof bags, insisted she take self-defense classes, and lectured her about how dangerous it is to wander foreign countries by herself.
While also jumping down her throat when she invited Ben to go with her.
I’m not saying you were wrong for that—going alone would be safer than traveling with that guy—but Emmy already feels like none of her plans are ever good enough.
I think she’s really struggling with everyone constantly wishing she’d choose a safer, more conventional dream. ”
I feel a little sick to my stomach. When I got my Linfield acceptance the Coles threw me a party.
With themed decorations and a banner and everything.
They did the same for Jackson when he got his acceptance.
I was at their dinner table when Emmy announced her travel blog idea.
All her mom said was, Oh honey, there’s no way to make a living doing that.
Are you sure you don’t want to fill out a couple college applications?
When I don’t respond, Jackson says, “She wants everyone to take her choices seriously too. Especially you. And underneath it all, she’s terrified of being left behind.”
I feel myself deflate, and the rage, frustration, and irritation lose a bit of steam. I almost don’t want them to. That mix of emotion is armor. Without it, we’re just two girls who are equally afraid of losing the other.
“It hurt my feelings when she asked Sailor Dick to go to Italy with her instead of me. It felt like being replaced in real time. Like I was nothing.”
“Even if they took that trip together, he could never replace you. You’re not exactly easy to leave behind, you know.”
I tilt my chin so he doesn’t see me roll my eyes. Oh, the irony.
He sighs and sloshes over to sit next to me. A gust of wind howls against the boat, and we rock forward and back again.
He clears his throat. “Okay. I think we need to talk about this.”
I become very interested in the scrapes on my knees. “Talk about what?”
“About what happened between us.”
I knew he was going to say that, but hearing it is still jarring. It was his idea to keep things quiet. Why bother digging up the past?
“We’ve done a great job pretending nothing happened. No reason to stop now.”
He laughs softly. “Yeah…I don’t think we’re actually that good at pretending.”
“You are.”
“I’m shocked you think so. I can’t even park at my parents’ house without thinking of you up on that ladder surrounded by Christmas lights.”
As a general rule, I do not allow myself to relive that night. It’s too embarrassing. But one sentence out of his mouth, and it all rushes back.
***
I stood in my driveway groaning into the night. Roughly half of our Christmas lights were on the ground. My dad was on the tail end of a twenty-four-hour shift, and I’d gone to pick up some brownie ingredients to surprise him with dessert to kick off our Christmas Eve together.
The lights were decidedly up when I left the house.
I didn’t want my dad to come home after a long shift and have to rehang them, so I postponed my baking and trudged inside to get a ladder.
We always hung the Christmas lights the same way: stretched back and forth from the trees to the house in a giant W pattern.
The wind had ripped out the hooks above the front door and in one of the trees.
Armed with new hooks, the one over the door was relatively fast to reattach, but the one in the tree was being a little shit. Every time I sunk the screw into the trunk, the tension of the lights pulled it back out again. On attempt number six, I was ready to chop down the entire tree.
“Need help?”
I startled and dropped the hook. It landed right between a pair of familiar white sneakers.
Jackson bent to scoop it up. “I’ll take that as a yes?”
I blinked at him like a fool. I knew he usually came home from college for the holidays, but I’d somehow missed him over Thanksgiving, and there’d been no sign of him since winter break started.
I think I’d convinced myself that he’d already come and gone.
The last place I expected to see him was standing in my yard.
The butterflies were immediate—and a little nauseating.
I held my hand out for the screw. “That’s okay. You probably have a million things to do with your family. I’ve got this. Thanks though.”
He shook his head. “Get off the ladder, Hannah. My mom will kill me if she looks out and sees you up there while I stand around doing nothing to help.”
“Then go inside.”
He rolls his eyes. “You know my mom. She raised helpers; that won’t fly.”