“Were there others?” she whispers, wrapping her arms around her body and shivering, holding her bag to her chest.
“Yeah,” I say with a sneer. “The point is, it isn’t as easy as you might think. You can fight me all you want, but in the end I’m the only one you’ve got here. Me, and that sneaking, selfish bastard, if he doesn’t manage to get himself killed.”
I hope he’s close enough to hear me.
“How long have you been here?”
She’s still standing in front of me, wrapping her arms around herself.
I look away. I don’t like this question, because I don’t have an answer.
With a forced sigh, I raise my eyes heavenward. “Too fucking long.”
“Jesus,” she whispers. She blinks, then clears her throat and shifts uncomfortably. “It’s like you’re Rip Van Winkle or something.”
I sigh. “I wish. That would’ve been a mercy. I’ve been awake the whole time.”SixHarperA disconcerting sense of foreboding comes over me at his words.
Too fucking long.
He’s been stranded here. How long? He says there are only three—maybe two of us—on this island.
Why am I here?
I swallow hard and try to put on a brave face, but what I want to do is bury my head in my arms and weep. I never should have gone on that cruise. I knew I should’ve stayed home.
“Can you… can you ballpark it?” I ask, my voice higher in pitch than normal, taking on a frenzied sort of note. “A day, a week, a month…years?”
He only polishes off the nuts, wads up the empty wrapper, and shoves it into a side pocket of my bag, but he doesn’t answer my question. He stalks off away from the beach.
“Get off the fucking beach before you give yourself sunstroke,” he says over his shoulder. I want to rail at him and tell him to fuck off, that he has no right to tell me what to do, but I don’t want to be stupid, either. He’s right, even if he’s a douche about it. I will burn if I’m in direct sunlight too long, and I don’t want to deal with that.
So, I follow him, with great reluctance, and mumble under my breath, “Obviously. Stop telling me what to do. I’m not the enemy here.” He doesn’t respond, just walks through the woods in his loping stride.
“Stay behind me,” he says over his shoulder. “I don’t trust the bastard to not attack us.”
I grit my teeth together. Back at home, I wouldn’t do a damn thing if a man like him told me what to do, but I’d be stupid not to follow his lead here. As far as I can tell, he might be my only potential friend on this island.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Be quiet.”
I clench my fists and follow. The thick palm leaves overhead cover us enough to give me protection from the sun’s brutal rays. I wish I wasn’t wearing flimsy, delicate sandals. I look to his feet. They’re bare, tan, and rough. He doesn’t even flinch when he steps on rocks or tree roots, but my own feet are already aching.
He knows his way. He’s used to the terrain. He’s been here a very, very long time. I have so many questions I don’t even know where to begin, and I’m not sure he’d answer them anyway. I’m not sure if he even could.
“This way,” he grunts, pointing in the forest to the left, when he freezes.
I look to where he’s staring. He’s shaking his head, his eyes wide and mouth opened as if he’s in shock.
“What?” I ask. I look to where he does but all I see is trees.
“Coconuts,” he says, as if that explains anything at all. “Christ. They weren’t here before. I know they weren’t here before.”
That makes no sense, though. How could a whole patch of coconut trees suddenly appear? It makes me wonder at his level of sanity.
Before I can respond, he’s running to one of the trees, and he’s climbing the smooth, narrow trunk.
“Catch them or let them fall, but don’t get hit by one,” he says, and before I can really process what he’s doing, large, ripe coconuts are falling all around me. I catch a few but let the rest fall, until there’s a small pile by my feet.
I look up in surprise when he swings from a branch on the tree and lands on his feet beside me.
“Open your bag.”
Grumbling to myself, I do what he says. It makes sense, I just hate the way he orders me around. I unzip my bag and he shoves as many coconuts in it as he can.
“Perfect. Those will last for a little while.” Without asking me, he reaches for my bag, yanks it out of my hand, and slides it onto his back. I let him. The bag is damn heavy.