“It’s a good feeling,” John Paul agreed. “You guys sure do look good together – that’s for sure.”
“It’s not about that,” I said, shaking my head. “I love her, John Paul, and she loves me, too. I’m really thinking about retiring and buying her a big ass ring.”
“Fucker,” he laughed. “I should get to retire first – I’ve been doing this longer.”
“Yeah, and maybe someday you’ll do it right!”
He punched my shoulder, and we laughed before we went back to the free weights.
I didn’t know what I was now. Happy? Sad? Empty? Nothing? Yes, that was probably the most accurate way to describe me. Nothing. I glanced over my shoulder for a second at the sleeping, dark-haired woman on the floor of the raft behind me. When I looked at her, the emptiness evaporated faster than the dew from the collection sheet on the top of the raft’s canopy. I’d told her more than I had ever told anyone. She knew things I had never told Jillian, or John Paul, or even Landon. She knew me, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do next.
When I looked at her, held her, and felt her hands on me, what did I feel then? I didn’t have a name for it. Happy didn’t describe whatever it was. That could be a part of it, but there was something else inside as well, and not all of it was good. I also felt panic inside when I thought of her, and I wasn’t sure why.
Because you know she’s got her barbed hooks inside of you, and if she pulls out now, she’s going to be taking a pound of flesh and then some.
I wanted to tell her more. I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted her to know everything about me, about John Paul, about the things that happened to me in jail. I even wanted to tell her about the night her father was tortured and executed along with fifteen others right in front of my eyes while I stood there and fucking watched it happen. Yeah, what would she think of me then, when she finds out I never said a word? When she knows I didn’t do anything to stop them?
I shook my head from side to side violently, trying to force the sights and sounds to remain contained as they attempted to break out into my conscious mind. I could hear the screaming, see the looks on their faces as each one of them reali
zed they were next, feel the splatter of blood on my skin, and smell the sickening stench of death. I swallowed hard, trying to force bile back down my throat.
I wanted a drink. I wanted a drink so fucking bad it fucking hurt.
I looked up into the eastern sky as the sun’s rays slowly broke over the horizon, telling myself over and over again not to think. For a moment, I just stared, eyes narrowed, trying to figure out the trick of the light causing the diffraction of the sun’s beams off to one side. A small band of cumulus clouds brightened the sky with gold and orange hues. There was a tinge of green on the underside of the closest clouds.
Four pelicans flew overhead towards the west.
I realized my breathing had escalated, and though I fought against hyperventilating, I welcomed the rush of adrenaline.
“Raine, wake up!”
“Hmm?” She rolled and rubbed at her eyes. Her eyes meeting mine was the only thing I could have considered more beautiful that the sight on the horizon. “What is it?”
“Land.”
* * * * *
“There ya go,” I said, watching Raine tie the edge of the blanket-towels-turned-into-sails down close to the canopy top. “Just keep a good hold of it – we don’t want to land on the windward side.”
“Why not?”
“If there are reefs or rocks, they’re more likely to be there. The leeside of the island – if it is an island – is more likely to be sandy. Reefs are the real danger right now – they could tear the raft up. If we make land, we’re going to need everything we got until we figure out where we are.”
“Do you think there are people there?”
“I have no fucking idea,” I growled. “Now don’t start with the questions. Just hold on to that sail.”
I adjusted the pair of floating anchors, which would help us from capsizing in the waves as we approached shore. Though being in a survival situation on land was much better than in the water, landing on shore in an inflated raft was dangerous at best. I picked the paddle up and started pulling us around the left of the slight peninsula jutting from what looked to be a small island.
It had taken most of the day just to get this close. The “sails” we made weren’t doing a lot for us, but they were better than nothing and it gave Raine something on which to focus her energy. Otherwise, she’d start asking me her customary five thousand “I’m nervous and babbling” inane questions and I’d lose it. Paddling was only slightly beneficial, though I hoped it would become more useful as we got closer to land. Another hour went by, and the sun was starting to descend towards the horizon in the west, and a small, sand-covered beach was now to the east of the raft. I paddled harder, trying to make some kind of progress, and saw a small section of reef near the closer edge of the beach.
“We have to get further out,” I said, pointing towards the reef. “If we hit the reef, it’ll tear up the raft. Pull the rod for the sail to the right about twenty degrees, and then let the wind catch the sail again.”
“Too far,” I growled as Raine moved the sail but brought it back about thirty degrees. I fought down the urge to yell at her, which was becoming a little more difficult as fatigue began to set in. “Move it back ten degrees.”
“I don’t have a compass up here, you know!” Raine snipped back. She was tired as well, I knew. She was also undernourished and not used to this kind of physical exertion. I told myself to feel sympathetic, but it didn’t work.
“Didn’t you take geometry in high school?” I snapped back at her. “Ten fucking degrees. It ain’t that hard.”