Withering Hope

When his hand touches my stomach his breath catches, and he bites his lip. I pretend not to notice, though my own breathing intensifies with shame, my stomach jolting. I try to concentrate on shooting, but I find myself peering at him often to see if he continues to bite his lip.

He does. His reaction makes me uneasy, and I have no idea what to do about it, but something stirs inside me. With bewildering confusion, I realize what that is: guilt.

No amount of instruction helps. I give up after about three hours, dropping the bow. "I suck. There's no other way to put it."

Tristan, who's once again resting on the airstairs, shakes his head, saying, "You'll get better with practice."

"I'll go cut fresh leaves to replace the ones in the shower. They're decaying already."

I spend an inordinate amount of time cutting the leaves, using the alone time to put my thoughts in order after the events of the last hours. I trudge back, my arms full of leaves, and start patching the shower. Tristan is nowhere in sight, so I assume he managed to drag himself inside the plane to rest. I fiddle with the leaves before I weave them into a curtain. I replace the old curtain, my heart swivelling inside me with ridiculous pride, as if I've just built something very complex.

I jump when I feel a tap on my shoulder.

"Sorry, I didn't—” I stop, seeing Tristan carrying white flowers. "What are these?"

"White flowers. White is your favorite color."

I slit my eyes. "You were pretending not to remember, then."

This wins me a boyish grin from him. "Gardenias are your favorite flowers, and I would've gotten you gardenias, but the rainforest is out of them. Or at least not anywhere near the fence. I couldn't go searching very far because of my back."

"Oh! Your back. You shouldn't have gone—" I don't finish my sentence because Tristan places the flowers in my arms, and his gesture renders me speechless. He remembered my favorite color is white, and he went to search for flowers despite his back. He leans against the shower cabin, massaging his back, breathing hard through gritted teeth.

Such a normal act… receiving flowers. It unsettles me. I try hard not to think about my normal life at home on any day. Most of the time I succeed, when I lose myself in tasks such as fence building or food searching. But this is a drop of normalcy in the vertigo of madness. A reminder that there’s more to life than survival. Even here.

In a move that surprises me just as much as it surprises him, I fling my arms around his neck, pulling him into an embrace. "Thank you, Tristan," I whisper.

"I'll slice some of the grapefruit you brought in this morning," he says when we pull apart.

"All right. I'll see if the signal fire needs more wood."

The fire looks just fine, so I end up sitting next to our wood supply, hugging my knees. I hold a thin branch in one hand, absent-mindedly scratching the mud.

"What are you doing?"

I flinch, startled, then rise to my feet. "Wasting time. Sorry."

Tristan frowns, pointing at the mud. "Is that part of a poem?"

"Is it?" I look over the scratches I painted in the mud and see, with surprise, what I thought were scratches are indeed words.

The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?

"It's from ‘Spring’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I didn't realize I still knew these lyrics. I haven't read poetry since high school."

"You miss reading, don't you? I saw you already read the magazines."

"Several times. I'd love to read something new. Anything."

He squints his eyes. "I have an idea." Picking up another branch, he starts drawing shapes in the mud. Letters. I drink each one in as soon as he draws it.

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;