By the time I wake up the next morning, feeling sore in every good way, Charles is still asleep. Sometime during the night, we had rolled away from each other, and the fire had gone out, so I’m a little cold. I stare at his handsome, sleeping face and begin to regret the fact that we had sex last night. I had enjoyed every second of it, but now that it is morning, I wonder if there would be any awkwardness and if he would be weird about it.I pick up his key holder, which has something like a small knife attached to it and quietly head out of the cave so as not to wake him up. Then I look for a suitable stick and begin the slow and long process of turning one end of it into a sharp and pointed end. I don’t by any means know a single thing about fishing, but I had seen some movies in the past in which people were stranded somewhere there is a big body of water and they used sticks to catch fish. There's no harm in trying.I’m almost done sharpening the stick when I sense that someone i
From where I’m standing, I can’t see Charles, but as I begin to run towards the rock, I see the water surrounding where he fell turning rapidly turning red. As soon as I see that, I remember that the area had numerous smaller rocks that were submerged in the water.“Oh, my God! Please, no.” I moan, wading as fast as I can to reach him and splashing water as I try to run. At first, I don’t see him when I get to the spot in which he had fallen, and I go into full-blown panic mode. Finally, I can see him, but seeing him doesn’t lessen the terror that is gripping me.He is lying facedown in the water, unmoving. I call out his name and reach into the water, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling his upper body out of the water. There is an ugly gash on his forehead, where the old wound which had been healing nicely, had reopened and even widened. The wound is pouring blood, but I can tell right away that it wasn’t this wound that is the cause of all the red in the water.“Charles? Charl
As Charles predicted, his condition worsens over the next two days. It’s unimaginable to think that we’ve been here for seven days, over a whole damn week, and yet, we’re yet to be rescued. I live every second in fear. What if the people on the ship think that we got down at one of the destinations where the cruise ship was supposed to stop, and then something happened to us thereafter? Charles is rich, after all, and some shady characters might like to kidnap him to fetch a god ransom. Or what if they had been searching for us, having realized that we must have fallen overboard, but have now decided that maybe they’re too late and we’re dead? I have no way of knowing anything, as we’re cut off from the entire world. “How’s your head, Charles?” I ask him. “It’s horrible. It hasn’t stopped pounding since the day before yesterday. At the end of all this, I’m afraid that I’ll give Frankenstein a run for his money in the looks aspect.” He says weakly, trying to joke, but I’m not findin
I fall sick the next day, as I had suspected I would, and Charles’s condition worsens. He drifts in and out of consciousness the whole day, his fever so bad that it almost feels like he would combust. That evening, I manage to get us some berries to eat. Charles refuses to have any, and no amount of cajoling and crying on my part would make him eat them. I’m too weak to husk any coconuts, so I manage to catch some crabs, but end up burning them when I tried to cook them. The lack of food, appetite, and illness weakens us the more, and on the eleventh day after we find ourselves on the island, I’m so weak that I can’t stand again. I lay beside Charles, totally boneless and unable to do anything to help either of us, not that there is much to be done in the first place. He hasn’t spoken in two days, and the only time I hear anything from his mouth is when he mutters gibberish because of the fever, and when he moans because of the pain he’s passing through.That night, I finally give up
JESSICABy the time I open my eyes, I’m alone and lying in a bed in a hospital room. The familiar panic sets in, and I try to stamp it down unsuccessfully. I hate hospital rooms with a deadly passion. Before I can panic too much though, the door to the room opens and my friend Samantha walks in, all smiles.“Well, well, well. Look who’s awake.” She beams, coming to my bedside and giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Hey.” I croak, and she immediately reaches for a jug by the side of the bed and pours me a glass of water, which I suck at greedily through a straw. “How are you feeling?”“I feel much better than I should, thanks.”“That’s good. The doctor said that you will have no problem recovering. I’m guessing that he knows his stuff. I’m glad to see you’re okay. I was very worried. We all were.”“Who’s we?” I ask although I’m tired of hearing her forcefully cheery voice.“Why? Sebastian and I, as well as the organizers of the cruise, of course. This type of thing is bad for their busine
I only barely manage to conceal my utter shock at this surprisingly unwanted piece of information. There is no reason for the pain and betrayal that I’m feeling at that moment, but the fact is that I’m feeling these emotions.I chalk it up to the fact that Charles had so blatantly lied about being in a relationship just to get into my pants, although if the truth is to be told, I had been very eager to get into his pants as well. No wonder he had seemed uncomfortable when I asked him if he was in a relationship while we were on the island.Meghan is advancing into the room, all smiles and shiny white teeth. I think of my teeth that haven’t really been brushed in over a week, except with twigs that I used as makeshift toothbrushes, and I scowl, but Meghan doesn’t seem to care.“Oh, hi. Aren’t you a beauty? Look at your hair … so pretty. I’m Samantha.” Samantha gushes, moving over to Meghan before she can reach the bed in which I’m lying and giving her a very big hug as though they’re l
When I get back to my room, I find Sebastian, his wife Carol, and little baby James waiting for me. My mood improves immediately, although not by much, and I smile gratefully at them. Sebastian hunkers down and gives me a heartfelt hug, which I return heartily, breathing in his familiar smell. Hugging him feels like home but in a brotherly way. If anyone had ever told me that I would come to think of Sebastian as a ‘brother’ some three years ago, I would have laughed their face off. I glance at Carol to see if she’s uncomfortable with this display of emotion that her husband is giving me, but she clearly isn’t. I wonder how refreshing it must be to be sure of your partner. She’s beaming at me and waiting her turn to give me a hug, which I accept gratefully. Then they place baby James in my arms, and immediately my mood brightens, after he gives me a two-toothed smile, and immediately reach for a strand of my hair. Tugging on people’s hair is his favorite pastime.“I’m so thankful th
CHARLESMy head is pounding hard, and my eyes feel like they’re glued shut. I manage to force them open, and then immediately wish that I hadn’t. The bright light in the room hurt my eyes, so I shut them and only open them again when I have gotten accustomed to the light.I’m in a hospital room … I realize that right away. I glance around and realize that I’m alone, and it’s afternoon. That is no surprise. I don’t have anyone who is close to me enough to sit with me in a hospital room while I’m sick. Belatedly, the events of the past several days come rushing back to me, and I sit up suddenly. My head begins to swim, so I wait for some time for it to calm down before pulling off all the stuff that is connected to me in a bid to keep me alive.The wounds that are all over me protest my movement, but I need to know … need to know where Jessica is and if she made it out of the island alive too. I really hope she did. I can’t bear to think otherwise, because it would hurt a lot.I had co