Page 35 of Swept Away

Last night changed something between us. I think maybe…we’re a team now.

Lexi

He’ll say he’snot, but he’s weak from the blood loss, and the pain of his wound is drawn all over his face. Earlier, when he got up to pee, he almost collapsed and ended up hunched over the kitchen counter for a full five minutes before he could stand properly again.

He’s good at pretending. But he’s not OK.

“You’re hovering,” he says mildly, as I adjust the cushion behind him.

“I’m helping,” I say. “You’re welcome.”

“You’re hovering,” he repeats, a little more firmly this time. “And I can tell every time you look at me, you’re wondering if I’m going to die in a minute.”

“And you’re telling me that’snotrelaxing?”

I get a faint, tired smile for that. His eyes have turned kind of hollow; there’s a grayish semicircle beneath each one, a thumb-swipe in charcoal.

“Honestly, I’m fine as long as I stay lying down,” he says. “I just need rest.”

I amcravingGoogle. The thing I want to find out most of all is when I can stop worrying. I want to know when the danger willhave passed—the moment a doctor or a nurse would say,He’s made it through the first however-many hours, so the worst is over now.

“This place needs a tidy,” I say, turning my attention to the bloodstained towel still sitting in a heap in one corner, and the wardrobe door hanging open to reveal the mess inside. “I’ll just get it sorted around you and you’ll hardly notice I’m here. I’ll be popping out to check for boats all the time anyway.”

He says nothing, but when I glance over my shoulder at his face I notice his expression—I think he’s just clocked I don’t want to be alone. I flush, grabbing the dirty towel and taking it out onto the deck to wash with seawater when I next haul up a bucket.

When I return to the bedroom, Zeke has his eyes closed. He opens them when I arrive, but it looks like an effort, like he’s lifting something heavy.

“Big ship out there, right? Waiting to rescue us?” he says.

“I told them now’s not a great time, can they come back later,” I say, though I don’t enjoy the joke. The very thought of rescue makes my whole being ache for it. We are both working so hard to stay strong for each other today—the strain is like a constant white noise in the air between us.

I examine the mess in the wardrobe. Both Zeke and I have half unpacked, but left various things in our luggage, too—a halfway house between settling in and being impractical. Those ship’s logs I found when we rescued Eugene are still sitting lopsidedly on top of our bags; one has slid down the back, another almost ending up in the inside pocket of my open holdall.

“You know,” I say, “you’ve got some reading material, if you feel up to it today.”

He doesn’t answer. I figure I’ve pissed him off—he’s been very clear about not wanting to discuss the logbooks, after all—but when I turn, I realize he’s unconscious.

“Zeke! Zeke!”

I’m at his side immediately, my hand gripping the bare skin of his upper arm. There is an awful, time-stopping moment when he just lies there, sallow-faced and still, and then his eyes flutter open.

“You OK?” he says, his voice sticky. “Did I drift off? Sorry.”

“God, no, sorry,” I say, staggering back and leaning into the cupboard next to the wardrobe. “I shouldn’t have woken you. You rest. You…I’ll just…”

“I thought you wanted to tidy,” he says, frowning slightly. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I say, crouching down and reaching blindly for my holdall. “I’ll just take this out onto the deck and sort through it properly, check there’s nothing I missed in the pockets, OK? Go back to sleep.”

By the time I reach the deck chair in the thick, midday sunlight, my heart is still thundering like rain on a tin roof. Eugene is out here, sunning himself in his box, unfazed by our ongoing state of disaster. The door slams shut behind me and I jump, even though that sound is now as familiar to me as theclickof Mae easing my bedroom door open when she can’t get to sleep.

Zeke looked dead. He looked dead, and for a moment, I thought he’d left me.

The idea of being alone here, of Zeke beinggone, and just a—just abody…

I sit, dropping the bag to the deck between my feet. I’m trembling all over. I need to calm down. He’s not dead, we’re still afloat, and all is about as well as it can be, given the circumstances. Panic is useless. I loathe being useless. Butfuck. His face, all smoothed out and still against the pillow…

I stare down at the holdall. My makeup bag is in there—I’ve ignored it up until now, but maybe there’s something useful inside it that I’ve not considered. I unzip it, rifling through the concealer, foundation, blusher, brushes, mascara. Unless this tube of lipstickis one of those cool James Bond gadgets that turns into a helicopter or something, this is all totally redundant. I briefly despise myself for being a woman who packs three shades of foundation instead of useful things like tissues, or snacks, or a small inflatable dinghy.

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