“Why?”
“I can’t get it to light.” His voice wobbles, and I hate it. The sound carves right into me.
I sit beside him and glance at his hands. He’s gripping a stick and rock like they’ve personally betrayed him.
“Let me try.”
He shoves them into my hands.
“I like the setup,” I say. “Rocks in a circle, twigs and branches inside. Professional.”
“It’s not,” he mutters.
I hold up the stick, then set it down. “This is still damp from yesterday’s rain. We’ll try again in the morning.”
“I dried them.”
“They need to be totally dry. We’re trying to create fire.”
He sighs. “I’m not good at this.”
“No one’s supposed to be good at this.”
“I thought if we had fire, we could catch fish.”
“Maybe. Though I read some fish around here are poisonous.”
He glances at me. “So we’re not catching fish?”
“We could feed them to birds and see if the birds keel over before we eat.”
“That wouldn’t be kind to the birds.”
“I agree. We still have coconuts.”
“You should be eating protein.”
“Now you sound like our team nutritionist.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“I’d rather skip protein than eat something that kills me.”
Cal frowns. “I’m not helping.”
“You’re helping. It gets cold at night. Fire would help. You were smart to think of it.”
“I’m sorry we’re stuck here.”
“They’ll find us,” I lie.
I wish I believed it.
“Maybe they think we... didn’t make it.” Cal doesn’t say dead, but I’m sure we’re both thinking it.
We’re not dead—yet. But we’re also two guys on an island with no food, no fire, and no idea what we’re doing.
I get us coconuts, and we eat. We talk about hockey camp, because we don’t want to talk about the future.
