“Okay.”

When I reached the shore, I stripped off my clothes, walked into the water, and ducked my head under. I washed my filthy hair, rinsed, and washed it again. The shampoo smelled incredible, but maybe that was because I smelled so bad. After I put the conditioner on, I soaped myself from head to toe and sat on the shore, shaving my legs and underarms. I walked into the water to rinse and floated on my back for a while, content and clean.

I put on my yellow bikini, slicked on deodorant, and untangled my hair, putting it up in a twist and securing it with a hair clip. I chose the black sunglasses, deciding that T.J. should have the Ray Bans.

He did a double-take when I walked up. When I sat down beside him, he leaned over, sniffed me, and said, “The mosquitoes are going to eat you alive.”

“I feel so good I don’t even care.”

“What do you think?” he asked, holding up the fishing pole. He had made a hole at the end of a long stick and tied the guitar string to it. He threaded the other end through an open loop in the wire from my earring.

“Looks great. When you get back from cleaning up, let’s try it out. I left everything down by the water. Help yourself.”

When T.J. came back, he looked clean and smelled as good as I did. I gave him the Ray Bans.

“Hey thanks,” he said, putting them on. “These are cool.” He grabbed the fishing pole.

“What are we going to use for bait?” I asked.

“Worms, I guess.”

We dug in the ground under the trees until we found some. They looked more like large maggots than worms, white and wiggly, and I shuddered. T.J. scooped up a handful, and we went down to the water.

“The line isn’t very long,” T.J. said. “I didn’t want to use up all the guitar string in case it snapped or something happened to the pole.”

After wading in waist deep, he threw out his hook. We stayed still.

“Something’s nibbling,” T.J. said.

He jerked the pole back and pulled in the line. I cheered at the fish hanging off the end.

“Hey, it worked!” he said.

T.J. caught seven more fish in less than half an hour. When we got back to the lean-to, he left to collect firewood, and I cleaned the fish with the knife.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” he asked when he came back. He emptied the backpack full of sticks onto the woodpile in the lean-to.

“My dad. He used to take Sarah and me fishing with him all the time, at the lake house we had when we were growing up. He always wore this crazy bucket hat with fishing lures all over it. I helped him clean whatever we caught.”

T.J. watched as I scraped the scales with the knife and then cut the head off. I ran the blade horizontally down the length of the fish, separating the filet from the skin. I poured rainwater on my hands to wash off the blood and guts, and then cooked the fish on the flat rock we used for roasting breadfruit. We ate all seven, one after the other. They tasted better than any fish I’d ever eaten.

“What kind of fish do you think this is?” I asked T.J.

“I don’t know. It’s pretty good though.”

We sat on the blanket after dinner, our stomachs full for the first time in weeks. I reached into my suitcase and pulled out my datebook, smoothing the warped pages.

“How many days have we been here?” I asked T.J.

He walked over to the tree and counted the tally marks he’d made with the knife. “Twenty-three.”

I circled the date on the calendar. It was almost July. “I’ll keep track from now on.” I thought of something then. “When are you supposed to go back to the doctor?”

“The end of August. I’m supposed to have a scan.”

“They’ll find us by then.”

I didn’t really think so. From the look on T.J.’s face, he didn’t either.

***

I was going to the bathroom behind a tree when I heard it. The fluttering, flapping sound startled me, and I almost fell into my puddle of pee. I stood and yanked my underwear and shorts up, then listened, but I didn’t hear the noise again.

“I think I heard an animal,” I said to T.J. when I got back.

“What kind of animal?”

“I don’t know. It made a flapping, fluttering noise. Have you heard anything?”

“Yes, I’ve heard that, too.

We walked back to where I heard the noise, but didn’t find anything. We gathered all the firewood we could hold on the way back, and deposited it on our woodpile.

“Do you want to go swimming?” T.J. asked.

“Sure.”

Now that I had a swimsuit, swimming sounded like a great idea.

The clear water in the lagoon would have been perfect for snorkeling. We swam for about a half hour, and right before we got out of the water, T.J. stepped on something. He dove under the surface. When he came up, he held a tennis shoe in his hand.

“Is that yours?” I asked.

“Yep. I figured it would wash up eventually,” he said.

We sat on the beach, the ocean breeze drying our bodies.

“Why did your parents choose these islands?” I asked. “They’re so far away.”

“The scuba diving. It’s supposed to be some of the best diving in the world. My dad and I are both certified,” T.J. said, digging his toes into the white sand. “When I was really sick, he made a big deal out of telling everyone that as soon as I got better, we’d take this major vacation. Like I gave a shit.”

“You didn’t want to come here?”

T.J. shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Nobody wants to spend the whole summer with their family. I wanted to stay home and hang out with my friends. Then they told me you were coming and I had to make up all the work I missed or I’d have to do tenth grade over. That really pissed me off.” He looked at me apologetically. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“They didn’t listen to me, though. My mom and dad convinced themselves that this trip would be the greatest thing ever for our family. But even my sisters were mad. They wanted to go to Disney World.”

“I’m sorry, T.J.”

“It’s okay.”

“How old are your sisters?”

“Alexis is nine and Grace is eleven. They drive me nuts sometimes – they never stop talking – but they’re okay,” he said. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“I have one sister, Sarah. She’s three years older than I am and she’s married to a guy named David. They have two kids – Joe’s five and Chloe’s two. I miss everyone so much. I can’t imagine what they’re going through, especially my mom and dad.”

“I miss my family, too,” T.J. said.

I scanned the brilliant blue sky and stared out at the turquoise water, listening to the calming sound of the waves hitting the reef.

“It’s actually very beautiful here,” I said.

“Yeah,” T.J. agreed. “It is.”

Chapter 12 – T.J.

One of the hardest things about being on the island was the boredom. It took time to gather food and firewood, and go fishing two or three times a day, but we still had too many hours left over. We explored and we swam, but we also talked and it didn’t take long before I felt almost as comfortable with Anna as I did with my friends; she listened to what I had to say.

She asked how I was doing emotionally. Guys are supposed to be tough, and Ben and I sure as hell never sat around talking about how we felt, but I admitted to Anna that I got a weird feeling in my stomach whenever I thought about whether they’d ever find us. I told her I got scared sometimes. I said I didn’t always sleep well. She said she didn’t either.

I liked sharing a bed with Anna, though. Sometimes she curled up right next to me, with her head on my shoulder, and once when I slept on my side, she pressed her chest against my back and tucked her knees into the space behind mine. She did it in her sleep, and it didn’t mean anything, but it felt good. I’d never spent the whole night with a girl before. Emma and I had only slept together for a few hours and that was mostly because she was so sick.