“I fell out of the coconut tree.”

“Come on.” I put my arm around his waist and led him slowly to the life raft. He winced at the slightest movement, and he tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress a moan when I helped him lay down. The strong, sudden urge to take care of him, to ease his pain, surprised me.

“I’ll be right back; I’m going to get the Tylenol.”

I shook two Tylenol into my palm and grabbed the water bottle, filling it at the water collector. I put the pills in T.J.’s mouth and lifted his head so he could take a drink. He swallowed and breathed slowly in and out.

“Why were you climbing the tree?”

“So I could reach those little green coconuts you like.”

I smiled. “That was very sweet of you, but I think your collarbone is broken. I’m going to wait for the Tylenol to kick in, and then I’ll try to rig some kind of sling.”

“Okay,” he said, closing his eyes.

I looked in my suitcase and found a long white tank top. After twenty minutes, I helped him sit up.

“I’m sorry, I know it hurts.”

I bent his arm at the elbow and tucked the sling underneath, tying it gently at his shoulder. Easing him back down, I brushed the hair out of his face and kissed his forehead. “Try not to move around.”

“Okay, Anna.”

Maybe it didn’t hurt that bad though, because when I glanced back at him before leaving the life raft, he had a smile on his face.

I woke up that night to put wood on the fire.

“Anna?”

T.J.’s voice startled me. “Yes?”

“Can you help me out of here? I have to pee.”

“Sure.”

I helped him through the doorway of the life raft and then built up the fire. When he returned, I gave him more Tylenol.

“Have you been able to sleep at all?” I asked.

“Not really.”

The next morning, a lump and purple bruise showed where the bone had snapped. He grimaced when I tightened the sling, and I gave him a third dose of Tylenol.

He wouldn’t let me give him any more pills after that. “I don’t want to take too much, Anna. We might need it again.”

He felt better after three days, and he followed me around like a puppy. He came down to the beach when I was fishing, he tagged along when I went to get breadfruit, and he wanted to help empty the water collector. When he tried to go with me to gather firewood, I sent him back to the blanket under the coconut tree.

“You aren’t going to heal if you don’t stop moving around, T.J.”

“I’m bored. And I really need a bath. Will you help me when you get back?”

“What? No, I’m not giving you a bath.”

Awkward.

”Anna, you can help me, or you can smell me.”

I sniffed him. “You’ve smelled better. Okay, I’ll help you, but I’m only washing certain areas and only because you stink.”

He grinned. “Thanks.”

We went down to the lagoon as soon as I got back with the firewood. T.J. left his shorts on and sat down in water that covered his lower body. I knelt beside him and rubbed the bar of soap in my hands.

“Hold this for me,” I said, handing it to him.

I started by gently washing his face with my soapy hands and then scooped up water in my palm to rinse it off, my fingers touching the stubble on his cheeks and jaw and above his lip.

“That feels good,” he said.

I filled up the plastic container I brought and dumped it on his head, then washed his hair. It had grown a lot, and he constantly flicked it out of his eyes. He preferred my straw cowboy hat for keeping it out of his way which suited me fine; I had long since claimed his baseball cap as my own.

“I wish we had scissors,” I said. “I’d give you a haircut.”

He handed me the soap, and I lathered up my hands again. I washed his neck and moved down to his chest, my fingers gliding over his hardened nipples. He watched me silently.

I washed under his good arm, and his back. He couldn’t raise the other arm so I did the best I could, touching him gently near the bruise.

“I’m sorry,” I said, when he winced.

I made the mistake of looking down when I got ready to wash his legs. The water in the lagoon was clear enough to see that he had a hard-on sticking up in his shorts. “T.J.!”

“Sorry.” He looked at me sheepishly. “I can’t hide this one.”

Wait, how many have there been?

I suddenly didn’t know where to look. It wasn’t his fault though; I had forgotten what would happen if you rubbed a seventeen-year-old all over with your hands.

Or any man, actually.

“No, it’s okay. It just caught me off guard, that’s all. I thought you were in pain.”

Appearing genuinely confused, he said, “Well I didn’t break that.”

Okay, moving on.

I washed his legs, and when I got to his feet, I discovered he was ticklish. He jerked his foot away, and then said, “ow” when the movement jostled his upper body.

“Sorry. Okay, you’re sorta clean.”

“You’re not gonna dry me off?” He gave me a hopeful smile.

“Ha. That’s funny. You must be confusing us with people who have towels.”

“Thanks, Anna.”

“Sure.”

I helped him bathe for the next two weeks, until he healed enough to do it on his own. Each time, it got a bit less embarrassing for me. I never glanced down again, to see how it affected him.

“This doesn’t totally suck for you, does it?” I asked one day while washing his hair.

“Not at all,” he said, with a big smile on his face. “But don’t worry,” he added with mock seriousness. “I’ll pay you back someday. If you ever get hurt, I will definitely give you a bath.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

I made a mental note to be extra careful. Bathing him might have been awkward, but it was nothing compared to how I’d feel if it were his soapy hands moving over my skin.

Chapter 16 – T.J.

Anna was standing next to the life raft. I handed her the fish I caught and stored my pole in the lean-to. “Is there anything in the water collector?”

“No.”

“Maybe it’ll rain later.”

She looked anxiously at the sky and began cleaning the fish. “I hope so.”

It was November, and we’d been on the island for six months. Anna said the rainy season wouldn’t return until May. It still rained, about every other day, but not for very long. We had coconut water, but we were still thirsty a lot.

“At least we know never to drink from the pond,” Anna said, shuddering. “That was awful.”

“God, I know. I thought I was gonna crap out my spleen.”

We couldn’t control the rain, but the Maldives had plenty of marine life. The coconut and breadfruit barely took the edge off our hunger, but the brightly colored fish I pulled out of the lagoon kept us from starving.

I stood in waist deep water and caught them one after the other. None measured longer than six inches – an earring and a guitar string wouldn’t hold much – and I worried about hooking something bigger and snapping the line. It was a good thing Anna packed a lot of earrings because I’d already lost one.

Even though we had enough to eat, Anna said our diet didn’t have a bunch of important stuff.

“I’m worried about you, T.J. You still have some growing to do.”

“I’m growing just fine.” Our diet couldn’t have been that bad, because my shorts were down to my knees when we crashed, and now they were at least an inch higher.

“The breadfruit must have Vitamin C, otherwise we’d probably have scurvy by now,” she muttered under her breath.

“What the hell is scurvy?” I asked. “That sounds gross.”

“It’s a disease caused by not getting enough Vitamin C,” she said. “Pirates and sailors came down with it on long voyages. It’s not pleasant.”

Anna should have worried more about herself. Her swimsuit bagged in the ass, and her boobs didn’t fill out her top like before. Her collarbone stuck out and her ribcage showed. I tried to get her to eat more, and she made an effort, but half the time I ended up finishing her food. Unlike her, eating the same thing every day didn’t bother me, and I ate whenever I got hungry.