I smelled like I had just spent a couple of days in a sealed up raft, sweating and puking. I tried to wash some of my upper body as well and then used the corner of the towel to clean my teeth off a bit. I finished by washing out the towel in salt water and hanging it up inside the raft to dry.
I looked back to Raine, who was still sound asleep but looked restless. I reached over and looked through the carb bars in the survival kit. There were three fewer bars than the last time I looked which meant – if she had followed directions – I had been out of it for a good thirty-six hours. I took a deep breath and ate one of the bars. I figured at this point I was going to need the energy, and eating the whole thing was probably for the best. I hadn’t had one in nearly two days, anyway.
Two days, which meant it had been three days since The Oblation sank. I checked the flares and saw the last one was gone. I tried not to mentally calculate our chances without signal flares, but I couldn’t really help it.
I grabbed another cup of water, making note of how much was left. I needed to get myself back into shape before I could really start rationing. I probably needed to consider fishing as well. I hoped to God it would rain soon, but not storm.
I heard Raine shift and roll before she sat up and yawned. I didn’t look at her. I was fundamentally embarrassed that anyone – least of all some high society chick I didn’t even fucking know – watched me puke and cry and God knows what else I did while I was out of it. I wasn’t much for vanity, but I couldn’t have looked too pretty through all of that. It wasn’t like I could really avoid her on a ten-foot raft though, so I sighed and sipped at the cup of water for a minute before I finally looked over to her. Aside from looking like she probably hadn’t slept more than an hour, there was a barely visible bruise on her right cheek. My stomach lurched and tightened.
“Where did that come from?” I asked, almost a thousand percent sure I didn’t want to know the answer.
“What?”
“The fucking bruise on your face. What the fuck happened?”
Her eyes flickered away for a moment, and then she looked back to me and locked her gaze with mine.
“You hit me,” she said in the most calm, matter-of-fact tone I had ever heard.
Oh shit.
Oh shit shit shit shit shit.
I tore my eyes away from hers, unable to look her in the face anymore. I didn’t remember doing that, but the way she put it…I knew it wasn’t just my hand accidentally connecting with her face during a seizure. I must have really hit her. I must not have hit her very hard because her cheek was lightly bruised. If I had hit her hard, her jaw would be broken, or worse. I’d killed with a single punch to the face before. When I closed my eyes and thought about the shape and angle of the bruise, it was pretty obvious – I must have backhanded her like some sort of abusive fucking boyfriend.
“Shit...I didn’t… Fuck!”
What could I really say? Nothing adequate. So I dug my fingers into my hair and said nothing. Regardless of how light a touch it may have been, I did hit her, which I counted as one of the worst things I had ever done in my life. The people who had died at my hands didn’t count because they knew what they were getting into. Hitting some chick because she probably said the wrong thing at the wrong time – that was just fucking…wrong.
“It will heal,” she said with a shrug.
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
“I don’t remember doing that,” I finally told her.
“Well, I won’t forget it,” she responded. “So I guess that makes up for you not remembering.”
“I really should have made sure there was something to drink on here,” I said, half thinking out loud. “If I just had something…”
“Seriously, Daniel?” Raine looked up at me and shook her head. “After all of that, all you can think about is how you still want a drink?”
I chuckled, though I knew she wasn’t trying to be funny at all.
“You ever been around an alcoholic before, Raine? We’re kind of a fucked up bunch.”
“I have not,” she admitted, “but I am getting the idea. I guess I always thought people who were alcoholics didn’t know they were. Once they realized it, I thought they’d get help or something.”
“Hmm, maybe,” I said with a shrug. My stomach was starting to feel a little better with a bit of food in it, so I went for a third cup of water. After four, I’d have to lay off for a while, or I was going to be sick again. I poured the cup and looked back at her. “But when you know exactly what you are and don’t give a shit, that’s kind of different.”
“But that part is over now, right?” she asked. “I mean, now that you’ve gone through that, you don’t have to drink anymore.”
“But I will.”
“Daniel – you had seizures three times. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to help you for a couple minutes. You were shaking so hard – I couldn’t hold you down on your side, and you were having trouble breathing. You could have died.”
“Yeah, I know,” I responded. “It doesn’t change anything. If we happened to land on a beach in the Virgin Islands right now, the first place I’d go is the nearest bar.”