I wipe his damp brow with a gauze pad from the first aid kit, pillow his head on my backpack, and carefully remove his shoes so he’s more comfortable. Digging one of the silver foil space blankets out of the survival kit, I tuck it around his body to keep him warm, hoping a bit of heat might stave off the clammy shock of blood loss.
Everything I do feels woefully inadequate. I am ill-equipped for this scenario: a glorified babysitter, for goodness sake. I assumed the only skills I’d be utilizing this summer included sand-castle construction and water-sport supervision. The only shoelaces I planned on tying were on a little girl’s pink sneakers — not emergency leg tourniquets. I never could’ve imagined I’d be dealing with something like this.
Defeated and dehydrated, I crane my head back to look up at the sky. It’s endlessly blue, not a single cloud in sight now that the storm that brought down our plane has finally passed. For hours we drift along in silence, our raft borne miles from the crash site by swift ocean currents. Without any landmarks to gauge our distance, it’s hard to tell how far we travel. Only the sun provides an indicator for the passage of time, inching east to west across the sky in torturous increments.
It’s been a single day, but I feel as though I’ve been awake for an eternity. My eyelids grow heavier than anvils as I strain to keep them open. My very bones ache with exhaustion. The lulling rhythm of the waves doesn’t help matters; I fight the strong lure of sleep with every ounce of energy I have left. I can’t allow myself to doze. If a ship appears on the horizon, someone needs to be awake to fire a flare.
I mean…
When a ship appears.
Not if.
As the hours drag on, it becomes increasingly difficult to hold onto my positive attitude. When the sun takes her final bow and the moon makes his debut, a blanket of brilliant stars appear one by one in the night sky. During yesterday’s storm, we couldn’t see them at all. With a blank canvas, in the total absence of light pollution, the constellations create a work of art most people go their whole lives without ever glimpsing. And yet, peering up at them, I feel no awe. Despair has crept in with the shadows, chipping relentlessly at my stalwart optimism until rescue more closely resembles a shimmering mirage on a distant horizon.
The moon is nearly full, big as my fist. It seems far closer from this vantage than it ever did from my bedroom window in New Hampshire, and it basks us in a balmy white light. I stare at the face on its glowing surface, formed by craters and crags a quarter million miles away, and feel a strange kinship with that lonely man in the moon, so far removed from life and civilization in the cold reaches of outer space.
I’d cry, if I could spare the water. My tongue skims my parched lips, dry and cracked as desert adobe. I can’t afford to waste a single drop of moisture on something as useless as tears.
Besides, I remind myself. Compared to the others, I don’t have it so bad.
Sophie. Samantha. Seth.
All the others from the plane.
After we pulled the flight attendant from the water, we continued to search for them. For hours, we stared into the hurricane, weary eyes watching the waves, hoping against all odds we’d spot another flicker of life in the roiling surf. Praying someone else survived.
But prayers went unanswered.
I tell myself that there’s a chance another raft deployed — that the rest of the passengers are safe and sound, floating in their own garish yellow inflatable hexagon. But in the darkest corners of my mind, I acknowledge the truth. If another group of survivors was out there, they’d be trapped in the same ocean currents. Floating alongside us.
The others…
They didn’t make it.
I shove the thought away and distract myself by bailing the shallow puddle of remaining seawater from the bottom of the raft. It’s still tinged red with blood from the flight attendant’s seeping leg wound. I grimace as I work, gripping the plastic bailer with fingertips that have long since shriveled to raisins. It’s a Sisyphean task: every few hours, the waves replenish what I manage to remove. Still, the ritual — scoop, dump, scoop, dump — gives me something to do other than stare at the dying man beneath the canopy on my right, or the brooding one propped against the wall on my left.
“You should save your strength.” His voice is gruff as ever in the darkness. Hours of silence followed by terse orders. What a surprise.
I keep bailing, pointedly ignoring him.
“Fine.” He sighs with exasperation. “Wear yourself out just to spite me. That’s smart.”
My hand stills. I glance up, glaring at him. “Are you this rude to everyone, or am I special?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he drawls, voice thick with sarcasm. “Do my manners need work?”
“Manners?” I roll my eyes. “What manners, exactly, are you referring to? Because I haven’t seen any in the few words you’ve bothered to exchange with me since we met.”
“This isn’t a fucking tea party, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Trust me, I’ve noticed.” My voice cracks. “But since we’re stuck here together in the middle of the godforsaken ocean, at the very least you could be civil!”
“Civil isn’t going to keep us alive.” His words are intent. “Neither will wasting strength on non-vital tasks.”
“And I suppose screaming our heads off at each other is a good use of energy?” I ask, fingers tightening on the bailer.
He holds his hands up in a defensive gesture and settles back against the side of the raft. His black jeans and v-neck are streaked white with dried salt and ocean spray. In the pale moonlight, I can make out the deep circles beneath his eyes. He’s just as exhausted as I am. Maybe more so — he did pull two people from the ocean. He saved us all.
Still, I think haughtily. That doesn’t give him license to be such a jerk.
A groan of pain from the flight attendant makes me discard the bailer and scramble to his side. His eyelids flutter, but he doesn’t wake. I lay the back of my hand against his forehead. It’s burning with fever. Sweat coats his skin and he shivers with cold.
“He needs water and antibiotics,” Underwood says lowly. He’s moved to the prone man’s other side, his bleak gaze lingering on the ghastly leg wound. “Without them, he won’t last another day.”
My eyes narrow. “That’s a rather callous assessment.”
“It’s a realistic assessment. You need to prepare yourself. If he—”
“Ian,” I interject, jerking my head at the brass name tag still affixed to his white button down. “His name is Ian.”
There’s a heavy pause. Finally, with great effort, he echoes, “Ian.”
As if acknowledging him as a person, with a name and a family and a life, is a burden he’d rather not shoulder.
I shake my head, dumbfounded by his indifference. “Unbelievable.”
“What was that?” he asks sharply.
“Nothing.”
A muscle ticks in his tight-clenched jaw. “Believe this — if he doesn’t get treatment soon, that wound will start to fester.”
“You think…” I curse myself for the tremor in my voice. “You think he’ll lose the leg?”
“The leg? He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t lose his life.” His head shakes. “He isn’t going to last much longer.”