Until it spreads enough to do irreversible damage.
As soon as my eyes open, I know something’s wrong. Ian isn’t propped up on his pallet, drawing inappropriate things in the margins of the children’s coloring book with our stock of crayons to keep himself entertained. He’s huddled low, shivering like it’s eight below zero rather than eighty and rising. I spare a single glance at Beck, sleeping soundly at my side, as I sit up and make my way to Ian.
“Hey,” I murmur, pulling his foil blankets down so I can see his face. “Are you—”
My mouth goes dry. My eyes widen as they trace over his skin. The fever is back, that’s immediately obvious. There’s a clammy sheen to his face that wasn’t there last night.
Or, maybe it was… and you were so focused on enjoying yourself, you simply didn’t see it.
Selfish, selfish, selfish.
I press my hand to his forehead and wince when the heat of his skin nearly scalds me. He’s burning up.
“Ian? Can you hear me?”
“What’s up, doc?” he murmurs, eyelids fluttering as a grin tugs at his lips. It quickly morphs into a grimace. An insuppressible groan of pain hits my ears. “Christ, it hurts.”
“What hurts?”
“My leg.”
All traces of humor are gone from his voice. This is no pun. I don’t wait for a punchline or a lighthearted twist. With trembling fingers, I reach for the fabric wrappings around his stump and slowly unwind them. My heart pounds a sharp staccato inside my chest.
The smell hits me first. Decay and death. I breathe through my mouth as I pull away the final piece of bandage, nearly fainting when I take in what’s become of his leg in the short time since I last saw it. Patches of black, necrotic tissue are no match for the angry red streaks of infection. Beginning at the seared burn site, they stretch toward his groin, disappearing beneath the edge of his boxer shorts. Creeping toward his heart.
“Oh, Ian,” I breathe, horror overtaking me when see the extent of the blood poisoning. “Ian…”
There’s no reply. He’s unconscious. Delirious. Lost in the throes of fever dreams as his skin trembles with cold.
Why didn’t you tell me? I want to wail, shaking him for answers. Why didn’t you say anything?
He must’ve known. This did not happen over the course of a few hours. To spread this far, he must’ve been feeling the effects for days.
My mind whirls as I consider our options. They are grim indeed, from where I sit. With no medicine and precious little remaining alcohol, we can hardly sanitize our hands of germs, let alone kill an aggressive bacterial infection. I’ve begun to study the trees around our camp, but I don’t know nearly enough to start blindly shoving them down Ian’s throat — not without testing their effects on myself first. Picking the wrong plant could kill him even faster than this infection.
My desperate eyes sweep the camp, snagging on the smoldering fire. It’s hard to believe mere hours ago we were all laughing together around a magnificent blaze. Hard to believe things could change so swiftly from fun to fear. Discarded coconut shells litter the ground like party favors.
Coconuts! The thought clangs loudly inside my skull, inspiration striking like a blow. Coconuts have medicinal properties!
I used to tease some of my more health-conscious friends about their obsession with the thick white oil. They’d put it in food, on their skin, in their hair. Over the past few years it’s become such a fitness fad, I’ve heard claims about curative benefits ranging from fat burning to wrinkle reduction to hormone balance to blood pressure. It’s been linked to treatments for everything from Alzheimer’s to cancer to heart disease.
The Tree of Life — that’s what they call coconut palms, here in the South Pacific.
There must be some truth to that claim.
There must be. Please, God. Please.
As gently as possible, I prop up Ian’s damaged leg and turn, calling out for Beck as I run for the closest palm.
“Beck! Wake up! I need your help!”
I need a miracle.
The next two weeks are the hardest of my life.
I spend every waking moment by Ian’s side. I neglect food, ignoring my own bodily needs in favor of his. I barely sleep, afraid to close my eyes for longer than a moment in case he wakes in need of help. Not that there’s much I can do at this point, besides hold his hand and wait for him to… to…
I can’t even say the word in my own head.
Night and day, I lie by his side on the sleeping pallet, in the off chance he wakes. At best, he’s conscious for a few scant moments before falling back under the pressing weight of fever. At worst, he does not wake at all.
Each day, he slips a little farther from us; I fear, soon, he’ll be entirely out of reach.
He doesn’t speak to me, except to murmur feverish nonsense under his breath, the meanings of which I cannot fathom. Sometimes, he calls out for his mother, his father, the girl who broke his heart back in Oklahoma. I hold his hand and assure him they’re here with him, hoping he can’t hear the devastation in my voice. His cracked lips form more incoherent syllables, babbles of a man lost to the world.
Beck stares worriedly at the ever-darkening shadows beneath my eyes and the ever-shrinking margins of my waistline, but I avoid his stare. He brings a constant supply of food and fresh water, stacks our cache of firewood so high there’s no chance I’ll ever have to leave Ian’s side in search of more. We communicate in wordless gestures and loaded glances, hardly speaking aloud at all as the days pass rapidly.
You should eat something.
I’ll eat when he does.
Stubborn girl.
Bossy man.
I change coconut-infused bandages and sponge hot broth down Ian’s throat, until there comes a point he can’t swallow even the smallest beads of moisture without choking. I look up, eyes moving to the edge of our camp where Beck is lashing yet another tree trunk into place. The first section of our log-cabin is nearly complete. Within a month or so, he should be able to construct the remaining sides, until we have a real, actual house with walls and a roof.
It’s impossible to believe Ian won’t be here to see it. And yet…
I’m beginning to doubt he’ll see the other side of tomorrow.
Listening to his labored breaths, I wrap his cold hands within mine and squeeze. There’s fluid in his lungs. Pneumonia, most likely. Each inhale is a struggle, each exhale rattles from his emaciated throat like death itself, whispering in my ear.
Beck appears at my side, somehow sensing I was about to call for him. We’re so attuned to each other at this point, I wonder if he can hear the private thoughts inside my head.
I hope not. I still have few secrets I’d like to keep to myself.
Green eyes find mine. His brows arch. How is he?