Neither has a curious look on their faces. And if anything, they both seem to understand. Andrew reaches up to me, cupping my face with his hands. I close my eyes and let the tears fall, lowering my forehead to his.
“It’s okay,” he whispers to me. His voice barely above the sound of the waves. “We’re going to be okay.”
When he kisses me, my chest feels lighter again, like he’s taking on some of my sorrow but passing on some of his love. Evenly distributed like the supplies that have been in our packs during this journey. And I remember those first days out from the cabin when he was limping and I carried more. Or when I was injured and he carried everything. That’s how we’ve survived together.
I nod as Andrew pulls away, still holding my face in his hands.
“We’re going to be okay,” I repeat to him.
If things get hard again, I’ll carry him. And he’ll carry me.
And we’ll be okay.
Epilogue
THE SUN IS ALREADY SETTING BUT HEstill isn’t home. I push open the back door and look out to the ocean. There he is, standing at the end of the dock again. I close the door behind me and start walking out to the beach. I call out his name, but he doesn’t hear me over the waves.
He’s been doing this a lot lately. Like he’s out here trying to savor this moment: the smell of the salt air, the sound of the water against the pilings, the purple clouds in the sky. To memorize it and keep it forever. Because it might not be our forever.
It’s October 14 now and the hurricane season has stayed mild, so we probably could have left weeks ago. The waters are getting cooler, which some of the weather nerds say means less chance of storms.
We’re supposed to leave to get Henri in two weeks or so. Both of us, Cara, and a group of four others. They’ve already taken us out and given us a few sailing lessons. Cara’s a natural, aside from the whole seasickness part.
I put my hands around his waist and he startles.
“You’re still out here,” I whisper into his ear. Then I kiss behind it. “You coming in?”
“In a bit.”
I don’t let him go and just feel his warm body against mine in the cool autumn wind off the ocean.
“We don’t have to come back,” I tell him. We’ve talked about it a lot in the past few months. We whisper in the bed we share at night. He says it might be better that way. We’ve both learned that we can survive without this community. And our being here might become an issue sooner rather than later. The world has gotten so small, it’s only a matter of time before communication starts between the settlements of survivors that have been popping up. Including Fort Caroline.
We had a good thing going in the cabin. Just us.
It’s so much harder to live in this new world. The meek didn’t inherit the earth after all. Those people who scramble for power, regardless of who is hurt in the process, are still around. And if nothing else, they’re working harder than ever.
Sometimes I think he’s right. We should just go north, see that Henri gets on a boat home to her daughter, and leave. There will always be people like Fort Caroline.
But other times...
“I know,” he says. He turns and pulls me close. His sweater smells like him and it makes me even warmer. “I like it here.”
“So do I.” Other times I love the people we’ve met here. The friends we’ve made. The safety we feel.
“But after everything...” His voice trails off, but he doesn’t need to finish his sentence. It’s all old hat. This place is much better than Fort Caroline, that’s true. We both believe that.
The past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about the idea of progress. All the progress the world made in the past hundred years or so, gonewith a sneeze. Progress halted and possibly reversed. Reversed if people don’t fight for it, if we don’t remember what we had and hold on to it.
There’s a risk to living here. A risk that one day one of the settlements we trade with is going to turn against us. That Fort Caroline is going to expand outward and find us here. That our own settlement is going to change their minds on who deserves to stay. That the flu will find a way to mutate and return worse than before. There’s a lot at stake for everyone.
Sometimes I’m not sure the risk is worth it. Neither is he.
I have moments where my stomach will drop, my chest might tighten, all the dark thoughts cloud my mind. What if Fort Caroline isn’t the only settlement with white supremacy on their minds? What if people can’t speak out against injustice—or what was considered injustice before all this—because they need help from a community? What if everything continues to spiral downward and history repeats itself because the people who are here to write it choose how it’s written? They know what to put in and what to leave out; what to teach and what to ignore. Suddenly everything feels so hopeless.
But then I look at him; I hear his laugh, I see his smile, and the darkness melts away. Then I do have hope—even just for a little while—because I know that there is something in this world I can fight for. Something Iwillfight for if I have to.
Which always brings us back to the question: Do we stay? Knowing that everything could come down on us, and on the people here, do we hope? Do we fight?
