He opens the plastic again, just enough to peer at me in the dark.
“Are you hungry?You should drink something first, okay?I tried to get water in you but wasn’t all that successful.This will just take another minute.”
The plastic shuts.
“Did I hear you scream?Are you in pain?”
“Uh…” Am I?I try to focus.“Not really.Maybe a little.I don’t know.”
My answer is a feeble squeak of uncertainty.It’s not like I can tell him the truth.That I screamed because I discovered my lack of underwear.
Besides, he already knows I’m not wearing underwear because he’s the one who put me in this state.He’s stripped me.He’s seen me naked.
Oh, boy.
I drop my head to my hand.I’m horribly confused.I’m cold and sore.And embarrassed.And so worried.Because I can’t tell what’s real and what’s a dream.It’s all tangled up in my mushy, hypothermic brain.
I’m sure that’s what I’m recovering from, and why I’m not wearing my clothes.But if I fell in water like I think I did, I just don’t understand how I survived.
And I’ve been dreaming about Evander.At least I think I was dreaming.
“Our options are severely limited for food, so don’t get your hopes up.”I hear the thud of his boots as he tosses them aside.
I raise my head.Now that I’m more awake, I revisit my surroundings.The plastic tarps are tacked to an exposed ceiling joist.I look at the fire again, and the drying clothes—his and hers.I recall the stomping around on the roof.
Evander is going all Navy SEAL on me, isn’t he?There’s something reassuring about that.
But the details are a surreal soup swirling around in my brain.I’ll need his help to sort it out.Who found me?He did, obviously.How did he know where to look?How did he manage to save my life?Wherearewe?
I touch the sweater covering me—the only thing covering me.
“I can go hunting when the sun comes up.It’ll be slim pickins’ in this shit, but I’ll find something.Do you like rabbit?”
That’s when it hits me, why this all feels so unnatural
It’s Evander’s incessant talking.
I’ve never heard him so chatty.I remember thinking he was strangely conversational after surgery when he was loopy on pain meds, stringing several sentences together at one time.Mostly about his tailor.
But this?It’s like he can’t shut up.He may even be in a good mood.
Did I fall through the ice and into an alternate reality?
He steps out from behind the plastic.He’s wearing only a set of thermal underwear and a pair of thick wool socks.I try not to stare as he adds wood to the fire, but how can I not stare?
He’s a freak of nature.In a good way.
A hot way.
Evander has close to no body fat.
I think back to the orthopedic trauma surgeon who flew in to handle Evander’s case.The doctor came looking for me once he’d finished Evander’s reduction and inflection procedure.
“This guy’s really a Navy SEAL, isn’t he?”
“He is.He was.He’s an attorney these days.”
“Well, that’s the most outrageous example of humanphysiology I’ve ever run across.You learn something new every day.”
