When I look up, I see that Hank is shivering. Guilt wrenches in my gut. He tried to save me, and this is what he gets in return. Poor guy deserves so much better than my mess, even if he is bossy.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He looks up at me, exhaustion on his face. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, louder this time. “About everything. Climbing into the life rafts. Stopping you from getting help to retrieve me.” I rub at my eyes. “Getting us killed.”
“We’re doomed, but not dead yet,” he offers. “If we ride out this storm, someone might find us. Daybreak.”
Hank holds strong to his logic, but I hear the fear in his voice, too. The silence stretches on, and I talk just to break it.
“I don’t know anything about you,” I tell Hank as I brace myself through a rough patch of the storm.
He steadies himself in the middle of the raft. “Does it really matter?”
“Considering the circumstances, I should know more than your name.”
Hank shivers, and another wave rocks us, nearly knocking me down.
“It’s not like I can rest. Distract me. Please.”
“I don’t know what to say,” he tells me. “I’m the Finance Director of Audits at your dad’s accounting firm. I’ve lived in Seattle since my early twenties. I’m really not that interesting, I swear.”
“Are you single?”
“Yes. No boyfriend. But I really don’t see why that matters at the moment!”
“It matters because we need to humanize ourselves. That’s what they say to do in situations like this.”
“That’s hostages!” Hank argues. “You humanize yourself when you’re being held hostage.”
“Okay, fine!” I yell over the storm and turn my head, looking out over the terrifying ocean. “We’ll die strangers!”
I sit there, rejected on top of everything else.
After a moment, Hank grumbles something and inches closer to me. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to know each other, and also to remind ourselves what we’re living for.”
I turn back to him, cautious. “I want to get back to my friends,” I tell him. “We’re having a level-up summer.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he yells over the wind.
“I have an art project, and my friends are organizing a drag show and a dance party. We’re all supporting each other to accomplish our goals.”
The sea roars louder. “My sister is going to be worried sick!” he yells. “I just want to get back and tell her that I’m okay. Before my parents find out I disappeared overboard! I hate to scare them.”
“I can’t die because I haven’t fallen in love yet!” I yell at him. “I’ve had lots of casual sex with guys. Like, so much! But never a real romance!”
“I haven’t hiked the Pacific Crest Trail!” he says, and I see that he’s crying, too. “I’ve always promised myself I would.”
Another jolt of the raft sends me to my hands and knees. Hank helps me up, and we lean against each other as thunder cracks. His body is bigger than mine, sturdy and warm, and I let him hold my weight until the raft steadies again.
Hank eases back. “You okay?” he asks.
“Are you sure you don’t want the life jacket?” I ask. “It seems like you should have the life jacket.”
“Stop trying to give me the life jacket!” Hank says, distressed again.
Guiltily, I keep the life jacket on.
