“You saved us,” she sniffles.
And then Trina and Sid and Garrett are there, hugging me, saying just the nicest possible things. It’s a lot to process, especially since the spectre of Sue-Ellen’s absence hangs in the air.
“Look, you’re on TV,” says Sid.
It’s surreal to see my own face, sunburned and swollen, staring backat me. “I don’t know,” I hear myself say. “I don’t know how long a kilometre is.”
And then Tyler and Gabby appear on the screen, photos of themselves from their social media accounts. “An international search has begun for the producers of the show, Tyler Clare and Gabriela Elishi,” says a disembodied voice on the television, as more photos of Tyler and Gabby flash across the screen. “Clare and Elishi were last seen at a Kenora gas station in the early hours of August 13th. Anyone with any knowledge of their whereabouts should immediately contact the authorities.”
I watch, captivated, the coverage on a loop, latching on to every new tidbit of information, until I feel a tap on my shoulder.
“You can see him now,” Betty says. She wheels me out of the TV room, where we’re watching aerial shots of the camp, and down the hall to a private room.
In the hospital bed, Kei looks smaller, somehow. His golden glow has diminished, replaced with a sickly pallor. His eyes are closed, but he opens them when I climb into his bed beside him.
“Cleo,” he says, my name catching in his throat. His face starts to contort, and his eyes well with tears.
“Shhh,” I say, stroking his cheek. “It’s okay, I’m here.”
“I thought you were dead.” A choked little sob escapes.
I shake my head. “No, I’m here. I’m okay. We’re safe now.” I feel the emotion rising in my chest. I’ve cried more in the last two days than I have my whole life.
“You’re my hero,” Kei says, a weak smile stretching across his face. “I knew you could do it.”
“You just said you thought I was dead.”
He laughs, and the sound of it is like a balm for my soul. “I mean, I was scared you were dead, but I knew you could do it.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I say, nuzzling into the nook of his arm. It feels so good to be here with him, bantering like this. Like us. “There’s aninternational search for Tyler and Gabby,” I tell him, tracing my finger down the line of one of the veins in his arm. “It’s on every channel.”
“Huh,” he says, taking my hand. “Maybe we’ll be famous after all.”
A chorus of cheers rings out from the direction of the TV room. “We should be out there,” Kei says.
As if on cue, Betty bursts in. “They found her!” she says, flapping her hands in excitement. “The girl stuck in the rocks, they found her! She’s okay!”
Relief floods through me, dissolving the heaviness and tension I’ve been carrying. I feel like I could float away, I’m so light. Again, I cry, the sweetest, happiest tears I’ve ever shed.
“Please, Betty, can we go out and be with our friends?” I plead.
She looks from me to Kei, shaking her head. “He needs to rest,” she says, her tone both sad and apologetic.
“I’m fine,” says Kei, his voice strong. “I promise, if it’s too much, I’ll rest.” Betty looks unconvinced. “Look,” he says, in a lower voice. “We’ve been through so much, and it would really mean a lot to us to be with our friends right now.” There’s my Kei, the sweetest con man around.
Betty bites her lip. “Okay,” she says. “You’ve got thirty minutes. Let me just find you a wheelchair.”
Betty and another nurse wheel me and Kei to the TV room. He reaches out for my hand and squeezes it. “This is what we’ll be like when we’re ninety,” he says with a wink.
In the TV room, everyone is crying as images of Sue-Ellen on a stretcher being loaded into a helicopter ambulance flash on the screen. Harmony comes behind me and wraps her arms around my shoulders. The camera pans closer on Sue-Ellen. Her face is sunburned and blistered, and her leg is in a splint. The news anchor is describing how they had to use dynamite in a controlled explosion to free her leg from the rock, and how she will be treated for her injuries in Toronto. Isa’s shoulders shake as he silently sobs.
“Nine out of eleven of the participants in what we’ve learned wasa fake reality dating show have been found safe and rescued from Minisaabik Island,” says a woman with helmet hair and a grave expression. She puts a hand to her ear and tilts her head. “And I’m just learning that the producers, Tyler Clare and Gabriela Elishi, appear to somehow have a connection with organized crime.” A mug shot of a man appears on the screen, followed by shocked gasps of recognition. “The body of Bobby McFarland, head of the Toronto chapter of international crime syndicateCalaois, has been found on Minisaabik Island. This story just keeps unfolding, doesn’t it, Tim?”
“It sure does, Zita, and we will be covering it live as the search continues.”
We sit and watch, barely moving, speaking, breathing, until the sky outside is dark and Betty comes in to tell us it’s lights out. She gives me a hug and tells me she’ll see me in the morning.
I try to convince the night nurse to let me sleep in Kei’s bed, and she won’t hear it, but she does allow Harmony to switch rooms so she’s sharing with me. I listen as Harmony tosses and turns in her bed. I can’t imagine how I would feel if Kei was still missing.
