I look down at them again—each pearl found, kept, carried around quietly without me ever knowing. Time he spent thinking about me.
“Thank you, Dane. This is really special.”
Dane’s sitting here talking about a future where I wear a necklace made from pearls he collected for me, and I don’t know if I’m even going to live long enough to be there for it.
But I don’t say that to him.
I let him have this morning exactly the way he wanted it to be. Let him keep believing in a future after this, because that belief might be the kindest thing anyone has ever given me.
And I can’t take it away from him just because I’m afraid.
It’s been three weeks since I told Dane about the growth.
It’s worse now.
Not dramatic. Not sudden. Just heavier. Constant in a way it wasn’t before. I feel it low in my abdomen all the time now—a steady pressure shaping the way I move without me even realizing I’m adjusting for it anymore.
Small things changed first. The way I bend down. How long I carry heavier things before stopping. The moments when I pause instead of automatically pushing through discomfort, like I used to.
Now it’s simply part of my day.
I sleep badly. That explains some of the exhaustion. Not all of it.
Dane sleeps badly too.
I know exactly why.
Every waking second, he’s trying to figure out how to get us off this island.
I’ve seen it—the maps spread across the yacht’s table, corners pinned down, covered in his notes. Currents. Wind patterns. Seasonal shifts. He writes in every margin he can find, building something from information that was never meant to be used this way.
Everything he does now bends toward one outcome.
He’s trying to solve this.Solve me.
He’s throwing everything he has at it—every skill, every pattern, every piece of control he’s built over the years—like this is just another problem the island gave him.
He wants to save me.
And I love him for it.
I watch him while he works—the slight line between his brows, the way his finger traces over the same routes again and again like repetition alone might force a new answer to appear.
I love him with the kind of intensity that only comes from building a life around one person for years. And somewhere deep down, I’m terrified the thing growing inside me is going to destroy all of it.
But I don’t say that out loud. I let him keep planning.
The morning drifts slowly into afternoon, the hours passing quietly around us. Out here, time gets measured more by light than anything else—the slow movement of the sun across the trees, the changing warmth in the air, the ocean shifting color as the day stretches on.
By evening, the island softens. The worst of the heat finally fades, and the breeze coming off the water feels lighter against my skin. Everything loosens a little. Breathes easier.
We sit together watching the sunset spill across the horizon.
After a while, Dane stretches one arm out toward me. “Come here, babe. Sit on my lap.”
I go easily, settling back against him where I’ve fit a thousand times before. His arms wrap around me, his chin resting against my shoulder as we look out over the water together.
The sky shifts in layers—gold first, then darker orange, then pink softening slowly into blue. The ocean catches every color and pulls it apart across the surface, light scattering and reforming with every movement of the tide.
