Page 37 of Shipwrecked

I splash him. “Please feel free to assume I have a brain.”

Cillian snorts, shaking out his wet hair. “Now that I’m well aware, Jules.” We exchange a look. I grin. He’s not saying it in a bad way.

That night, we share stories about pier-jumping. Cillian and I grew up doing it. Mathieu makes us promise to bring him once we’re rescued.

◆◆◆

I peel away from Cillian and Mathieu, slick with sweat and the remnants of my nightmare. I crawl out of the lean-to. Early dawn lights up our camp. A new lean-to is sheltering the collected food. Beside it, there’s a pile of coconuts and carefully arranged bamboo jugs filled with clean, boiled water. Mint leaves, toilet leaves, a crude chessboard that Mathieu and I put together yesterday, hoops that we fashioned the day before. I put logs on the fire and continue on.

I go to the shore and sit, feet in the water. I stare out at the yacht, still half-submerged.

I haven’t had the car crash nightmare since I was a kid.

Cillian finds me an hour later and joins me, studying the yacht too. I wait until his attention moves to me.

“My neck is good,” I say. It’s stiff from the sleeping arrangements, but the sharp pain of it is gone. “I have my range of movement back. I think the walk inland helped.”

“There could be a current we can’t see.”

I’m not going to pressure him because he could literally drown if this goes wrong. “I’ll go first and—” I start.

“Don’t bother finishing that sentence.”

“I want to shave. I want to brush my teeth. I want to sleep in a bed.” My heart tightens, memories swimming up my throat. I swallow them before I choke. “Mathieu’s lost weight. So have you. Mary’s ankle isn’t any better, and neither is Seán’s arm. Let’s go get that radio and call home.”

Cillian studies me, then turns his gaze to the yacht. “The water is calm.”

“Skies are clear,” I add.

He rubs a hand over his stubble, which is quickly becoming a full-blown beard. My own is growing in pale blond, and I hate it. “Alright, let’s talk to everyone. Now?” he checks.

“Now,” I agree.

I should have predicted that Cillian would be a pain. I scowl. The entire group is gathered around the path to camp to watch our argument. “You’re not swimming out there when I’m the one who suggested it.”

“Someone who knows where the radio is and how to use it needs to go, and there’s no point in both of us going,” Cillian replies. He doesn’t back down from my glare, staring stubbornly back at me.

“It’s in the cockpit, and I know how to use a radio. The point of both of us going is so that if one of us gets into trouble, the other can help them. If you get a cramp halfway there, by the time I get out to help, it’ll be too late.”

“If I get a cramp, the last thing I want is you coming near me to get dragged down.”

“You can float. You’ll relax, and I’ll pull you along the rest of the way, or back to shore.”

“No.” There isn’t the tiniest iota of give in Cillian.

I step in, lowering my voice. Cillian’s pupils flare. His hands rest on his hips, and his whole body leans towards me.

“We had an agreement,” I remind him. “You don’t get to go if I don’t.”

Cillian’s gaze darts over my mouth, then locks on to my eyes. Tension radiates off him, crackling across my skin. “I’m not breaking any promises. You can come too.”

I relax.

“After I make sure it’s safe.”

The relaxation vanishes, and I take a step, getting in his face. Cillian doesn’t back down, body getting tighter with coiled-up energy. “What do you think you can even do about it?” I challenge. “You’ll say ‘wait here’, and I’m going to obediently sit down and do as I’m told?”

“Sending one person out first is the smart thing to do,” Cillian says, voice on the edge of being dangerous. That tone of voice would have me shying away from Darren, but it has the opposite effect on me coming from Cillian. It’s been a rough week, and that’s putting it nicely, and the longer it’s gone on, the more people’s good humour has dried up and tempers have flared. Cillian has been on the receiving end of a lot of snaps, but I’ve yet to see him lose his temper back. I wonder what that would look like.