Page 74 of Shipwrecked

I grab him and haul him through the empty window frame, and throw us over the railing, just as the yacht slips off the shelf. We hit the water together. Air bubbles churn the water into a frothy mess. Our life jackets pull us up.

The water settles. Jules is panting in my arms, and an anger I can scarcely control fills me. Jules’s mouth is open, but whatever he was going to say doesn’t come out. He reads my face, and his lips press together in a hard, flat line.

“Guys, some help?” Mathieu calls.

I whip towards the cry.

Mathieu is struggling with the raft, getting pulled out to sea.

Jules and I rush to his aid, pulling the raft back in over the shelf. Once we’re out of the pull of the current, we float in place where the yacht used to be. We all catch our breath. My anger rises once more in a spike. Jules meets my eyes only briefly but looks away without comment. Mathieu, however, keeps his attention. Unlike me, who’s angry, his bottom lip is wobbling like he’s going to cry.

Jules slips around the raft and kisses him. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Mathieu presses their foreheads together. “Don’t do anything like that again.”

“Promise.”

Jules goes back towards his spot and comes up short with a painful ow. He cups his nose like something whacked it.

“Oh!”

I watch in disbelief as he lifts something clear from the water.

His pilfered plastic window.

◆◆◆

It’s been a week since Darren assaulted Jules when I step out to top up the signal fire on the beach.

Jules comes out too and proceeds to wander around my general vicinity. We haven’t spoken since I gave him a not-so-calm lecture about recklessness. The only thing that made Jules stop stubbornly arguing with me was pointing out that he made Mathieu, a ray of delight, cry.

Jules goes to where Willow and Yasop have a giant H-E-L-P dominating the beach in rocks and branches and straightens the edge of the H. He circles me. He adjusts the P. He circles me again.

“I want to go somewhere else,” he says.

“Onto a sinking yacht?”

Jules sits down on the log next to me, close enough that I can’t ignore him. “That way.” He gestures down the beach. “I want to build a little hut. Something we can stand up and stretch in when it’s pouring down.”

I don’t want to give him any attention. He’s not earned back any good graces.

Jules scoots right into my side, hand brushing the back of mine. When he has me looking, he gestures again. “Over there.”

I’m not giving in.

Jules digs his knee into my thigh. His mouth does this complicated thing, like he’s about to start frowning. Is his bottom lip wobbling?

Damn it.

“Like what Willow and Yasop have made?” I ask.

Jules nods.

I study him, thinking about his string of recklessness. “I’ll only help if you swear never to do anything like that ever again.”

Stubbornness fills his eyes.

Just when I think he’s about to get up and storm off, he nods. “I already promised Mathieu. You heard me.”