Island Rush (64 page)

“I didn’t want you to worry, but you know what is going to happen to me.”

There was no denying.  Hurt crossing his face, I saw that throughout all this, that was a huge fear of his.  He didn’t want to see me go insane after he dies.  That must have held most of his worry.  Me.  He was worried about what would happen to me. 

In his face, it told me he was worried since the second he realized he would die.  He wanted to know I would be okay after he was gone, I realized.  He wanted me to be happy and have a life without him.  That would have been hard enough back home, but we were on an island.  There will be no happiness after he dies and nobody finds me.  He knew that and therefore, there was where his worry lay.  When he met my words with silence, I knew I was right.

“Oh my god,” I said, sitting up slightly and looking to him harder.  “This whole time, from when you became sick, you were worried about me.  With you dying, you are worried about me going insane.  More worried about me than you dying.”

He sighed, swallowing hard and I knew I was spot on.  This was the hardest part for him: knowing I would go insane on this island without him.  There was nothing to stop that. 

He nodded. His breathing was hard and his voice – the most scared I ever heard it.  “I’m taking you down with me in a way.  I was bitten, and you will become insane.”

His words cracked on the last word.  It shocked me when for the first time I could remember, he averted his eyes from me.  Silence followed for maybe a minute or more and in that time, that idea that had been floating around in my mind resurfaced.  I didn’t know if I was ready to tell him what it was.  There wasn’t exactly time later that I could tell him either.

“Maybe I don’t need to become insane if I don’t get rescued,” I said.

His eyes met mine again, eyebrows dipped with confusion.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean… why should I drift away and suffer in insanity?  I would live a life of not being myself.  Why lose myself when I could always leave as we are now?  Leave with you.  Leave at the same time, Casey.”

Chapter 65

His confused expression broke at my words.  The look on his face… it made my stomach turn.  So disturbed, so pleading, so sorry and sad.  He looked terrified, ten times worse than he had a few minutes ago when we were talking about him dying.  Out of him dying and me going insane, losing my mind scared him much more to the point of getting him sick.  My idea I sprung on him had a ton to do with it too.

“You—” He cut himself off as he bit his bottom lip, his eyes wandering on their own.  It looked like he was paler too.  “You—” he tried again, but that was all he could get out.

He moved his head to his left, leaning over the side of the bank and throwing up.  I gasped as I watched, his back arching as he vomited.  The sound of it hitting the stream twisted my own stomach, and I moved to his side. 

I moved my hand up over his forehead.  Sweat caressing his skin, I pushed my hand back, moving the locks hair out of his face.  His eyes down at the water, his breath became rigid when he stopped.  I was about to ask if he was okay until his mouth opened, breaths cut off and he threw up again, the berries and water leaving his mouth. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I murmured, knowing, this time, I caused the vomiting and not the bite.  He had gotten so sick when I hinting about killing myself that he began vomiting.

Holding his hair back, I gently rubbed his back, trying to give him some help or comfort.  He lowered himself to lay his stomach against the ground with his head resting on the side, cheek against the edge.  His mouth faced towards the creek as he continued to vomit, just lying there.  The only thing that moved were his eyes and mouth.  Besides that, there was no other reaction.  No heaving or tense body.  Just a limp body, a corpse, vomiting.  A few tears fell at the sight that he didn’t even have the strength to pick his head up to throw up. 

“Jesus,” I hissed in panic at how he did nothing.  His eyes just blinked with a gasping mouth.  Like a dead fish, just lying there helpless.

He nodded slowly, closing his eyes before opening them after he quit vomiting in the creek.  He laid there for a minute more, looking at nothing in particular as he breathed in and out hard.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

His eyes flashed to mine, the brightness in them fading.  I bit my lip at that, at recognizing the signs of him dying even in the dark.  “Okay?  How am I okay?” he asked in a daze.

I got to my feet, stepping down from the edge and into the shallow creek.  Sighing in a shaky breath, I bent down and put my hands in the water, cupping them and bringing up water in my hands.  I took a step forward, holding my arms out to where his head hung over the side.

“Wash your mouth out,” I whispered.

He slowly turned his head towards me, not meeting my eyes.  He lowered his head and sipped the water from my palms.  Swishing the water around in his mouth, I moved back as he spits it out into the creek.  I had him do that a few times before I moved back onto shore, goosebumps traveling up my legs and body but that didn’t matter.  My teeth slowly chattering, I sat next to him.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.  “I didn’t mean to make you sick.”

“How dare you say something like that?” he whispered, his eyes looking up and finding me.  I felt my throat burn, and I understood what he meant.  To me, though, it made sense.  Wanting to die before going insane didn’t sound too crazy.

“Let me explain this to you,” I said, taking a breath.  “I’m going to go insane.” I saw him wince at that.  He looked away from me again.  “It’s true. You and I know it.”

He wouldn’t look at me, and it was really unlike him.  I knew I really hit a nerve of his.  We weren’t talking about him dying anymore.  We were now discussing my future, and it didn’t look good.  As he said on several occasions, my happiness was all that mattered to him in the end.  He was proving it.  

I gently grazed my fingers under his chin before guiding his head up.  “Look at me,” I said.  He took in a shaky breath and raised his eyes to mine.  He was having a hard time staying calm.  “We faced it.  I will go insane,” I nodded.

He didn’t answer me with more than a stare.  Sighing, I stretched my legs out in front of me in the grass.  He laid down next to where I was sitting, his head resting on my thigh and looking up at me.  I reached over and grabbed the wet cloth, gently running it over him, wiping the sweat away as I looked down to him. 

I continued speaking in a softer voice this time.  “After you leave, I’m going to be here all alone.”

“Are you sure you want to kill yourself because of insanity being inevitable?  Or do you want to end it because of me?”

I raised my eyebrows.  “I’m not going to kill myself over you dying.  I can promise you nothing will be the same after you leave, but I wouldn’t kill myself over you dying.  However, I would want to kill myself if I was going to go insane.  And I will go insane.  I would kill myself over that, not because of you.”

That didn’t really help him.  “I understand where you are coming from, but I don’t want you to give up after I am gone.  You may…” He took in a deep breath, and his voice broke.  “You may go insane.  There is still a chance you will be found before that happens, though.”

“Do you honestly think I’m going to be found?” I asked, already knowing what he truly thought.

“No,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper.  “There is still a small chance, though.  Not to mention, I can’t take it.  I can’t handle you killing yourself because of me.”

I groaned.  “I would kill myself because I would be going insane.”

“And you would be going insane because I would be dead and gone.”

“Do you really want to start discussing again whose fault it is?  It’s hard to beat me at the moment,” I said.  His breath was wheezy, hair damp and skin deathly pale.  I stroked his hair back softly as I ran the rag up and down his side.  He slowly sat up and crossed his legs, groaning at the movement as he faced me. 

He took the rag from my hand without a word, set it aside, and clasped my hands in his.  “Please, please, Janice.”  He closed his eyes, grasping my hands tighter and I saw he was holding in his screams.  Yes, his screams.  I could see he wanted to scream from all that was happening.  I wanted to scream too.  Scream anything and everything, express our anger and frustration, our hate that we had so little time left.  That we were both going to suffer.  That there was no way out of this.  He wanted to scream, shout, beg, and cry.  He wanted to let it out.  But he couldn’t, not when he knew he had to hold it together.  It hurt me to see him feel so weak and powerless.

Taking a breath, he brought himself to continue.  “Please don’t give up.  Don’t stop fighting,” he said firmly, moving closer and wrapping his arms around me.  He pulled me so we could lay down in the cool grass together.  With both of us lying on our backs, his side pressing into mine, we tilted our heads, looking at each other as he continued.

“Though you may lose yourself,” he continued, cringing. “If you don’t give up, you at least have a small chance at leaving here.  And you know what else?” 

“What?”

“You won’t be alone.  I will always be with you.” His eyes were hurt and loving. “Do you love me, Janice?” 

My chest began hurting more at those words. “More than anything!” I cried.

“Then promise me,” he pleaded. 

I didn’t know how I was supposed to concur, but I had to give him my word. “I won’t stop fighting. I promise.”

He looked relieved but of course, there would always be some worry.  He stared into my eyes a moment more, trying to get that through to me.  And it did.  I knew he was right that I couldn’t give up that small chance of getting rescued. 

“You do know that it will hurt me more to keep living?  With you gone and me going insane?”

He took that in, nodding.  “Yeah. I know.  But you at least have the knowledge that you tried,” he sighed.  “I know how strong you are.  I can’t take knowing that my death would drive you to insanity.  I feel like it’s my fault.  So just tell me you will try.”

I nodded.  “I will.”

He pulled me closer, eyes digging in mine. “Now tell me you love me.”

I sniffed, wiping the tears away though new ones would always come.  “I love you. I love you with all of my being, all of my heart, all that I have to offer you.”

He took a breath, a smile forming on his face as if my words somehow made him stronger.  He closed his eyes as he pressed his forehead against mine, whispering lightly.  “Tell me why you love me.”

I swallowed.  “You’re simply perfect.  You have done so much for me.  You fixed me, made me see I could have a life again.  You made me see I was important and showed me how to forgive myself.  You showed me so much love that I could laugh and love again,” I said.  I smiled through my pain, admiring him.  “You are the sweetest man I have ever met.  You know how to make me smile and mean it.  You can be a gentleman yet an immature dork that makes me laugh.  You understand me, accept me, and know how I feel.  You hold me when I need your arms, comfort me, and make me feel at home.  Because you are my home.  You’re my best friend, my love… my everything.  You are my world.”

When I stopped speaking, I saw his eyes go deeper with the sadness he felt.  Regardless, he smiled.  He needed to hear those words and I needed to say them.  I meant every word too. 

We laid there, silent for a few minutes, just resting in each other’s arms.  He stroked my cheek with his thumb.  “You should get back to sleep,” he whispered.  “It’s still the middle of the night.”

“But—”

“I’ll be fine until the morning.”

I sighed, reminding myself that he needed the rest and forcing myself to believe he was right.  I nodded, leaning in and kissing him gently before breaking away.  I shifted, moving into his chest more after laying the cloth over his head.  He wrapped his arm around me as I rested my head against his chest, my stomach to his side.  I closed my eyes and forced my tears to stop.

“I love you,” he said in my ear before kissing the side of my head lightly.

“I love you,” I whispered back and soon drifted off.  Thankfully, I didn’t dream anymore that night.

When I woke, a blanket of sweat was over me.  I felt a small movement against me ear.  A heartbeat.  Slowly, I opened my eyes and found my head was resting on Casey’s chest.  I also noticed that my hair was damp.  The majority of my head and neck was wet and cool. 

Sitting up, I saw that Casey was already up.  He found my eyes and smiled lightly at me.  I smiled sadly back before looking his body over.  His chest, his stomach, his face and hair, all of him was drenched in the cool water of the creek.  On his forehead, that wet rag was still there.  I leaned up, grabbing it and felt it was cold and damp, freshly dipped into the creek.

Looking back to him, I wondered if he was soaked from just the rag.  “Did you go into the stream?”

“Yeah.  I quickly went in.  I was getting too hot.  Then, I put this rag over my head.”

“Then why was I still sleeping on your chest?”

“When I got up, I needed to get in the creek.  So I moved you off of me and went in.  When I got out and lay back down, you were a few feet away.  But… you inched back to where I am and rested against me.”

I blushed.  “What can I say?  I guess I needed you against me.”

His small smile dropped, and it was obvious why.  There is a great possibility this wouldn’t happen again.  I would be sleeping alone soon enough.  I wouldn’t have his arms to comfort me, hold me, or have his lips to kiss me.

There was something else there besides that, though.  I didn’t like it, whatever it was.  “What is it?”

He swallowed hard, closing his eyes and sitting up.  He grunted, and I noticed how much older he looked today from yesterday.  Eyes were drooping, tired and sad.  He somehow appeared paler and sick.  Staring into his eyes, they were filled with the pain of an older heart, one with more experience than he should have.

I sat up with him.  As I was facing him, he grabbed my sides and pulled me into his lap, letting my legs drape across his.  I wrapped my arm around his neck, looking closely at him.  My head swarmed, stomach turned, heart hurt.  Something big was coming.  I could tell.

He sighed, looking deeply into my eyes.  One arm around me and supporting my back, his other rested on my knee.  It made me notice that he was slightly shaking.  He didn’t speak, though; not yet.  He just looked at me with his head tilted up towards me. 

More silence came, and it made me worry more.  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

He bit his lip as his hand around my back slid up to my neck, playing with the hairs on my skin there.  He concentrated on that as he spoke, eyes dancing over where his hand was.  “You are so beautiful, do you know that?  You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met, ever seen… Have I told you that enough?”

I dipped my eyebrows, confused.  “Yes.  You tell me all the time.” When he nodded, his hand moved up and cupped my cheek, rubbing his thumb there.  “Casey?” I asked, wondering what was wrong.

“You know, those first few nights here on the island, when I would stay up and just watch you, I would tell you everything.  I would stay up after you fell asleep and tell you how much I loved you and how guilty I felt for it.  I thought it would help more than the letters did but it didn’t.  Instead, I came to love you more.”