I woke up with Claire’s back pressed against my stomach, startling me a bit as I came to. Had I spooned with her the entire night? I backed away slowly, looking out to the T shirt hanging loosely on the opening of the den as it blew in the wind. 

Was there a storm coming?

I got out of the den, looking out at the horizon, noticing the tide had rose. We were to far back to be effected but the wind speed was worrying me. Our tent wasn’t strong enough to sustain a storm, even though I knew it was pretty strong. 

I climbed into the den, not wanting to wake Claire but knowing I had to, and we had to prepare for tonight. I shook her gently, whispering, “Claire, wake up.”

She rolled over, looking up at me, “Why do you keep waking me up?”

I rolled me eyes, “There might be a storm, we need to work today.”

She looked at me, knowing this was serious and she nodded, “Ok.”

We made our way out of the camp, feeling the wind bring in heavier waves on the coast. I spoke, “We need more vine, so we can secure the roof of the den, and secure it to these trees here.”

She nodded, and we walked into the jungle, Claire following me the entire way to the site where I had found all the vine vegetation. I had my little rock knife in my pocket, knowing now it would be so much easier to cut the vine. 

Before it had taken me hours to just rip one vine off, that’s how strong they were.

I found the site and started cutting through a tough one, knowing we would need something that could sustain high winds and not rot in the rain. I sliced through a couple, handing them to Claire to hold as I did most of the dirty work.

Which seemed to familiar to me now. 

I found a broken palm tree branch that must’ve fallen off and held it, knowing this could be put on top to decrease leakage through our roof. We made our way back to camp, the sun was burning down our exposed skin and it felt as if I was being baked. 

I threw the huge branch over the roof, taking a vine in my hand and securing it at tight as I could. I began tying the branch frame to the trees that surrounded us, so it wouldn’t fly away if the wind got to bad. Claire had even started to help as she figured out what I was doing. 

I was going around, making sure every knot was tight and every structure was secure. If worse came to worse we would have to just build another tent, which I really didn’t want to do. At all. 

“I’m gonna try and make a door for our camp out of this,” I looked at Claire, seeing her holding up the bigger of the suitcases, which was mine. 

“How are you planning on doing that?”

She smiled, and began ripping the zipper part off, and eventually she was holding the entire square zipper with the lid attached. “Like this.”

I nodded, feeling my stomach growl which instantly brought me back to reality, “I’m going find lunch.”

She was focused on her little project, waving me off behind her, “Ok.”

I grabbed my spear and my knife and headed down the beach. I wasn’t expecting the find any fish, only because there was a huge storm cloud making it’s way over to this island. Soon enough I ran into a coconut tree, but I knew I would have a hard time opening them…

There had to be other fruit trees. 

And as if God had heard my thoughts, there it was, a banana tree. I smiled in victory, knowing I could knock it down with my spear. I swung, sending the entire nest of bananas almost on to my head, and I began dragging them back to camp. 

Finally Claire was coming into view, I studied her shortly before she saw me making my way back towards her. Her hair was still matted with sand and sweat, and I knew we would have to wash some time we were here. 

And now I finally realized how disgusting I actually felt. 

I dropped the nest of bananas, studying them to make sure there were no spiders crawling around. Then I moved towards Claire, realizing she had successfully built a door to the camp. I studied it, “How did you do that?”

“Well, I found a needle like deal in one of the suitcases, and I poked a hole in it and tore some thread off of a shirt. I sewed the zipper frame to the vine,” she climbed into the camp and began zipping the frame shut. You could zip it from the inside, but not the outside.

She was pretty damn smart for a blonde. 

I smiled to myself, “That’s… really good Claire.”

She smirked, “I know, I’m not so useless after all, huh?”

I kicked the bananas towards her, “Yea, but a door won’t keep us alive.”

She squinted at my sarcasm as she pulled off some bananas to ripen, throwing them into the camp. She nodded towards the stuff that was left in the suitcase, “Do you wanna go through that?”

I looked at it, there wasn’t much left but they might have some valuable stuff, I nodded, “Yea.”

I pulled out the soap and bath stuff I had bought, telling Claire to set them up in our camp. I wanted to keep that safe, mostly because I was feeling pretty nasty right about now. There wasn’t much clothes either, most of it was already serving as a roof or a bed in our den, so I just put the rest aside incase we wanted to change clothes. 

Which I would do after I washed myself. 

Eventually all of the necessities were in the camp, and the clouds were rolling in, getting closer every minute. The wind was picking up to, and I could smell the rain coming. I gathered all of the dry wood I could find around the camp, knowing wet would wouldn’t burn tomorrow if we needed it. 

Which we did, very much. 

I pushed them into the camp, throwing a shirt over them to keep them dry. I looked at Claire, grabbing the soap, “Do you want to come? I’m going wash myself, I can’t take it anymore.”

She tilted her head, as if debating whether or not she wanted to do that with me. I grabbed a pair of dry clothes to dry me off when I was finished and turned to the jungle. I didn’t wait for her answer, I just headed into the jungle towards the watering hole, and eventually she fell in stride with me. She sighed, “We have to preserve it though…”

“We will use a little bit, not a whole lot.”

I got to the fresh water, deciding to drink up before I got in with my dirty self, and then I began taking off my shirt. I could feel Claire’s eyes on my back but I didn’t mind, she had already seen me naked. I climbed into the cool water and used only a palm sized amount of soap and began scrubbing my body, which felt amazing. 

I had felt so dirty, it was disgusting the think about. 

I hadn’t even looked at Claire to see if she was doing her business, but I could hear the water moving behind me in the distance. I scrubbed my clothes in the water, getting all the sand and sweat smell out of them as I used the last of my soap. I ran my hands through my hair, getting the sand out and smiling at the clean feeling. 

I really needed this. 

I climbed out then, rubbing my body dry with the dry clothes I had retrieved before coming here. I tugged on a large shirt and shorts and waited for Claire. She was doing the same thing as me, and I could see her sun tanned skin as she slipped on some clothes.

I made my way back to camp, feeling the wind whip around me as the storm closed in. I climbed in the camp, waiting for Claire to join me, and then I zipped up the door, leaving us alone in silence. 

She sighed, “You think it’s gonna hold up?”

I nodded, “It should, I secured everything as best as I could.”

Her hair was still damp from washing and it hung a little below her shoulders, she didn’t notice me studying her until she moved to lay down. She tilted her head, “You ok?”

I nodded, trying not to let her see that I wished she would just apologize, admit she was wrong, or even just talk to me like a normal human being. I just wanted to know why, I wanted to know why she hurt me all that time ago. 

Was that so hard to ask for?

She leaned back against one of the trees I had built the camp around, just looking up at me. I couldn’t see much in her eyes, but it wasn’t threatening, so I took it as a good sign. Se spoke, “I don’t believe you.”

I rolled my eyes, she knew what I was thinking about, she just wanted me to say it out loud. Which was something I really didn’t want to do because I didn’t want to seem like the weak one. I wasn’t weak, and I wasn’t dwelling over this broken relationship.

Was I?

“You’re thinking about us, aren’t you?”

It was a weird thing to hear come out of her mouth, but I couldn’t deny it in front of her. I couldn’t lie about it either because it was what I was thinking about. I couldn’t hide that. 

“It’s just so ironic how I’m not stuck on this island with you and only you.”

She nodded, “Yea, it’s not how I expected to spend my senior trip.”

I laid on my side, propping my head up on my hand and shrugged, “You couldn’t be stranded on an island with anyone better though.”

She raised her eyebrows, looking down at the ground, “I bet you’re wishing I was anyone else.”

I squinted, was she trying to make me feel bad for her? I sighed, “I don’t know, you’re more useful than I thought.”

She smiled, and I swore it was the first time I had seen her smile since we were here, “I did live in the south, and girl scouts sure came in handy.”

I smiled, imagining her as a young girl making fires and pitching tents in her backyard. My dad used to bring me camping when I was little, and I mean the real camping, with the tent and make your own fire. But soon his career took off and him and mom pretty much forgot about me. 

I realized then that her accent had dimmed from the first time I had heard her speak. I liked her accent, I absolutely adored it, and fell in love with it as well.

The silence surrounded us, making me feel a bit sad and uncomfortable. I wanted her to talk to me, I wanted her to open up to me again. She used to be a good friend, I just couldn’t take the back and forth with her, it was tearing my heart up inside. 

“Do you still hate me for what happened?”

I looked up at her, wondering what would possess her to ask me such a question. I should’ve hated her for doing that to me, and she deserved for me to hate her…

I just couldn’t. 

I still loved her deep down in my heart, and even though I never told her I loved her I figured she could see it in my face. I shrugged, “It still hurts sometimes.”

I heard a loud bang of thunder outside, and then the rain started coming down on top of the roof of the camp. Claire and I had jumped at the loud sound, but we were safe in this camp together. I curled up more clothes to make a pillow and looked up at Claire, “Don’t worry about that, we have bigger things to worry about.”

She sighed, something was running through her mind, she was thinking about something. I wanted to know what, I wanted to know everything that ran through that bead of hers. She laid next to me, facing me this time, “Alex…”

Her face was close to mine, but it was slowly disappearing due to the lack of light outside. I spoke softly, “What?”

“Thank you, for saving me,” her green eyes searched mine, it seemed as if she had moved closer to me like she was going to kiss me, but I doubted the thought. 

I shrugged, as if it was no sweat at all, “What else was I supposed to do, Claire?”

“You could’ve left me to die, saved yourself with no trouble.”

I smiled weakly, did she really think that little about me and my morals? Her warmth was starting to surround me, so I sat up and threw clothes over us as a blanket. I laid down next to her, our faces were inches apart now, her eyes were closed though.

But I leaned in, kissing her forehead and whispering, “I could never do that to you, Claire.”