“Are you going into fucking shock?” I shouldn’t have said it. The last thing I need is for him to lose it. We’re at least two thousand feet above sea level.
“What? No.” Easton jerks his head back, but his no didn’t have his normal arrogant force.
“Well then, don’t say stupid shit like that. If I leave you on this ledge by yourself and you roll to your death, there are going to be people fucking upset with me.”
“Way to make me getting shot about you.”
I’m glaring. Seriously, how did we ever have a truce going? I have no fucking idea. He’s not good, and he’s not going to get better without rest and water. “We stay here and wait it out until morning. We’ve almost lost light. It’s going to get dark quickly. Ten, fifteen minutes, maybe. At least here we’ve got a ledge.”
“Sure, whatever.” He’s sitting with his legs crossed like some weird yoga guest on a day charter. Rich will do what rich want to do. That’s what they say, and it’s true.
“Let me see your arm.”
“It’s here. I’m not getting up to let you glare at it.”
“Fine.” I ease over to him. The ledge isn’t narrow by any means, but we’re both big enough that when we sit, we take up most of the room. I lift the edge of the bandage I made from my shorts’ fabric and look at it. “There’s got to be something we could use to slow the bleeding.”
“I’m sure there is, but our resident botanist is on the other side of the island.”
“Right, Haley. I keep forgetting that was her major.”
Easton’s forehead furrows. “How?”
“We don’t talk about it.”
“Do you even know the girl? You spout ‘I love you’ to her enough. But where is she from?”
“Florida. No. Fuck.” She was talking to Dante about something the other day. Crabbing. “Delaware.”
“No.”
“New Jersey,” I say.
“Are you fucking serious? Maryland.”
“There’s something about Delaware and New Jersey,” I growl at him.
“Her dog is in New Jersey with the ex’s mother. And her dad lives in Delaware.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t know her.”
“You forgot she was a botany major.”
“So I forgot what she has a degree in.”
Easton shakes his head. “She didn’t finish it. Her mom died. And she got into yachting. She was going to go back, but she met her ex. Then her grandmother died, and she stayed in yachting.”
My stomach is turning into knots. “I still know her.” Did I know about her grandmother?
“We’ve been on this island for five months.”
“159 days.”
“Thatyou know.”
“So what? I can love her and not know that.”
“So, 159 days. What do you know about the rest of us? Are you that stuck in your own head that you can’t be empathetic to anyone but yourself? Fuck, don’t answer that, because you don’t even have empathy for yourself, do you? How many siblings does Dante have?”
