♫Erica♫
I shifted, and let out a little gasp of pain. My fingers immediately flew to my ankle.
“Shit,” I muttered. I must have sprained it. I poked at the red swelling, and pain flitted through my leg, making me wince. Yep. Definitely sprained. I’ve had enough experience walking in six-inch heels (and falling in them) to know that yes, it was twisted.
“Are you okay?” Daniel asked, immediately coming to my side. I looked up, at his shadowed face, with the beautiful starry night sky behind his head, and my heart hammered.
“I’m fine,” I said, in a falsely cheery voice (well, as cheery as I could make it, with my hoarse voice). I didn’t really want to worry him.
“Don’t be stupid,” he muttered, coming closer to me. “Stretch your leg out.”
I obeyed, and gently stretched my foot out.
“You’ve twisted it,” he said, brushing over the swelling gently. “You need to get it checked out.”
“Okay,” I said, grabbing onto his hand, and trying to stand myself up. I collapsed down again, when a particularly large shot of pain ran down my leg, intensifying into a white-hot spot of pain at the ankle.
“You really are an idiot,” Daniel muttered, putting a hand at the small of my back, and another just at my knee. In one solid movement, I was flying.
Well, okay, I wasn’t flying. He was carrying me. Again.
“Let me down!” I yelled, and my throat throbbed. It felt like someone’s shoved sandpaper down my throat. I flushed red, and thudded at his chest. Damn it, why did he always carry me?! Well, okay, last time he thought I was Eric, but still! “Let me down, you bastard!”
“Why do you keep calling me a bastard?” he asked, not looking down at me. “What did I do to you?”
I glared up at him, trying not to admire his strong jaw line, and his high cheekbones, which was something that the moonlight made extremely obvious. He looked so hot from this angle.
“It’s not what you did to me! It’s what you did to Eric.”
He looked down at me now, seeming puzzled.
“What did I do to Eric?”
“You know what you did,” I said, cryptically.
“Oh,” he said, realizing. His face darkened, and he looked away. “That.”
“Yes. That.”
We walked on for a little while longer, the swaying movement kind of relaxing. Until my right ankle hit my left ankle (bad ankle!), and the pain woke me up again.
“Well?” I asked.
“Well, what?”
“Aren’t you going to tell me why you did it?”
“Do I need to?”
“Yes.”
He looked down, smirking at me in a way that made my heart leap.
“Then why didn’t you say so?” he said, still smirking. “That would make life a whole lot easier.”
“Who likes easy?”
He looked back away again, over the rippling black ocean, at the long stretch of white moon shimmering and dancing over the surface. “Who, indeed?” he muttered, more to himself.
I waited, as he made his way through to the main town.
“Well?”
He jerked his head back, coming out of his little zone-out.
“I was trying to make life harder for your brother,” he said, smirking. “After all, who likes easy?”
***
╣Daniel╠
There were no hospitals open in this stupid island. I gritted my teeth, and looked down at the sleeping girl in my arms. After all her protestations, she’d fallen asleep.
I walked back to the beach. Every building was closed, and I had no money for a hotel.
I gently placed her into the sand, but her head knocked against a palm tree, and her eyes snapped open again.
“Shit,” she swore, about five seconds late in her reaction. Her eyes were wide, and accusing. “You knocked my head on that tree on purpose!”
“Did not.”
She glared at me for a while longer, evidently trying to stare me down. Then she gave up, she stretching and yawning, scratching her long, blonde hair. Her eyes searched around her, looking kind of confused.
“Hey. This isn’t a hospital.”
“You’re fast,” I said, sarcastically.
She glared at me.
“Shut up. I almost drowned, okay? I deserve to be a little slow.”
Her raspy voice – proof that she did almost drown – made me feel guilty. I shook away the feeling.
“It was your fault you got drunk.”
She frowned at me some more, her whole forehead creasing into a mass of wrinkles.
“Whose fault is that?” she demanded, propping herself up by her elbows. “You depressed Eric so much, we both got hammered.”
Okay, now I felt guilty.
But it wasn’t my fault, right? Tyler told me to lay off. I would be a bad friend if I didn’t.
“Look, let’s try and get some sort of fire started. We can…cook something.”
She looked at me like I was crazy. “Sure, if you know how to start a fire.”
That was the hole in my plan.
***
♫Erica♫
“This is not going to work,” I warned him, as he threw a bunch of twigs into a big soggy pile. “You got all your wood from the ocean. It’s not going to light up.”
He ignored me, and just carried on fetching sticks.
I shivered. The freezing cold had settled into my bones. Okay, new problem if we didn’t get heat – hypothermia. I’d lost my pumps in the ocean, and so all I had on was my t-shirt, my shorts, and the jacket Daniel’d draped around my shoulders, chivalry-style. Daniel had a t-shirt, and a pair of jeans.
I hoped to God that it would work. If it didn’t, I might just die.
Daniel had apparently decided that the pile of wet wood was big enough, and so he sat down next to me, and we both stared at it for a while, expecting it to miraculously get all “fire”.
Nothing happened.
I poked him. “You know, you have to light it to actually work.”
“I know that.”
We both carried on looking at it.
“Do you have a lighter?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the would-be fire.
“Nope.”
“Match?”
“Nope.”
“Do you possess telepathic powers?”
“I’m hoping they’ll appear now.”
I looked at him.
“So, basically, we’re staring at this wood until lightening hits it, and it lights up?”
“Essentially, yes,” he said, closing his eyes, and leaning against the palm tree behind him. Maybe he thought that the whole telepathic lightening thing would work better with his eyes closed.
I closed my eyes as well, hoping he did have the powers. If not, we were truly and royally screwed.
I concentrated so hard, I jumped about a mile when something heavy hit my lap, knocking against my hurt ankle.
“ARGH!” I yelled, half in pain, half in surprise, looking down at what had fallen. “Daniel, get the hell off me!”
He didn’t move. He was asleep.
I guess he was tired.
I watched him sleep for a while, the slow movement of air being sucked into his lungs, respired, and pushed out again (oh yeah, I know my biology). The shadows of the tree above us swayed and played over his face. Suddenly, I realized what I was doing. I was watching him sleep. That was extremely creepy.
“Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not sharing a room with him anymore,” I muttered to myself, sliding his head off my lap, but making a little sand-pillow for him instead. Little grains of sand sifted through my fingers as I worked my hands through the dry sand. I’d missed the beach.
I placed his head back onto the pillow, and grabbed a pretty big piece of wood from near-by.
A perfect walking stick.
***
╣Daniel╠
I opened my eyes. I had a killer headache.
I felt like the way you felt, when you woke up before you were ready to.
There was generally a reason, right? Like an annoying alarm, or a sibling. Never just randomly.
But that’s what it was like. One minute, I was asleep. The next, I was awake, feeling that something was...missing. I looked around, and suddenly sat up straight. Erica was gone.
That’s what must have woken me up.
It was probably only a couple minutes after I feel asleep. The sky was still dark and cloudless, the ocean still a deep opal. Nothing had changed. Apart from the fact that she wasn’t next to me.
I jumped up, stumbling a little. Where was she? She couldn’t have gone far, not with her ankle. I spun around, looking in all directions. I couldn’t see her at all. I ran my fingers through my hair, panicking now. I gave the area one last scan, and then my gaze fell on the ocean.
She couldn’t have fallen in, right?
No. There was absolutely no way. The tide was low, and she wasn’t stupid enough to literally walk into the ocean. No. No way. I believe she isn’t idiotic enough to do that. She can’t be.
I run towards the ocean, completely bare-foot. I barely noticed the cold water as it made contact with my skin. I was about knee-deep before I stopped.
“Erica!” I called. My voice sounded scared, even to myself. “Erica! Where the hell are you?!”
She couldn’t have…gone, right?
There was a squeezing feeling in my chest. I backed away from the ocean, towards the land. She couldn’t have gone. I won’t let her. I’m going to find her. I’m not going to let her go.
Suddenly, I realized.
I feel to my knees, into damp sand, covering my mouth with my hands and running my fingers through my hair.
No. I can’t…I can’t…
Too late.
“Daniel?”
My heart leapt before I even looked up, and saw her, standing beside our fire, which was burning brightly. Unconsciously, my lips pulled up into a smile. That just made it worse, somehow. It confirmed it all.
Shit.
***
Author's Note: I have a massive headache. I've been writing for sooo long...
You guys better be grateful.
My fingers hurt so much I can barely leave a proper author's note...
VOMMENT!! That is my last dying wish :)