“Did it tip its wings?” I asked T.J.

“I’m not sure. Did it?”

“I couldn’t tell. Maybe it did.”

“It had floats, right?”

“It was a seaplane,” I confirmed.

“So, it could have landed out there?” he asked, motioning toward the lagoon.

“I think so.”

“Did they see us?” he asked.

T.J. wore gray athletic shorts with a thin blue stripe down each side and no shirt, but I was wearing my black bikini which should have been visible against the white sand.

“Sure, I mean, wouldn’t you notice two people waving their arms?”

“Maybe,” he said.

“They wouldn’t have seen our fire, though,” I pointed out. We hadn’t knocked down the lean-to, or thrown any green leaves on the flames to create extra smoke. I wasn’t sure we even had any green leaves in the lean-to.

We sat on the beach for the next two hours, not talking, straining to hear the sound of approaching airplane engines.

Finally, T.J. stood up. “I’m gonna go fishing.” His voice sounded flat.

“Okay,” I said.

After he left, I walked to the coconut tree and gathered the ones I’d dropped on the ground. I stopped at the breadfruit tree on my way back, and scooped up two, then put everything in the lean-to. I stoked the fire and waited for T.J.

When he returned, I cleaned and cooked the fish for our dinner, but neither of us ate. I blinked back tears and sighed in relief when T.J. wandered off toward the woods.

I lay down in the life raft, curled myself into a ball, and cried.

All the hope I’d clung to since our plane went down splintered into a million tiny shards that day, like a glass block someone pounded with a sledgehammer. I thought that if we could manage to be on the beach when the next plane flew over, we’d be rescued. Maybe they didn’t see us. Maybe they did, but they didn’t know we were missing. It didn’t matter now because they weren’t coming back.

My tears ended, and I wondered if I’d finally run out of them.

I crawled out of the life raft. The sun had gone down, and T.J. was sitting by the fire, his right hand resting limply on his thigh.

I took a closer look. “Oh, T.J. Is it broken?”

“Probably.”

Whatever his fist connected with – my guess would be the trunk of a tree – had left his knuckles bloody and his hand horribly swollen.

I went to the first-aid kit and brought back two Tylenol and some water.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not making eye contact. “The last thing you need is another broken bone to take care of.”

“Listen,” I said, kneeling down in front of him. “I will never criticize anything you do if it helps you cope, okay?”

He finally looked at me, nodded, and took the Tylenol from my outstretched hand. I handed him the water bottle, and he swallowed them down. I sat cross-legged next to him, staring at the sparks that drifted into the air when I dropped a log on the fire.

“How do you cope, Anna?”

“I cry.”

“Does it work?”

“Sometimes.”

I stared at his broken hand and fought the urge to wash the blood off and hold it in my own. “I give up, T.J. You once said, ‘It’s easier if you don’t think they’re coming back’ and you were right. This one’s not coming back either. A plane will have to land in the lagoon for me to believe we might actually get off this island. Until then, it’s just you and me. That’s the only thing I know for sure.”

“I give up, too,” he whispered.

I looked at him, so broken, both physically and mentally, and it turned out I had some tears left after all.

I checked his hand the next morning. The swelling had doubled the size of it.

“It needs to be immobilized,” I said. I grabbed a short stick from the woodpile and rummaged in my suitcase for something to wrap around it. “I won’t put it on tight, but it’s going to hurt a little, T.J.”

“That’s okay.”

I put the stick under his palm, and gently pulled the black fabric over the back of his hand, winding it around twice, and tucking it underneath.

“What did you wrap my hand with?” he asked.

“My thong.” I looked up at him. “You were right; it’s totally uncomfortable. Awesome for first-aid though.”

The corners of T.J.’s mouth turned up slightly. He looked at me, his brown eyes showing a trace of the spark that had been missing the night before. “It’ll make for a funny story someday,” I said.

“You know what, Anna? It’s kinda funny now.”

***

T.J. turned eighteen in September of 2002. He didn’t look like the same boy I crash-landed in the ocean with fifteen months ago.

For one thing, he really needed to shave. The hair was much longer than a five o’clock shadow but shorter than a full beard and moustache. It looked good on him, actually. I wasn’t sure if he liked the facial hair, or if he just didn’t want to bother with shaving.

The hair on his head was almost long enough to pull back in one of my ponytail holders, and the sun had bleached it light brown. My hair had grown, too. It hung past the middle of my back and drove me nuts. I tried to cut it with our knife but the blade – dull and non-serrated – wouldn’t saw through hair.

Although very lean, T.J. had grown at least two inches taller, bringing him to about six feet.

He looked older. Having turned thirty-one in May, I probably did, too. I wouldn’t know; the only mirror I had was in the makeup bag in my purse, which was floating around in the ocean somewhere.

I forced myself not to ask him how he felt, or if he had any cancer symptoms, but I watched him closely. He seemed to be doing okay, growing and thriving, even under our less than desirable conditions.

***

The man in my dream moaned when I kissed his neck. I slid my leg between his and then kissed my way from his jaw down to his chest. He put his arms around me and rolled me onto my back, bringing his mouth down to mine. Something about his kiss startled me, and I woke up.

T.J. was on top of me. We were on the blanket under the coconut tree where we’d laid down to take a nap. I realized what I’d done and wriggled out from underneath him, my face on fire. “I was dreaming.”

He flipped onto his back, breathing hard.

I scrambled to my feet, then went down to the water’s edge and sat cross-legged on the sand. Way to go, Anna. Attack him while he’s asleep.

T.J. joined me a few minutes later.

“I am completely mortified,” I said.

He sat down. “Don’t be.”

“You must have wondered what the hell I was doing.”

“Well, yeah, but then I just rolled with it.”

I looked over at him, my mouth hanging open. “Are you insane?”

“What? You’re the one that said I was adaptable.”

Yes, and apparently quite opportunistic.

”Besides,” T.J. said. “You like to cuddle. How am I supposed to know what it means? It’s confusing.”

My humiliation level kicked up another notch. I often woke up in the middle of the night way too close to T.J., my body curled around his, and I had assumed he slept right through it.

“I’m sorry. This was completely my fault. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea.”

“That’s okay, Anna. It’s no big deal.”

I kept my distance for the rest of the day, but that night, in bed, I said, “It’s true. What you said about the cuddling. It’s just that I’m used to sleeping with someone. I slept next to him for a really long time.”

“Is that who you were dreaming about?”

“No. It was one of those weird dreams that didn’t make sense. I don’t know who it was, actually. But I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t have to keep apologizing, Anna. I said it confused me. I never once said I didn’t like it.”

The next day, when I came back from the lagoon, I discovered T.J. sitting beside the lean-to prying his braces off with the knife.