Page 46 of Shipwrecked

We eat pasta. Pasta. With tuna and mayonnaise, out of plastic bowls with metal cutlery.

“I love carbs,” Mathieu says. We’re sitting side by side, basking in the firelight. “I love carbs more than I love cheese.”

“Tons of carbs in cheese,” I say between bites.

“You’re very wise.”

We collapse into each other, snickering. There’s a buoyant edge to it, like mid-laugh I might plunge suddenly into tears. I can’t fathom where the instability is coming from. Exhaustion? It was a long day. The raft was done just in time for one run, and getting it across the distance was tiring.

Cillian’s on the other side of the fire. He’s been giving both me and Mathieu the cold shoulder since lecturing us at the yacht.

Mary clears her throat. “Now that we have blankets, Charles and I are going to move our sleeping spot down the beach tomorrow. It’s been a long week, and I think we’re all wishing for a private room to decompress in…”

“That’s a good idea,” Willow agrees. “Yasop and I might do the same. There’s no reason safety-wise we can’t, right?” She looks between Cillian and Seán.

Seán nods. “So long as there’s someone always here to keep the fire going, there’s no reason at all. Just let others know where you’re going to be so we can find you if we need.”

Willow has sat next to Mary for every meal since we arrived, but today she’s across from her, next to Yasop instead. I know in most cases sitting next to your boyfriend is the norm, but not for Willow and Mary.

“Anyone have any luck with their phone?” Darren asks. He’s got his buried in a bag of rice. The cupboards, designed to stay shut, kept a good deal of food dry over the past week. Anything that wasn’t in need of refrigeration is in decent shape. But everyone’s phones, inside our bags, were left sitting in water.

“I had mine inside a waterproof sleeve,” I say. “But it’s dead. My power bank got wet, and it’s broken.” I set down my bowl next to the rescued cooking pot. Even that tiny movement leaves my arms trembling. It’s as if I’ve trekked up Carrauntoohil on my hands.

“You specifically put your phone into a waterproof cover but decided ‘why bother’ for the power bank?” Darren asks.

“Yes, I did. Because my phone cost four hundred euro and the power bank cost five, I didn’t care if it broke. Why don’t you have a power bank kept in a waterproof bag?”

“So if you had swum out the day I suggested it, your phone would still have been alive, and we could have called for help?” Darren challenges.

The conversations around the fire peter out. Cillian puts his bowl aside. “Jules couldn’t even turn his head. I am the one who said it was too dangerous.” He fixes Darren with a hard, pointed look. I realise that I was wrong about Cillian being angry with Mathieu and me. At no point did he look at us like that.

“He didn’t even mention that his phone was in a waterproof bag,” Darren continues. “If he had—”

“Screw off, Darren,” Mary says. “We had two days of crazy waves after we washed ashore, his phone would have been dead by the time it was safe enough to swim out.”

“A four-hundred-euro phone would have had some charge after three days.”

That gets a couple of snorts.

“Mine cost more than my computer, and it barely lasts a day without needing to be plugged in,” Willow says.

Darren’s gaze flashes across the group. I see him realise that nobody agrees with him. Tense, he leans back, weight resting on his palms. “Sorry. The food and supplies are great and all, but I thought the whole point of swimming out there was to radio for help. Going from thinking I’d be sleeping in an actual bed tonight to having no idea when we’ll be found is messing me up.”

After a few beats of silence, Darren gets up. “I’m turning in.”

I watch him disappear into his lean-to before getting up myself. “Me too.” I brush my teeth and focus on the comfort of it, determined not to let Darren ruin the feeling. In the lean-to, I kick off my shorts and rest my head on the pillow. Soon, Mathieu is there.

He slips under our new blanket and wraps his arms around me, hugging me from the front. “Thank you for dinner,” Mathieu says softly. He flattens both hands on my back and rubs slowly upward. I shiver, unwinding beneath his steady touch.

The wobble is back. The teetering instability. What is wrong?

“Your muscles feel tight. Are you sore? You did a lot of exercise today. I still can’t believe you did that… I wish I’d seen Cillian’s face when he realised you’d followed him.”

I bury my face into Mathieu’s neck. He rests his chin against the top of my hair.

“What’s wrong?” he asks in his soothing, lovely voice. “Is it Darren? He’s being unreasonable, lashing out at you like this. It’s immature.”

I greedily soak up his warmth and kindness. “I thought we’d be getting rescued today too,” I admit. “We’d call home, and this would be over.”