Sea (A Stranded Novel) (11 page)

Lisa stared wide
-eyed at the gun and felt tears trickle down her face. When Mark reached out and grabbed her ankle in a vise-tight grip and dragged her down the length of the bed, it was only a small whimper that escaped her throat, not nearly loud enough for anyone on the boat to hear.

When Emily woke the next morning
, she laid still and listened to David’s quiet breathing. She was so grateful to have him onboard with her. The ache in her lower back told her that sleeping in the cramped single bed with him was over. She needed to make peace with Lisa and that thought reminded her that they were almost to land. A few more days and they would start the final journey towards home. She was scared and excited all at the same time. Other than the high school drama, things had been so easy so far. Once they stepped off this boat, all that would change. She quietly left the bed and stepped out into the main cabin. There was no one in the room so she went to the bathroom and got cleaned up and brushed her teeth. There was no longer enough water for showers so she had a quick wash with a cloth and braided her hair back. When she came out, the cabin was still empty so she decided to make breakfast. They still had plenty of propane for the small stove so she dragged out the biggest pot and started making oatmeal. Emily added raisins and dried cranberries to sweeten it and left it on the stove to boil.

With only a few days left, she decided that today would be a good day to wash all of the dirty clothes. They wouldn’t be able to do much with them once they were walking. She went to her and Lisa’s door and knocked softly before opening it and going in. Emily didn’t even look at the bed but went straight to the pile of dirty clothes she and Lisa had been throwing in the corner. Gathering them up in her arms she turned to go back out when her eyes landed on the bed and she froze with surprise.

Sprawled across the bed with a sheet pulled over him was Mark. Even in sleep his face hadn’t softened, it still had a scowl on it. Emily glanced around but Lisa wasn’t in the room so she quickly left and softly closed the door behind her. She dumped the dirty laundry on one end of the couch and gave the oatmeal a quick stir. She turned the heat down on it and went over to the panel that had the gauges that showed the boats holding tanks levels. There was a quarter tank of fresh water left. They still had plenty of water bottles and jugs left so she figured it would be okay to wash the clothes as long as she used the water sparingly.

Emily went to the stairs and looked up to see who was at the wheel. Mason was standing behind it and looking ahead with a frown on his face. She pulled back and thought for a minute. Yesterday had been full of tension and she didn’t want today to be a repeat. So she filled a bowl with the steaming oatmeal and grabbed a spoon. Carefully carrying it up the stairs she brought it to Mason and hoped he would take it as a peace offering.

He studied her face as she held the bowl out to him and then he reached out and took it with a small smile. “Can you take the wheel for a minute while I eat?” he asked. “Just hold it steady.”

Emily stepped up to the wheel and took Mason’s place while he took a seat close to her. They didn’t speak for a while and Mason made short work of his breakfast. When he was done, he stared into his empty bowl.

“Thanks, Emily, this was really good. You should make a big pot of this before we leave the boat and take it with us. It would be easy to warm it up and it’s great carb and fiber-loaded food for when we are walking a lot.”

Emily was surprised at his comment. Mason hadn’t really talked about preparations for the long walk ahead and his comment was a really good idea.

“That’s a great idea, Mason. Good thinking!” She looked at him for a minute and then asked, “Are you okay?”

His head came up and his face showed confusion. “How can you be so nice to me after what I did to you?” he asked her in awe.

She shook her head. “You made a mistake, Mason. I know you are a good person but you struggle with it. Everybody makes mistakes. We’re teenagers; we are supposed to make mistakes! Besides, this isn’t really a good time to be fighting with each other. You know the whole end of the world thing? We really need to work together, especially in a few days when we hit land,” she said with a laugh.

Mason looked out to sea and was quiet for a minute. When he turned back to face her
, she saw such sadness on his face that she reached out her hand and grabbed his.

His voice was choked when he said, “God, I’m so sorry Emily. You didn’t deserve to be treated the way I treated you. Please forgive me?”

“Oh, Mason, of course I forgive you! Listen, listen to me. This is not an excuse for what you did but I understand some of the reasons for why you act this way. I know how much pressure you get from your dad to live up to your brother’s accomplishments. I know how hard he makes it for you to be the cool popular sports star. But your brother is a jerk! Just because he has talent with a football he thinks he can treat people like dirt. I mean, how many girls does the guy use and discard on a weekly basis? And the way he’s always bragging about his conquests and putting you down whenever he’s home. You have told me how much you don’t like him so tell me why would you want to live up to that? If you really want to be better than your brother then be better than him. You’ve shown me the good person inside of you now you need to show the rest of the world.” She wasn’t surprised to see the tears in Mason’s eyes and when his met hers, she finished. “Who you really need to show that to is Lisa.”

He rubbed his eyes, took a deep breath and nodded. “She’s over there at the bow. When Tim woke me up to change out with him she was already sitting out here. She hasn’t moved in a couple of hours. I think I really hurt her
, Emily. I don’t know if an apology is going to be enough to fix this.”

Emily left the wheel to Mason and moved to the side to get a better view of where Lisa was sitting. The girl had her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped tight around them. With a frown she turned back to Mason. “I went into our room this morning to get some clothes and Mark was sleeping in our bed. I think he was being a jerk and didn’t want to take his turn on the couch. He probably figured with me in David’s room he should get to share the bed with her. No wonder she came out here.”

Mason looked away from her and asked, “I know it’s none of my business now but are you and David together?”

“What? No! Mason, I told you this before. David is one of my best friends. I just needed some space from you and Lisa so I stayed in his room. This really isn’t the time to be playing musical boyfriends. Anyway, I think I’ll get Lisa a bowl of oatmeal and try to talk to her but you need to as well. We need to fix this mess before we hit land. There will be enough to worry about then without us fighting with each other.”

“You’re a really good person, Emily. I wish things had turned out differently,” Mason told her.

She gave him a sad smile and squeezed his arm before taking his empty bowl and going down to get Lisa some breakfast. She filled another bowl and said good morning to a sleepy David when he came out of the bathroom. Mark had still not come out of the main bedroom and she knew Tim would sleep for hours after staying up at the wheel all night. She handed the filled bowl to David and made another one to take up to Lisa. She considered eating it herself before taking one up to Lisa but the image of her sitting at the bow looking so alone made Emily push the thought aside. Grabbing another spoon, she carried the bowl up on deck and carefully made her way to the front of the boat where Lisa was sitting in a tight ball.

Lisa didn’t seem to register Emily coming up beside her but when she kneeled down, the girl jerked away like she was going to be hit. The eyes that met Emily’s were huge and had a sheen of tears on them. Taken aback by her reaction, Emily frowned in confusion.

“Oh Lisa,
it’s okay. I just brought you some breakfast!” she said compassionately.

Lisa took a deep breath and seemed to relax slightly. “You brought me breakfast?” she said, looking down at the bowl that Emily held out to her. When she looked back up into Emily’s eyes
, the tears started to trickle down her face. In a choked up voice she said, “After everything I’ve done to you, you brought me breakfast?” Lisa broke down into sobs. Her shoulders shook as she gasped out, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I’m a horrible person and you are so nice. I’m sorry!”

Emily set the bowl down on the deck and wrapped the crying girl in her arms. She made soothing noises and rubbed her trembling back. It took a while but eventually Lisa’s sobs quieted and she pulled back from Emily.

With red puffy eyes and a dripping nose, Lisa took a shuddering breath. “How can you be so nice? Why don’t you hate me?”

Emily looked out at the waves while she considered Lisa’s question. Finally, she turned back and tried to explain.

“We weren’t friends. You obviously wanted to be with Mason before we started to date and I know you didn’t sleep with him to hurt me.” At Lisa’s confused expression, Emily changed tact. “Alex is my best friend and has been for years. When I started dating Mason, I betrayed her by dropping her from my life. I dumped her for a guy. What I did to Alex was way worse than what you did to me, and Alex forgave me. She yelled at me first but she forgave me. So how can I not forgive you? Besides, you hurt someone else way more than you hurt me,” Emily said sadly.

Lisa cast her eyes down in shame and whispered, “Me.”

Emily put her hand on Lisa’s shoulder. “You are going to have to forgive yourself. And then there’s Mason.” At that, Lisa scowled in his direction. “What he did was pretty crappy and I’m not going to make excuses for him but I talked to him this morning and he’s feeling pretty awful. Strange as this may sound, I think he really gets what he did and wants to make amends.” Emily picked up the now cool bowl of oatmeal and held it out to Lisa. “You should really eat this. The last thing you need right now is another round of sea sickness. Not eating and being tired can start that up again.”

Lisa took the bowl and ate a spoonful. “Emily, I just want to say thank you. Even though we weren’t friends before, you have treated me like one - so thanks.”

Emily bumped shoulders with her and said, “Hey, we’re outnumbered! Us girls need to stick together.” Emily laughed. “Did you even get any sleep last night? I went in to our room this morning to get our dirty clothes to wash and saw Mark snoring away in our bed. Did the jerk decide he didn’t want to sleep on the couch? Just because I stayed in David’s room doesn’t mean he gets to kick you out of there!” Emily said hotly.

Lisa looked away but not before Emily saw dark shadows come into her eyes. “Yeah…he wanted the bed
,” Lisa mumbled.

Emily knew what a bully Mark could be and shook her head. “Well
, don’t worry about it. It won’t happen again. I’ll be staying with you in there now that we’ve worked stuff out and I plan on giving him a piece of my mind!”

Lisa’s head whipped around and she grabbed Emily’s arm. “No! Don’t do that. It’s fine. It’s not worth the fight. Just stay away from him. He will be trading with David tonight so it won’t be a problem
,” she said almost desperately.

Emily frowned but nodded. She knew that Mark gave her the creeps and Lisa must feel that way too. Lisa was right. It wasn’t worth getting into an argument with the guy.

“Okay, you’re right but that guy is a major ass…you know what! Anyway, I’m going to go down and grab something to eat and then wash out our clothes.” With that, she stood up to go.

Lisa looked up at her and shaded her eyes against the morning sun. “I’ll do the next laundry day if you don’t mind doing today’s. I just want to stay up here and do some thinking.”

“No problem, but I’m definitely holding you to that!” she promised. Emily went back down to the cabin, flashing Mason a quick smile as she passed. She had no idea that Lisa was desperately trying to avoid being in the cabin with Mark.

David was washing the breakfast dishes at the small sink and she asked him about his dirty clothes. She figured if she was going to do a wash she might as well do them all. Tim was still sleeping so his and Mason’s clothes would have to wait until later. As far as she was concerned, Mark could do his own. The guy hadn’t done any work on the boat so she had no problem letting him fend for himself. She ate a quick bowl of oatmeal while David gathered up his clothes and slipped her empty dish into the wash water. Adding David’s clothes to the pile
, she hauled it all to the bathroom.

Tim had a large plastic bucket that she filled with hot water and soap. Setting it in the shower/bath tub in the bathroom, Emily plunged each piece of clothing in and swished it around and tried to rub the fabric together to clean it. It wasn’t the best way to clean clothes but it was all she could think of under the circumstances. After she had wrung the soapy water out of each item
, she tossed it to the side. Once everything had been through the soapy water, she emptied out the bucket and filled it back up with clean water. Repeating the whole process with each article of clothing took forever and she had to stand up and stretch her aching back often. Emily let her mind wander while she worked and she flashed back on how much she used to complain when she had to do the laundry at home. Laughing at herself, she could only wish for the easy washing machine and dryer at home. She started to think about home and wondered if the generator they had on the farm still worked or if it was just as fried as everything else. That made her think of different ways they could get electricity and she made a mental note to ask David about a larger version of a science fair project they had done a few years ago in school. It was a simple windmill that they had set up to charge a battery. If they could make a large scale one it could maybe run a few things to make life easier. She was sure her dad had already thought about all these things but she wanted to think of the future and what they could do not just what they had lost.