Withering Hope (25 page)

I do see. I see the truth. He's in danger because of me. I'm a liability. I will get worse. That's what infections do. I can't help him fight the jaguars, and we can't leave. We can't do anything because of me. And he won't leave. Disease will rot me, and hunger and thirst will rot him, because he won't leave.

In this flash of a second, with my ear pressed against his chest, I understand what must happen for Tristan to leave.

I have to die.

S
ince the flesh on my ankle seems to disintegrate with each passing hour, and the pain intensifies at the same rhythm, one would assume I wouldn't have long to live. But death doesn't come as fast as I need it to. After two days of waiting to die, I search for ways to deliberately put myself in danger. It's not easy under Tristan's watchful eyes. I could take a knife and finish myself. I am in so much pain I would welcome any kind of relief. But Tristan has enough survivor guilt to torment himself, I don't need to add more. If I did that, I would take away from him the little freedom he gained in our time together. I try to stop drinking water, but Tristan makes sure I drink to the last drop, insisting I have to hydrate myself. My fever is dangerously high. The air in the plane is becoming sticky and heavy, impossible to breathe.

We haven't eaten anything in a day and a half, and the prospect of having a meal soon is nonexistent. Tristan's been trying to catch a bird. He's doing fine with the shooting part. The problem is when he pulls the thread at the end of the arrow. That doesn't work because, as usual, the jaguars capture the prey on the way. But Tristan doesn't give up. He shot one bird already today and is on his way to shooting the second. He tries not to shoot more than once a day because we don't have enough arrows. If he uses one arrow a day, we could theoretically last until the rescue team arrives. Unless he doesn't get us a meal with one arrow… then we might starve before the rescue team arrives. He hasn't succeeded yesterday, or today. I suppose that prompted him to use a second arrow today.

I stay curled in my seat, fighting sleep and exhaustion. It creeps in every single bone. Every time I wipe sweat from my forehead I'm reminded of the reason for my unnatural exhaustion. My fever is so high my brain must be fried. I eventually give in and drowse.

"Finally," Tristan announces, startling me. "Oh, look, the poor bird fell in your spine bush by the entrance when I shot it."

"Huh?" I ask, still fighting the tendrils of sleep.

"The spines with the black sap."

Through watery eyes I see Tristan pluck out a handful of spines from the bird's plumes. They are indeed the same kind of spines that left the black line on my shoulder. Tristan's gaze darts from the bird to me.

"How are you feeling Aimee?" The worry in his tone acts as an impulse. I force myself to sit straighter.

"Just a bit tired," I lie.

"Does your leg hurt?"

"It's not that bad today." This is not a lie. Either I'm so beyond pain I don't recognize it anymore (which I admit, is a realistic possibility) or the fever has somehow numbed me.

Tristan starts a very small fire just at the edge of the cracked door, roasting the bird. When we realized we would be forced to retreat inside the plane, we brought as much wood as possible inside.

After the bird is roasted, we eat it up hungrily. Then Tristan picks up one of the three cans lining the elevated airstairs. They contain the precious portion of water we can collect every day. As usual, Tristan drinks just a few gulps, then attempts to make me drink the rest.

"You should drink more water." I push away his hand holding the can to my lips.

"You need to hydrate. Your fever—”

"My fever will kill me anyway," I say. Tristan's hand freezes in mid-air, his knuckles turning white. "Let's not pretend, Tristan, just this one time."

"I can't… I don't want to think like this, Aimee. There is still a chance they will reach us in time."

"Tristan." His name spills out my lips with urgency. I want to say it as often as I can in the time I have left. "We both know even if that happens, the hike to the helicopter will take too long. I'll never survive."

He flinches hard. I shouldn't have been so blunt. I'm the one who’s accepted my death after all. He hasn't.

"I'm sure they have medicine with them," Tristan says. That has to be true. But my blood poisoning needs more than what a mobile arsenal can carry. No, what I need can only be found in a hospital. But his tone is so hopeful there's no doubt he's not faking it. This is not good. The sooner he lets go of hope and accepts truth, the better—the faster he'll recover when the inevitable happens. I open my mouth, then close it again, not sure how to put this in words. I can't find it in myself to break him. I don't know what's crueller: letting him hope, or robbing the hope from him.

As if guessing what's on my mind, he presses his lips to mine, and no more words slip out. He sits next to me, and I melt in his kiss, losing myself in his taste and warmth, allowing my skin to tingle with need for him, and my body to soak up his proximity. My hands roam his body, driven by a will of their own—they caress his hard abdomen, the sharp ridges of his hipbones, and travel all the way to his back. He has become so thin. His hands travel over me with equal intensity. There's no restraint in his touch anymore. Since I was bitten, he's restrained, as if he's afraid his kisses or touch might break me. But not now. I revel in the feeling. His passion burns away every thought and worry. Like a balm, it runs through the cracks that have splintered me these last few days in which I tried to keep my pain hidden from him.

"You're everything to me, you know that? You always will be," he whispers against my lips. Tendrils of reality raze at me at the word
always
, but I push them away. I don’t want to bring reality up this very second. I refuse to lose what is mine for certain—the present—by worrying over a future I have no control over.

"Always?" I ask in a playful tone. "That's a serious statement right there."

He gazes at me with warm eyes. "Always. I would marry you in a heartbeat and take care of you until we're both old, wrinkly, and nagging. I'd brew you coffee every morning and hold you tightly in my arms every night. It would be a privilege to watch you fall asleep every night. I can't imagine anything more beautiful and fulfilling than growing old next to you and taking care of you. Always loving you."

My heart skips a beat at the impossible beauty of his words. "Tristan, I…" Words fail me, as usual.

"Would you say yes?" His eyes search mine with chilling urgency, and he inches closer to me. I feel the caress of his warm breath on my lips. "Would you marry me if we were in another place, and I could give you a big wedding, like the one you always dreamed of?"

I push him away, playfully. "No way."

His breath hitches, pain shadowing his gaze. I didn't come off as playful. "I wouldn't want a big wedding," I continue, "I'd want a small, intimate one."

"Yeah?" The corners of his lips tug upwards in a smile. "After which you'd run away to solve a big case."

I frown. "I wouldn’t want to solve cases anymore, or be a lawyer."

"Really?"

"No, I… I'd want to do something else."

"There's a good chance I'd reconsider piloting for a living."

"You, sir, would never get on a plane again. Ever." I kiss him, pulling him closer to me. "You could give that doctor thing a try."

"Nah, I'm too old," he whispers when we break off.

"You are twenty-eight. That is in no way old."

"So you would marry me?"

"I would."

"You said wouldn't want a big wedding… how would you like our wedding to be? Where would you want it to be?"

I lay my head on his chest, trying to envision what that day would look like. "Hmm, somewhere outside, with just a few close friends attending. To be honest, I'd love it if it was just the two of us, but I know a few people who wouldn't forgive me for not inviting them. I'd like to wear a simple dress and be surrounded by lots of flowers, exotic ones like the ones here, if we could get them." After a pause I add, "And I'd like to get one of those tattoos you said natives do."

Tristan tilts my chin up until I look at him. He's grinning. "I thought you found it barbaric."

"Because at the time I didn't understand what it meant to want to give yourself to someone completely. I do now." He pulls me up to him. I wish he wouldn't, because a tear has found its way down my cheek, and I want to hide it. Tristan catches it with his thumb, glancing at it stricken.

"Aimee," he whispers, and in this moment, all I can think of is what a privilege it is to hear him say my name, and how very few times I have to enjoy the luxury of hearing him say it. I hate it. Most of all, I hate there will never be a wedding. I'll never stay next to him in white, exchanging vows. The longing to do that hits me fast, and so hard it wipes the air from my lungs. If I could have one last wish granted, it would be to do that. I don't understand why it's suddenly so important, but it would give me the peace I lost when I realized I won't make it out of here. When Tristan looks at me, he reads my thoughts. I see he wants to reassure me that it's not true, that I'll have lots of time—months, years—to hear him say my name. But now I'm the one who doesn't let him say anything. To silence him, I press my mouth to his, allowing his lips to envelop me with that wonderful power they have to wipe away every thought. I'm glad we had this conversation. I know how important it was to him. When you are healthy you think you have all eternity to say what matters. When you're sick you learn how to live every moment, and how to make every moment matter. How sad that we learn this when we're about to run out of time. I would have never told him this if I were healthy. Embarrassment and inhibition have always kept me from expressing my deepest desires, hopes, and thoughts. I guess in a way, I cannot consider my illness a complete curse.

We break apart, gasping for air, and then he wraps me in a tight embrace, kissing my forehead. "Well, if you want to be surrounded by lots of exotic flowers, we'd better pack a handful of them when we leave this place," he says jokingly. Then he leaps to his feet. I pull myself up straighter, my heart hammering a million miles an hour as I look around, trying to find what alerted him. I don't see anything that could pose a threat.

"We could do it here," he says.

"Do what here?" I ask blankly.

"Get married." He cups my face in his hands. "There are more than enough flowers, and you have a white dress. The one you didn't want to wear because it was too long. Kind of hard to get rings, but we could do without them for now. We have some of those spines with coloring sap," he says, pointing to the stack of spines he plucked from the bird. "We can use them for the tattoos. What do you say?" I fumble with the buttons of his shirt, fighting tears. He can’t possibly understand how much this means to me.

"Cold feet already so soon after saying yes? What do you say, Aimee?" he beckons me to answer.

"I'd love that," I whisper.

He presses his lips on my forehead. "I'll sneak out to bring some flowers…"

"No way. I've memorized all the flowers on the inside of the fence anyway. I'll just imagine we have them here."

"I'll help you change in your white dress after I change. Or do you want to me to help you before?"

"No, no… I'll change on my own."

"But you can't—”

"Please, Tristan. I'd like to do this myself."

"All right."

He goes inside the cockpit, a feeling fluttering in my stomach. Since I can barely move, I crawl to my suitcase, gritting my teeth as pain sears my leg with even the lightest movement. I refuse to look at my leg and put on the white dress with dark blue lace, thankful for its length. I'll have to make sure it doesn't slide sideways, revealing my leg. That would be a definite mood-killer. I comb my hair, letting it fall on my back. It feels strange after the months I've worn it in a bun. I find the makeup bag I stuffed at the bottom of the suitcase when we first made an inventory of what we had. I forgot I had it. I open it, and in the small mirror on the inside of the cap, I see my reflection and gasp. I look horrible, like someone sucked the life out of me. My skin is a sickly pale color. I must have lost far more weight than I thought, because my cheekbones are very prominent. They make the deep, dark circles under my eyes look even more haunting. I sigh, biting my lip. I wish Tristan could remember me beautiful. It's a silly wish to have right now, but I don't care. He has enough ugly memories.