Cristelle Comby - Alone Together

I rather thought it was. If these were my last moments on this earth, then I wanted to take a peaceful memory with me into the void. With no effort on my part, Anne-Marie’s face sprung into my mind. She was standing on the beach, dressed in that stupid chocolate aficionado shirt, a pair of too-large denim shorts, basking in a warm summer afternoon glow. Hands on her hips, head turned my way, there was an intelligent gleam behind her round blue eyes, an easy smile on her lips, always that wild mop of curly brown hair surrounding her.

Somehow, I knew with dead certainty that my friend would make it to shore. She was too damned stubborn for her story to end any other way. I found solace in the thought that she’d live on.

I’d played my part in her survival, hadn’t I? Yes, I liked to think I had. I’d done my part. I’d been of real use to someone, for once. I had mattered. That was enough.

That thought I took with me as I sank deeper and deeper into the cold darkness below.

All of a sudden, my hand was pulled upwards. Shards of pain shot through my arms as they were twisted at an odd angle. Something grabbed me and pulled, and then…

Then there was air again.

Blissful, delightful, salted air. I breathed in as much as I could, as fast as I could. I choked on it, my lungs surprised at the sudden change to the point of being overwhelmed.

My sluggish brain had a hard time figuring out what had happened; my situation gave a new meaning to the term ‘brain freeze’. But when my gaze settled on my companion, it all made sense. Anne-Marie was there, treading the cold water next to me. Her hair was plastered to the sides of her face whilst she fought hard to keep her lips from trembling. She had one of my arms draped around her shoulders, a fistful of the back of my jacket in one hand with a string of our cobbled-together rope clutched in the other. She looked more than determined to get a move on.

Once I nodded to her, she moved away a little to pull on the rope—once, twice—before tugging on my arm to draw me close again. The waves protested her presence. She was rigging the life and death game we’d been playing together. I smiled, realising that the waves had no idea who they’d gone up against.

Paddling to fight the currents, Anne-Marie screamed at the difficulty of the task but kept going. She pulled and tugged again and again until she had enough rope to tie around me. Then, using both hands, she yanked at the rope, even as she fought to stay afloat herself.

The waves had to know they were losing the fight, which was why they renewed their effort to drown me. They came at us hard and fast, a last-ditch effort to reach their goal. Yet Anne-Marie never let go of that tiny rope. She kept yanking and yanking, bringing us closer and closer to the raft.

Our mismatched, dishevelled assortment of floating spare parts was a marvellous sight to behold. And a surreal one, what with the angry skies exploding above us with lightning and thunder, the waves battling for dominion of the seas and our tiny raft rocking back and forth as it fought to stay above the surf. Anne-Marie hoisted herself up first before reaching a hand down to me to grab. I reached back and our fingers clasped together.

I could feel the ocean water trying to retain me, hold onto my torso and legs, in a final, desperate attempt to pull me back under. But Anne-Marie kept on pulling, sheer stubbornness etched into every line of her young face, pulled and pulled until I was finally free.

On the uneven deck, I curled into a ball, gathering as much warmth as I could, my exhausted lungs now fighting to expel the last of the wretched water. It burned as much on the way back as it had on the way in. The rope Anne-Marie had used to save me was still tied around my torso. I saw her looping it through one of the raft’s hinges before tying the other end around herself. That’s when she collapsed into a heap next to me.

Her face was ashen white. I knew she had to be freezing. We both were. Icy rain still fell hard on us, but I found some solace in the thought that we were both alive to feel it. Alive and defying the elements again. Same as it ever was with us.

Fighting the pain of seizing muscles, I forced all the strength I had left in my right arm and reached out for her. Turning to face me more fully, she grabbed my wrist. “Thank you,” I said, willing my eyes to carry the message she may not have otherwise understood.

A bolt of lightning exploded above us, illuminating the smile on her face. “You’re welcome,” it said in the oldest language humans knew. I pulled her close to me, huddling for warmth, remaining as one in our mutual gratitude.

Through our trauma and pain, we’d forged a new way for us to communicate. At that moment, there was no longer a need for words. Not now. Now, it was just Anne-Marie and me… and the ocean around us.

I squeezed her tightly, giving back some of what she’d given me while the chilly rain began to let up.

I was cold. So very, very cold. Not to mention tired, aching, hungry and thirsty. But mostly, I was cold. And alive, so very much alive.

And not alone , I thought, curling my fingers a little more around Killian’s. Not alone . Though his fingers were colder than mine, they gripped back.

I could feel small tremors course through them, a clear sign that he was still alive too. Alive, but barely hanging on. At this point, we were likely keeping one another alive, not with the warmth of our bodies—what little we had left—but with the electromagnetic pulses of our hearts.

That storm had quieted sometime before the first break of dawn. In the distance, the sun was rising, pale hues of red and pink reaching out through wisps of mist and banks of clouds. On the flat expense of blue that surrounded us, our tiny boat of fortune kept on floating.

So much had happened, so many things we’d been through. Alone and together.

There’d been highs. There’d been lows. But always we drifted back together. Always, we’d endured. We’d won the fight against Mother Nature, becoming survivors. Forever changed. Forever strengthened. Forever improved.

I dreaded to think what would happen now. I’d never let myself think about tomorrow and so hadn’t made any plans for it. I couldn’t have, not when today itself was such a fight, when each new moment had the potential to be the last. But that was a fight that had been fought successfully. Now… now, there was the prospect of a life full of tomorrows and a later.

Or a very short life of Killian and I dying of thirst on a boat surrounded by water that neither of us can drink , a rude voice in my head said. I swatted it aside. At that moment, under the shy rising sun, I chose to be an optimist. I chose to believe that we were going to be rescued, that we were going to live. A whole life. I had no idea what to do with it, but I knew it was going to be beautiful.

We’d have to go back home, I suppose. Back to where we came from, to our lives and families. Two different places, where the other didn’t belong. A sad thought, that new reality.

Killian’s fingers shook beneath mine. Not that we had gotten used to each other with the island life. But we’d been keeping one another alive on a biological level. If that wasn’t true intimacy, I didn’t know what was. I tightened my grip around his fingers. Another goodbye of sorts, like back at the island.

I turned my head to face him. His eyes were closed on his pale face. The salt had dried and caked here and there on the ridges of his skin, at the corner of his mouth. When I gripped his fingers harder, one eye flickered open, soon followed by the other.