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“What about the candy?”
“It rots your teeth.”
Raine smiled with one eyebrow arched towards me but didn’t laugh again.
“Change the fucking subject,” I warned. “Otherwise I’m going to start being a dick.”
She smiled without the cocked eyebrow and nodded.
Raine asked me about living on the ship and talked about a lot of trivial shit like people she knew in high school and movies she had seen over the winter. She talked a lot about her friend Lindsay, the one who had talked her into a cruise. I just sat and listened and felt my stomach start to churn and my hands start to shake more. I wished to God I had a fucking coffee with Kahlua right at that moment.
If you can’t change it, don’t fucking think about it. It’s nothing but a waste of time. Focus on the things you can do.
Yeah, well, there weren’t a whole lot of things I could do right at the moment. Sorry, Landon.
It was starting to get dark again, so I demonstrated setting off the flare in actuality instead of just in theory. I spent a few minutes looking over the horizon again, hoping to see the lights of some ship out there, but there was still nothing visible.
I was really tired and starting to feel a little sick to my stomach. I was pretty certain it wasn’t from the rocking motion. I skipped the nighttime “meal” and stretched out on the floor of the raft, leaving the blanket-towels to Raine if she wanted them. She spread one of them out on the other side of the raft and then tried to give the second one to me. I shook my head and waved her away.
“I don’t need it,” I said. “It might get a little cold after a while though. Keep it.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s what I fucking said, wasn’t it?” Damnit. I really needed to stop doing that, but I hadn’t operated with a verbal filter for a long, long time.
Raine glared long swords at me but refrained from doing anything violent.
As the sun set completely and enclosed us in pitch blackness, I closed my eyes and listened to her breathing slow down, but never regulate enough to indicate sleep. I couldn’t manage to drop off, because of all things, I was feeling fucking guilty about what I had said to her before. I wasn’t going to apologize because…well…because I just didn’t do that. Probably because I had to be a dick to keep people from cozying up to me, and I definitely didn’t like to ever admit I’d been wrong. Regardless, I felt like I ought to say something.
“Raine?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks for…um…stitching up my head and shit.”
“You’re welcome, Daniel.”
I guess I really didn’t need to be a complete dick after all.
Chapter 4 – Pain
My gut hurt.
I didn't bother trying to open my eyes - my head hurt bad enough with them closed. Along with my head and my gut, my chest, back, arms, legs and pretty much everywhere else hurt, too.
Oh – and everything was shaking. I couldn’t even tell if I was hot or cold because I was shaking so much I couldn’t really feel my skin. The shaking was in the way. It didn’t make any sense to me, either.
I was certain if I moved I was going to puke. I was reasonably sure if I did not move I was also going to puke. The only real question was whether or not I could make it to the raft entrance and get it opened before whatever was in my stomach decided to come out.
I moved as quickly as my shaking limbs would allow. Thankfully, even with the shaking, I did get the damn thing open and the flap pulled back. The heated sea wind hit my face, and the fresh air calmed my stomach for about thirty seconds.
Those thirty seconds were followed by the most violent vomiting I had ever experienced.
I rocked back and forth on my knees, heaving what little had been in my stomach into the sea. After a dozen retches I was only dry-heaving, which I always thought was worse than actual puking. It wouldn’t stop, and my stomach muscles were aching even more.
My hands were shaking so bad, I was having a hard time just keeping myself perched on the edge of the raft without just tossing myself overboard. I could feel my heart beating so hard in my chest, I wouldn’t have been totally shocked to see it come bursting right out of my skin. Sweat began to pour down the back of my neck, which just had to fucking stop because I was going to get dehydrated enough as it was. I gripped the hem of my shirt and pulled it off.
“Daniel?”
