I’m getting her off this island.
Nothing else matters anymore.
Chapter 17
Charlotte Gallagher
It’s Christmas morning.Or at least Dane says it is.
The date exists entirely on his best estimate now—years of carved marks, counted days, routines kept with near-obsessive consistency. He could be off by a few days in either direction, and neither of us would ever know.
It doesn’t really matter.
Dane decided today is Christmas, so today is Christmas.
I wake before him, which almost never happens.
For a while I stay completely still in the gray early light, not ready to move yet. The nausea is already there, low and persistent enough that even the thought of sitting up feels exhausting.
So I don’t.
I lie there instead, listening to the island wake around us. The distant rhythm of the ocean. Wind shifting through the treesoutside the shelter. Somewhere farther off, birds beginning to stir.
Beside me, Dane is still asleep, breathing slow and steady with one arm draped loosely around my waist.
I stare up at the ceiling and let the morning settle quietly around us.
There’s something softer about the morning. Not anything visible. Just the feeling of it. Like the day’s been separated from all the others simply because we decided it should be.
I let myself sit with that for a little while.
When Dane wakes, it happens instantly. One second asleep, the next completely alert and aware of everything around him.
His eyes find mine immediately.
“It’s Christmas.”
“So you’ve said,” I tell him.
That small smile appears at the corner of his mouth.
We put the tree up a few days ago.
Not a real tree. Just a thick branch Dane found inland, forked enough to vaguely resemble one once he anchored it upright beside the shelter.
I decorated it with whatever we had that felt worth keeping. Shells tied on with braided fiber. Small objects we’ve carried around for years for reasons neither of us could fully explain. A few dried flowers from the northern trail.
It doesn’t really look like Christmas.
It looks like us.
Honestly, that feels more real anyway.
Yesterday I stood in front of it and felt something I couldn’t quite explain. Not nostalgia or grief. Something quieter than both. Just the feeling of life continuing anyway, even here.
The gifts sit at the base of the branch, wrapped in broad leaves and tied with braided fiber.
But we eat first. I don’t really want to, but Dane offered to cook, and I let him. He’s clearly made an effort with it—fruit sliced carefully, portions slightly larger than usual, everything arranged on the flat stone with more attention than any of it actually needs.
