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"Why, because that would be selfish? Tristan, you've earned the right to be selfish for two lifetimes. And for the record, I don't think you're being selfish at all."
He watches me for a long time before he asks, "Then will you stay here next to me? Even after I fall asleep?"
A shive
r runs up my spine as I answer, because I've never felt this needed in my life. "I will. I promise."
"Good."
"Now, come up with something nice to dream about," I urge.
To my astonishment, he chuckles. "Oh, I know what I can use to start my dream training."
"I'm all ears."
"I'm hoping for a mental replay of your naked dance today," he says, grinning.
"Tristan! And I had deemed you a gentleman because you didn't mention it."
"It was fantastic."
I pinch his chest playfully with my fingers. And regret it. Touching him this little is enough to give me goose bumps on my arms. Goose bumps he can't miss, even though there's scarce light, because his other hand shoots to my arm, pinching me back. He sucks in his breath when he feels my skin under his fingers. I wish now there was not even the glow of moonlight in the plane, so I couldn't see the glint of desire in his eyes.
"Promise me you won't think about that," I say, praying that he'll take my reaction as a manifestation of my embarrassment.
Pulling back his hand he says, "Hey, that's not fair. You said I could be selfish."
"But that's my body you are talking about. I forbid you to dream about it."
"You'll never know," he says.
But I do know. Because when he falls asleep, he starts mumbling again about bombs and everything being his fault, and it's not until he rests his head on my chest, slinging his arms around me, that he calms down. I don't sleep for one minute the rest of the night, guilt chocking me. I stare at my diamond ring until I get teary.
"Can we slow down a bit, please?" I pant a week later, during our daily raid in the forest for food. "I need to rest a bit."
"I'd rather we got to the plane, Aimee."
"Just one minute, please."
"Fine," he scrutinizes me, as if expecting me to collapse at his feet any minute now, which is possible. "Rest here a few minutes until I collect some more fruit. I saw some ripe ones up there." He points to a tree to our right. "I'll keep an eye on you."
"I have no doubt," I say in a whisper that's covered by the squawk of some kind of animal hiding in the tree. The sounds of life scurrying in every direction, on every inch of the forest don't frighten me as much as they used to. Not the croaks, or shrills, or the chorus of other indistinguishable buzzing noises. I can't quite say the same about the howls of predators, but I'm trying to channel that fear into learning how to defend myself.
The minute Tristan turns his back to me and starts climbing the tree, I drop the fruit I’m carrying, rest against a tree, and draw deep breaths. I close my eyes. I can't go on like this. My insomnia is worse. Between Tristan's nightmares and my consuming guilt, I never manage to sleep more than an hour a night. I can’t concentrate, and I'm paying for it. Yesterday I stumbled over some roots and cut my left foot, so now I'm limping. Tristan insisted he put antibiotics on it so that wiped out half of our meagre supply. If something worse happens, we have next to nothing to treat ourselves with. I need to sleep more, or I'll become a liability soon. What with a fresh set of jaguar prints we discovered yesterday inside our fence, I can't afford that. The good part is that we are almost sure it's just that one jaguar. The bad part is that since he keeps coming back, he must have found the place interesting. Tristan still insists we should do all tasks together, and I'm not against the idea anymore. Whenever he disappears from my eyesight, even for just a few seconds, I'm terrified that something might have happened to him.
We haven't yet found a strong enough poison. Tristan tried countless plants that looked poisonous last week, taking their leaves and making concoctions out of them. He tested the poisoned arrows on a few poor, unsuspecting birds. The results weren't great. In fact, not even good.
"Aimee."
I startle, opening my eyes. I dozed off.
"Are you okay?" Tristan asks.
"Yeah, unless an army of ants crept up my arms again." This is a lesson I've learned the hard way: never sit on the forest floor or rest against a tree for more than a few seconds. Insects and reptiles hide on tree bark, ready to strike when they get the chance.
"Gather your fruit, I'll carry everything else. We should go back."
I unhitch myself from the tree, inspecting my arms. Not one insect or sign of a sting. Whew. "This must be some kind of miracle." I bend down to gather the fruit I dropped at my feet, when the tree bark catches my attention. It's white, as if someone painted it. And there are no insects on it. I take out my pocket knife and make a long cut into the bark. It's superficial, but a dark brown liquid starts coming out of the crack, as if the tree were bleeding.
