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I shake my head, feeling a pang of frustration at my own ignorance. "I don't know," I admit, my voice tinged with regret. "But we'll figure it out. We'll make it through this, Paige. I promise."
“Don’t say that! You don’t know!” Her wailing is grating on my nerves. I have a headache. I can’t think straight. She keeps going, bitching about a meeting and her missing shoes. On and on.
"Shut up!" The words burst out of me before I can stop them, a desperate plea born from frustration and exhaustion. Shrieking solves nothing, and in our current predicament, it only serves to exacerbate the tension between us. I’m not exactly in the best shape myself.
Paige recoils as if I've slapped her, her eyes blazing with fury. "Excuse me?" she snaps, her voice dripping with venom. "Who do you think you are, telling me to shut up?"
I grit my teeth, struggling to keep my own temper in check. "I'm the one trying to keep us alive," I retort, my voice low but firm. "And your incessant yelling isn't helping anyone. I can’t think when you’re screaming at me. I didn’t crash the plane. You’re damn lucky I’m as good as I am, or your ass would be sitting on the bottom of the ocean."
She opens her mouth to fire back another retort, but I cut her off with a sharp gesture. "Enough," I say, my tone leaving no room for argument. "We need to focus on getting off this island, not wasting our energy on pointless arguments."
With a huff of frustration, Paige turns away, her shoulders tense with anger. But I saw the fear lurking beneath the surface, the same fear that gnaws at my own insides. I am fully aware how dire our situation is. I wasn’t exactly planning to die. I wasn’t ready for it.
I watch as Paige stomps away, snatching up her purse. I watch her, wondering what exactly she thinks she’s going to do. She pulls out her cell phone and lifts it in the air, turning around in circles as she tries to get a signal. I can't help but find it comical, given our remote location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
"Good luck with that," I mutter, unable to suppress a bitter chuckle. "We're in the middle of nowhere."
Her response is a scathing glare, but I can see the uncertainty lurking in her eyes. We're both out of our depth here, grappling with a situation neither of us could have prepared for.
“It doesn’t hurt to try!” She says and walks away.
“I’m just thinking our time might be better served doing something productive,” I tell her as calmly as I can. “This isn’t solving anything.”
“Go away,” she snaps and continues to try and get a signal.
I understand she’s in shock. Even if we could get a signal, her phone had gone for a swim. If it turned on at all, that was great, but I couldn’t imagine it was going to be functional.
I can feel my frustration mounting with every passing second. Paige's anger gives way to tears, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. She drops her phone in the sand.
For a moment, I'm taken aback, caught off guard by the raw vulnerability on display. Her icy demeanor and sharp tongue put me on edge. She’s not exactly been kind. But in this moment of crisis, I see her for what she truly is—a scared, vulnerable woman grappling with the same fear and uncertainty as I am.
Without thinking, I reach out and pull her into my arms, a gesture born more out of instinct than anything else. She fights against it at first, her body rigid with tension. But slowly, she begins to relax, her sobs subsiding into quiet sniffles.
We may not like each other, but in this moment of shared vulnerability, we find a strange kind of solace in each other's embrace. We've survived a crash that should have killed us both, and in the aftermath, our differences seem insignificant.
We clung to each other on the desolate beach. If I was being honest, I needed the hug just as much as she did.
Eventually, Paige pulled back slightly, her eyes meeting mine with a newfound sense of understanding. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice tinged with guilt."
Chapter 7
Paige
I wipe away the tears, feeling a flush of embarrassment burn hot on my cheeks. Crying has never been my style, and to break down like this in front of Travis, of all people, is humiliating. I quickly pull myself together, straightening my spine and squaring my shoulders, as if the simple act of standing tall can erase the vulnerability I've just revealed.
"Where are we?" I demand, my voice firm and steady despite the lingering traces of emotion. "What do we do now?”
Travis meets my gaze, his expression unreadable. "I put out a mayday," he replies, his voice calm and measured. "Someone will be by soon. We just have to sit tight."
Something in his voice makes me feel like there is more to the story. “Sit tight?” I ask. “What does soon mean?”
“I put out the mayday when the first engine died,” he explains. “But I didn’t have any instruments and have no idea how far we flew. I have a general idea of the direction, but I can’t say for sure.”
“Explain it to me like I’m not a pilot,” I snap.
He takes a deep breath. “Basically, our last coordinates are anywhere from forty to sixty miles away from where we are right now, assuming I was flying in a straight line.”
“Okay, so they fly around and look for us, right?”
