Swept Away

by Beth O'Leary

A shiver runs over me like a bird skimming the water.

A sea fret. A sudden fog coming off the water. I remember there was one when I visited my dad here as a kid. Like someone’s taken an eraser to the world and left nothing but us.

I feel like a child again, and the idea of finding out the real truth…it’s terrifying. Better to wonder than to know you’re not loved.

The sea is absolutely everything the boat isn’t: it’s enormous, edgeless, with nothing to duck under or bump your hip on.

You’d think we would spend our whole time considering our imminent demise, but days are long, and there’s only so much panicking you can do before you get sick of yourself.

“You’re unspoilable.

I’m funnier with Zeke. He laughs so readily it makes me braver about saying the little things that pop into my head.

I hate compliments. They make me want to squirm away or redirect the person’s attention; right now I have the weirdest compulsion to point at the window and go, Hey, look, a whale!

I’m not surprised she doesn’t know why she did it. Lexi has so many walls up, it’s like entering a maze, and I don’t think she knows her way around herself, either.

“Everything you’ve told me about your life,” she says, “it doesn’t sound like you let people down. It sounds like you’ve not found people who make you feel like you’re enough.”

That quiet sadness in the back of my mind. The certainty that there’s no way to make myself into the right shape to fit in. I don’t remember ever feeling any other way—except lately. With Lexi. As terrifying as life is out here, I’m not straining to live up to something or acting out before I have the chance to disappoint. I don’t get that nagging sense that I’m just not quite right. She makes me feel at ease.

“How many are left?” “Plenty,” he says, and I know he’d give them all to me, and it makes me want to weep, that kindness, all his kindness. I should get up and fetch some food myself, my brain says, but I’m too tired for that old crap, and right now it’s easier than usual to say, Actually, why not just let someone else do the work for a minute?

“Do you think we could take a break from trying to cope with all this?” she says. “You want to freak out for a while?” “Yeah. This is just all completely fucking awful.”

When I’m with him, I feel different: like I’m worth what I used to think I was worth. Like I’m someone. That’s the gift he’s given me out here, and despite every horror we’ve been through, I feel genuinely lucky to have had this time with him.

“This morning I felt lucky. When we were on the boat, I kind of forgot we’re lucky. I kept thinking how unlucky we are, the stupid series of mistakes that got us stranded…But now that we’re here, it feels genuinely possible to live in the moment. I thought, people pay so much for that feeling. Yoga retreats, gap years, meditation apps…”

I haven’t stopped feeling scared or sad, but I’ve started feeling a lot of other things, too, and some of those things are louder. Joy. Hopefulness. Love, maybe, if I were the sort of person who could let myself call it that so soon.

I wince. She’s trying to make conversation. She did this all the time when I was a kid, because I was so quiet—she was always trying to get me to speak up when all I wanted to do was listen.

Jeremy always wants to help. He just wades in there, helping left, right and center, and if you happen to be in his path when he’s helping, you’d better be ready to dive out of the way.