Beach Day

56: Brave Faces

When she steps through, her mouth feels a little too wet and the sun through the dark clouds is a little too bright. There's a tickle in her throat. When she coughs, there's blood.

"Dramatic," she mutters, wiping it off her lips.

"What's dramatic?" Andy asks, a dozen yards in front of her and closer to the truck.

"Nothing," she lies. "I'm fine."

He rolls his eyes, playing the part of a petulant kid brother even though he's a little too old and non-archetypical for that. "Matt! Tiff's got blood on her mouth!"

Matt pokes his head around the side of the truck. "What? Excuse me?"

"I am fine." She gives Andy a withering look. "I'm fine, Matt. Nothing's wrong."

"There's blood on your teeth," he disagrees. "I can see it from here."

"Shit." She gathers as much spit as she can to the front of her mouth and spits into the grass on the side of the road. Sighing, she walks closer to the truck and urges Andy to do the same.

"You know, Tiff— I'm starting to think I shouldn't let you do this. I think you should go back with Drew and Andy."

"Absolutely not. I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep."

"Don't quote poetry to me."

"Pedestrian. Frost. I could get so much worse. Start quoting Blythe Baird."

"Her poetry has nothing to do with this kind of situation." He narrows his eyes at her and distracts with, "Why are you watching slam poetry?"

"Why are you watching slam poetry?" she counters.

"See— You need to get in the truck. You're obviously delirious."

"I am not. Quite being an ass."

"Then come back here so we can fix up Drew as well as we can and I can splint your arm."

"Fine!" She doesn't want to cooperate for some reason (contrarian defiance, she thinks), but she does it anyway. He grabs her good hand to help her up into the bed, where Drew is already played out. There they are: a moment of frantic first aid while they prepare for the next move, whatever it may be. They just need the kit.

Matt pats his pockets like he's looking for something. "Oh, shit," he realizes, with no elaboration.

She'll bite. "Shit, what?"

"Shit, my keys are gone. I must have dropped them somewhere in the woods or the cave. And the first aid kit's locked in the truck."

"Oh, shit," she agrees. "Shit, indeed."

"We can figure this out," he says, like he isn't actually all that sure they can do that. "We've got this. We're both rational adults who know how to find things they've lost and definitely don't both lose things all the time with no hope of finding them."

"I'm sure we can." She gets down out of the truck bed to consider the issue. "There's a simple solution."

"Says you! You never know where anything is. Oh, god, we're so fucked—"

"First of all, panicking is my job, so quit it. Second, I need you to bear with me. Where did you leave them?"

"On my belt, Tiff." He says it like that was obvious. (It wasn't.)

"And where's the last place you would actually put them?"

He gives her a disappointed, pale-shook sigh. "I think I might have dropped them in the woods."