Stranded

Stranded--11

(edited 07/30/19)

Chapter11

It was my turn to help collect firewood. Guess who I had to collect it with? Drake. Of all people! I swear to god they did this to us on purpose. Terry is done with my moping, and Nova doesn't seem to leave Drake's side now. Which, I try to ignore, by the way. It turns out, Nova disappears during the day to explore the island. She's gotten good at figuring out ways to collect water from the waterfall and has gone deep enough into the woods to catch small animals for us to eat. Not exactly my first choice for food, but food is food and cooked right, tastes so good when my stomach isn't hurting.

It was awkward walking with Drake in the woodsy part of the island looking for firewood. Neither of us spoke. I stole a few glances at Drake, but he was too busy looking at the ground searching for wood. I look up at the sky. The clouds look as if they are getting very dark. I gulp. The weather makes me think of when we crashed. The dark clouds mean trouble.

"Miranda?" Drake's voice snaps me out of my thoughts. I meet eyes with him.

"Er, yes?" I run a hand through my tangled hair. I miss my hairbrush.

"Are you okay? You look sorta scared."

"Oh! I'm-I'm fine! Hah." I say with a way too happy voice. I suck at lying to him.

"I can you'll lying to me. What's wrong, And-Miranda?"

I try not to smile when I hear he was about to say my nickname. Bad habits are hard to quit.

"I just don't like lightning. Thunder I can live with...but..." I trail off, tugging at the hem of my tattered top. Drake sighs and looks out over the trees.

"Hey, I understand. It makes you think of all this shit that's happening. The crash, the starving, losing everyone. Uh...us." I could barely hear what the last thing was, but I figured it out. I nod my head a little and start walking toward him. "That last one is your fault." I bend down and pick up some sticks.

"My fault?" He too took an arm full of sticks. I stand straight and look at him. The wind starts picking up, shaking the trees around us. I can smell the ocean from here. "Don't play dumb. You know it's all your fault. I tried to be honest with you, but you just turned me down."

"That's me being honest." He mutters.

I throw down everything I had in my arms. "Oh, really?!" I'm fuming now. Things were going fine in the beginning, but I guess we can only take each other for so long now.

"Ye...No." He mutters. He sit down on a huge rock and sets his pile down. I freeze. Did he just say no? Am I going crazy? "Okay, just listen to me." He says. I crouch down next to my pile I threw and just stared at his bare feet.

"I...I really do-" He stops and takes a deep breath. I don't say anything. I just sit frozen. I was honest with him before and now it's his turn. He needs to grow up and just get this over with so we can move on and figure out a way out of here.

"Okay. Miranda. Miranda! Look at me." I look up at him. I look at him in his caramel eyes. For once, he doesn't look away so we keep steady eye contact.

"Truthfully, I like you. A lot. But, I don't think that it's a smart idea to try and have something going on between us right now. I mean, we're stuck here. So...maybe after we're saved, we can talk about it again?"

I just stare into his eyes. I was looking for something in them. His eyes look like he means it. He finally says what I had been thinking. I guess if I had grown up a little and said it first, we might have never had to go through all this in the first place. We stare at each other for awhile before I finally smile softly, close my eyes, and nod my head,.