Nadine

I blink in the bright sunlight that filters into the room. I don’t remember how I got here, or what happened, but I’m dimly aware that there’s been some passage of time, and I’ve been sick.

I sit up in bed, then freeze when my hair tumbles over my shoulder. It’s in a braid. I never braid my hair. Did Adrian?

I stare at the golden twist, then look about the room. There’s some banging and crashing near the kitchen area out back.

“Adrian?”

My words are met with silence for just a split second, before I hear the pounding of feet just right outside the window, so loud it startles me. When he yanks open the door, he stands in the doorframe, staring at me. He looks as if he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in days, and he’s lost weight. His cheeks are sunken, his eyes buried in dark sockets. His beard even looks longer. For one irrational moment I wonder if weeks or months have passed, like I’ve been some sort of Rip Van Winkle.

“My God,” he breathes, his voice choked and tight. He comes into the room and sits beside me.

And that’s when I know. I’ve been gravely ill.

And he actually… cares that I was.

“What happened?” I ask, sitting up in bed. I’ve been here so long my skin and muscles feel strangely sore. “And God, can I have something to eat?”

He shakes his head, but his eyes bely his sternness. They twinkle like stars studded in a midnight sky.

He’s happy I’m alive. He’s fucking happy.

He leans down, brushes the pad of his thumb down the side of my cheek, and kisses me. When he pulls away he mutters, “You are in so much fucking trouble.”

What happened?

I’m suddenly nervous about him leaving, as if the absence of his presence will make me feel bereft.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

He turns and quirks a curious brow at me. “Just to get some food,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”

And he’s gone. I try to piece together the scattered parts of my memory, but I can’t formulate much of anything, and it disturbs me that I can’t.

Fortunately, he comes back in a moment later, with a large plate of food.

“Is that scrambled eggs?” I ask him, staring incredulously at the golden, steaming pile on the plate.

“Yup,” he says. “I found a nest nearby.”

“That’s a little sad,” I say. But I’m quickly over it when he sits next to me, takes a forkful of eggs, and lifts it to my mouth.

“I can feed myself,” I say, more out of surprise than defiance, but when I lift my hand, it wobbles and shakes.

“Let me do it,” he says. “I’ve been feeding you for days.”

I sit back and let him, my hunger too strong to protest anyway. He takes small forkfuls of scrambled eggs and places them in my mouth. In between bites, he offers me a split coconut filled with water. I wrinkle up my nose. “Oh, I hate coconut.”

His eyes darken. “I don’t fucking care. This is what’s brought you back to life, so you’ll drink it.”

I take a sip, grimacing at the weird taste. It’s like water but mildly sweet. “Can’t I just have water?” I ask.

“No. This has more nutrients and will help you recuperate.”

“I guess it’s medicine, then,” I say.

“Exactly.” His sober eyes bring me back to my question.

“What happened?” I ask, rolling over onto my side. I look about the room and see my clothes neatly folded, and a black bag next to them. I blink in surprise, but don’t say anything to him. It’s my toiletry bag. He’s brought in my personal belongings.

He folds his hands in his lap and looks over at me, as if he’s waiting for me to pass out or something, expectant and a little nervous.

“You didn’t come back from the beach,” he said. “You were supposed to take a quick trip, but you didn’t come back. So I went looking for you, it took a while, but I found you by the berry bushes.”

The memory comes crashing down on me like thunder. I exhale. “I fell asleep on the beach,” I say. “I woke and was really fucking sunburned and felt sick.”

“Sunstroke,” he says.

“I was coming back but I was so hungry and thirsty. I stumbled over to the berries. My mind was all confused and hazy, and I thought you said they were good to eat.”

He frowns. “They are most definitely not. I hadn’t tested them all fully. It’s a good thing you didn’t eat more, or I never would’ve been able to revive you.”

I look at him questioningly. I’m not sure what to make of this, to be honest. “You revived me?”

He shrugs. “I made you lose the contents of your stomach,” he says, then with a smirk. “Fun times.”

“Oh, gross.”

“Can’t exactly pump your stomach here in the wilderness, babe.”

Babe? I don’t respond. It’s almost… sweet or something.

“Yeah,” I say after a moment. “So… what did you do?”

“Carried you to the water, bathed you to bring your fever down, fed you nothing but coconut water for days.”

He nursed me back to health. He kept vigil by my bedside, bathed me and fed me. God. I don’t really know what to think of this.

“How long’s it been?” I ask, my voice a mere whisper.

He leans down and kisses my forehead so tenderly tears come to my eyes.

“A week,” he says.

“Holy shit. A week. I’ve been unconscious for a week?”

“Yeah,” he says, then his gaze darkens, and his voice deepens. “You ever fucking go near those berries again, I’ll take my belt to your ass. I punished you once with it, but you’ve not really been strapped yet.”

I look away shyly and honestly a little afraid, since I know he means what he says. It doesn’t take much to imagine him swinging that leather harder, longer.

“Yeah,” I say. “I don’t think I need the threat of punishment. That was fucking awful. So yeah, I won’t.” A gentle tug of my hair makes me quickly amend what I’ve said. “Yes, sir.”

It’s a reminder that though I’m no longer restrained, it’s only because I’ve graduated. I’m still his prisoner. He’s still my… master, or whatever the fuck.

But he saved my life.

“Thank you,” I say.

He stands and walks to the door, then turns to face me. “I don’t want to be here alone,” he says. He leaves.

My stomach sinks. I convinced myself for a short time that maybe I meant something to him. That I’m more than a body to warm his bed, that he can command at will. That I really, truly meant something to him.

He spent a full week nursing me back to health. He carried me back here. More than that? He went to find me to begin with.

But I’m just another human, so he doesn’t go crazy in the near-desolation on this island.

Maybe we both will anyway.