Chapter 17

Ziya

The day wasn’t much different from the other ones that had passed these past two weeks. Max and I fixed the sign a little, so it was clear again. The only difference was that it was a hot day, much warmer than it had been before. I was sweating buckets while digging into the sand, and it wasn’t just me.

“Is it me or is it bloody hot today?” Max asked, wiping the layer of sweat from his upper lip. Little beads of sweat glistened in his black beard. When we’d just arrived, he was smoothly shaven, but his beard had obviously grown by now. I liked it.

“It is disgustingly warm,” I agreed.

I think we should search for shade today and not do anything. You’ll get sunburned like this. Maybe you should sit over there right now,” he said, pointing at a large tree.

“Max—”

“Please, Zi. What good would it do if you’ll get sick with sunburn? Or a heatstroke?”

“You can get a heatstroke too.”

“I will if we stay discussing this. Please, do it for me?”

“Well, okay,” I said, giving in and trudging to the tree where I sat down.

“I’ll join you in a minute.”

I rested my head against the trunk of the palm tree and looked at the man. I never knew I was fond of tattoos until Max came into my life. I loved his art. He had so many cool ones. My favorite was this paper plane on his arm in black and grey that had the shade of a real plane. I don’t know why that one was my favorite because he had better ones. But this one was special. Maybe it reminded me of him. I think, at first sight, people see Max differently from how the real Max is. He’s a hot muscled guy, so people may think he looks all tough or that he’s this arrogant guy. But the real Max isn’t like that at all. He’s so lovely.

And yeah, of course, he was also hot. Especially with that beard...

Max was done and sat down next to me, grabbing a bottle of water out of the backpack. Greedily he gulped a large amount of the content down until he almost choked on it.

“Hey, slow down,” I said, patting his back. I remember he had said this to me once. When we just got here.

“Z-Zi,” he said with a hoarse voice while coughing and slapping me on my leg.

“Are you okay?” I asked. He was being weird. Panic immediately rose inside of me, thinking back about the last time he was acting weird. There wasn’t a snake around, was there? I looked around, eyes scanning the sand.

Still not able to speak, he grabbed my face and twisted it so I had a clear view of the ocean. After a few seconds, I saw what he wanted me to see. It was a dot of black paint on a turquoise canvas.

“Fuck, is that a ship?” I shrieked, jumping to my feet and squinting my eyes to get a better view. “It is! Max, It’s a ship!”

Ziya

"Get the flare gun," I shouted at a still coughing and hacking Max.

With a flushed red head, he picked up the backpack, which I took out of his hands. I yanked the thing open and searched inside for the flare gun.

"How the fuck does this thing work?" I asked, pulling out the orange plastic device. In the meantime, Max had caught back his breath, so I pushed the thing in his hands, too scared that I would mess up our one chance of rescue, and everything would get ruined by me. I knew we had more than one flare, but we might need them all. "You do it," I cried out.

I was so fucking nervous. We ran to the shore and Max read the instructions on how to use the thing. "Okay, I need to pull the trigger." He did as he explained. "And now I need to hold the thing up, and shoot the flare into the air, straight up." He raised his arm and shot the flare into the blue sky.

The sound was what I would describe as the sound of fireworks, and the lighting was not so different from fireworks either. Even though it was broad daylight, and the sun shone brightly, the pink light coming from the flare was still pretty visible.

"Oh my God, I'm almost fucking losing it." I felt so anxious.

"Okay, now I need to shoot another one."

"Huh? Why must you shoot another one straight after?" I asked when he reloaded the gun.

"The description says that we need to shoot two flares relatively close together, because the first one may catch someone's attention, and the second one confirms it." He held it up in the air again. "Okay, here we go, Zi. Let's do it together." He grabbed my hand and laid it on top of his. "Ready?"

I pecked him on the lips. "Yes," I replied.

We shot the second one together and then laughed for a good minute while the acrid scent of the burning flares crawled up our noses.

"And now what?" I asked.

"Now, we will watch. If the ship increases in size, it's coming our way, meaning the crew saw us. Or maybe they send another rescue boat. If it gets smaller, we should fire the second set of flares." I hugged him and held him tight against me. "Let's sit back in the shade and drink some water," he suggested. "You're sweating from excitement."

~

We watched the ship like a hawk, but nothing seemed to change.

"Is it getting bigger or smaller? What do you think?" I asked, pacing underneath the palm tree.

"I don't know, Zi."

"I'm sorry that I'm being so fucking annoying," I said, sitting beside him again. I'd asked the same question at least ten times.

"You're not annoying. You're nervous. Here," he replied and handed me the water again.

I drank the last bit. "Shall I get more water? I can't wait anymore. I hate waiting. I need to do something."

"We can go together. We will be back in thirty minutes or so, anyway. By that time, the ship surely won't reach us. Even if we've been detected, it'll take another few hours at least."

"Really?" I guess it made sense. The thing was only a mere speck in the big, big ocean.

"Yeah, but to be sure, let's fire the next two flares. I'm not sure how long it's been, but it's been a while since we fired the first two."

"Okay."

~

"You need to get dressed," Max said, looking for clothes that weren't totally gross. He sniffed at a couple. "These are okay. You can wear these."

"Scared that other men see me naked?" I asked, smiling.

~~~~~~~