Salty tears leaked down her face. She missed her bed at the mansion, and the other kids, and of course Sam. She'd hoped to be there for the days leading up to the birth of Ana. She was just so lonely—a longing that Luke's presence couldn't fulfill. She wanted to share herself in a way she never had, to find an intimacy she couldn't get from Luke or Sam. She wanted what Sam had with Drake.
Well, before he became a douche bag and left her. Better to be alone than fall in love with an asshole.
At least she didn't have to suffer the kind of pain Sam was going through. She couldn't even imagine that agony. Still, the comforts of home, the friendships and showers and food—she missed these things.
Will we ever get off this damn island and back to our own life?
Something hit the side of her head and shattered her thoughts. "Ouch!" She put her hand to head and saw blood. "What the hell?" It didn't seem too severe, just a bit of a lump and some dizziness.
She drew her gun and looked around, and couldn't decide whether to laugh or curse when she saw her assailant. A coconut lay a few feet away, a bit of her blood smudged on its surface. Attacked by fruit. Real ni—
Fruit?
That refocused her. Coconuts were a complete nutrient. She'd heard that coconut meat and milk, blended with a banana, came very close to the nutritional make-up of mother's breast milk. She had no idea how she knew that—probably something Sam had said in all her motherhood reading—but still, mother's milk was the perfect meal. Even without bananas, coconuts could get them through this ordeal quite nicely.
She grabbed the one that had attacked her and studied it. How the hell was she supposed to get it open? She slammed it against a rock, and milk splashed all over her, along with bits of shell and meat. Using her knife, she dug out the soft insides and ate what she could. Once she'd finished, she identified more in the tree. If she could get them down, she and Luke would have plenty of food while they worked out a plan.
Hope blossomed in her.
She sheathed her knife, pulled out her sweatshirt and spun it into a tight rope, then wrapped it around the tree and used it to shimmy up to the top.
The climb went slowly, with her feet slipping a few times, but eventually she got high enough to cut down several coconuts. When a small pile rested under the tree, she climbed down and shook out her sweatshirt, then created a carrier and stacked a load of coconuts in it.
She couldn't carry them all, but what she had would get them started, and she could come back for more when they got hungry. The tree sat close enough to the river that this would be a good "cafeteria" for them.
The coastline wound its way west, and Lucy followed the setting sun toward the original location where they'd washed up. It was time to make camp and get some food in Luke.
She arrived fifteen minutes later, puffing and just about to lose her grip on the sweatshirt carrier. No sign of Luke, so she found dry wood and started a campfire. The crackling fire and cool ocean breeze made it easy to pretend she was just camping on the beach, something they'd done for training a few times.
To pass the time, she took out a few coconuts and used trial and error to figure out the best way to open them without ruining the food—or her clothes. After a few more epic messes she finally got it. First, she drilled a small hole into the shell, to drain the milk into a large leaf or to drink straight from the coconut. Then she carved a line around the top, and cut it open so they could eat the meat inside.
Happy with her accomplishment, she called for Luke, hoping he was nearby and would come eat with her.
He didn't answer.
What if something had happened to him? What if he'd gotten sick and passed out? Worst-case scenarios filled her mind. She used the fire to make a torch, grabbed a coconut—he had to be starving by now—and stepped out into the darkness.
She stuck to the path they'd walked that morning, not sure where else he might be, and not wanting to explore the whole jungle in the dark. The hill loomed before her, with the crash site on the other side. She didn't want to go there again, but something pulled at her. The sphere pulsed softly. She'd almost forgotten she had it, but the reassuring warmth gave her strength, and she walked over the hill and toward the plane.
Luke sat on a rock near the crash site, drinking a bottle of rum.
Lucy rushed to him, tears in her eyes, angry and sad and relieved all at once. She took a breath, about to yell at him for leaving her, when she saw the heartbreaking sadness on his handsome face.
"Hey, Bro, I found food." She held out the coconut.
He looked up, but didn't smile. "Nice."
He didn't take it, so she sat next to him and cut it open. "Here, you need something in you besides rum. Try it."