sucked in to anything negative because I had a feeling that’s where I’d stay.
Now I feel like the rug has been yanked out from under me and I’m falling. No happy hopeful feelings to keep me up anymore. No inner buoyancy to keep me afloat.
We’re really fucking stuck here.
And what if they don’t come in two weeks?
What if it gets pushed back and back?
What if something awful happens to us in the meantime? What if someone gets attacked by a shark? Or gets sick and can’t get medicine? What if I slipped on the rocks at the waterfall and split open my head? Who is going to help us?
I turn away from everyone, throw my head back to the sky and I scream.
“FUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!”
I mean, I am having an out-of-body experience right now, there’s no other way to describe it. All the feelings I’ve pushed aside, all to try and keep a positive frame of mind are now coming out of me like a rushing torrent of despair and rage.
“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” The words just rip right out of me.
“Daisy,” I hear Tai whisper, and then feel his arms around me. “It’s okay.”
I yank myself out of his grasp, staring at him, staring at everyone else. They’re all in shock, maybe because of the situation, maybe because I am finally losing my mind.
“It’s not okay! You just heard what Fred said! We’re stuck here for another few weeks. And then what happens after that? Another few weeks more? And more?”
“It’s not going to be like that,” Fred says calmly. “I promise you.”
“You promise me!” I repeat. “You’ve been stranded here for three months! How long have they been promising you that someone else is coming?”
“We’ll call Suva again,” Tai says, raising his palms, trying to calm me. “We’ll explain what happened. They will come for us. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”
“I’m not okay, okay!” I yell. “None of this,” I gesture wildly to the beach and the island, “is okay.”
“You need to focus on the positive,” Lacey says.
I blink at her, stunned that she’s throwing that back in my face so soon, though her voice is a little shaky, like she doesn’t really believe it. “You literally just told me that,” she adds. “Remember? All your positive posts, the shit you say on Facebook?”
“Well, maybe that was shit! Maybe I put on that happy face on social media because that’s the kind of person I wanted to be. It’s the kind of person I wanted people to see me as. But I’m not okay, not now, and…” I trail off. “I’ve never really been okay.”
“I find that hard to believe,” she says. “You’ve—”
“If you tell me once more that I luck into everything, especially now, I’m going to find something really disgusting in that jungle and I’m going to put it on your head!” I snap at her. “Contrary to what you thought, I didn’t have a perfect life. I kept people at a distance. I didn’t get attached to my relationships. I stayed with a job because it was easy. I pretended that it was fine and lied to myself because admitting the truth, that I wasn’t happy, would have been too hard. I kept up the persona and I fooled myself into believing it’s who I was. But it wasn’t.”
I look around. Tai is watching me carefully. Richard seems to be hanging on my every word, while Fred wanders down the beach, head low, hands in his pockets. I feel for him, I do. I want him off this godforsaken place as much I want that for myself.
Amazing how things can turn from paradise to pain when your future is at risk.
“I don’t even know who I am,” I say softly, feeling tears well up inside my throat. “I don’t. I thought I did but it was just the lies I told myself. So here I am, figuring it all out, and the most I got out of this is that I’m not okay!”
“None of us are okay right now,” Richard says quietly.
“Right!” I yell. “We aren’t. We’re fucked! We’re screwed! We’re shipwrecked and we don’t know when we’re going to get rescued.”
“But you could focus on the positive, that they know where we are, that help will come,” Lacey points out, suddenly taking on my old persona.
“No. YOU focus on the positive,” I tell her. “I’m choosing not to. I’m choosing to be a realist. I’m choosing, for once in my life, to put my hand