Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 188966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 945(@200wpm)___ 756(@250wpm)___ 630(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 188966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 945(@200wpm)___ 756(@250wpm)___ 630(@300wpm)
I held her stare.
I fell into everything about her.
Guilt roared through me.
Grief made me suffocate.
I needed her gone.
Crossing my arms, my tone cooled. “I think you should probably go.”
“Go?” Her mouth parted in shock. “But why? I thought...” Her shoulders slouched. “I thought we were friends.”
Her pain became my pain.
I flinched.
Ah, fuck.
How had this happened?
I squeezed the back of my neck. “Look, I—”
“Are you harassing that poor boy again?” Neri’s father appeared around the flower curtain.
I scrambled farther away from his daughter as if I’d been caught doing something punishable by death.
His weathered face broke into a grin as soon as he saw me. “You’re alive. And hopefully, back in one piece.”
I clutched my cast and bowed my head in respect. “Thank you, sir. Thank you for getting me care—”
“Jack. Please. Call me Jack. And you’re more than welcome.” Raising his hand, he dumped a heavy duffel on the end of the bed next to his daughter. Giving her a quick squeeze, he tapped her on the nose and tutted good naturedly. “We told you to stay with us while we finished filling in the paperwork. Yet what did you do, little fish? You ran away again.” He huffed and rolled his eyes as he stood to his full height. “Always slipping through my fingers. Making me wonder where you’ve swum off too.”
“I came to see if he was alright. I overheard the nurse say which ward he was in.”
“You’re too smart for your own good.” Jack ruffled her hair and turned to his wife as she appeared. “Anna, look at where our no-good daughter ended up. Harassing the patient.”
Anna smiled, her pretty face so similar to Neri’s with big eyes, petite nose, and expressive mouth. Her hair was darker but only just, losing the battle with salt and sun. “I’m glad to see you’re stronger,” she said, throwing me a smile even if it was a little reserved.
Striding forward, she ordered, “Neri, help me with this table. We’ll scoot it closer to the bed and have ourselves a picnic before we go.”
“Go?” The word slipped from my lips despite myself.
“Yes. It’s getting late. We have to be up at four again tomorrow. The humpbacks have begun migrating back to warmer waters to calf.”
That was not the answer I was expecting. “You help whales give birth?”
Jack chuckled. “Nah, we just watch. And take photos. And notes. And everything else really that will document their habits and secrets.” He helped Neri wheel a large table that’d been pushed by the window toward me on the bed. “My wife and I are marine biologists.”
“And me!” Neri piped up, throwing herself back on the bed beside me as if she belonged there.
I forced myself not to look at her, focusing on her parents. “I’ve never met a marine biologist before.”
“Well, now you have.” Anna dropped the brown paper bags and drinks she’d been carrying, before dragging two hardback chairs from behind the curtain separating us from another patient. “We get to spend every waking moment doing what we love.”
“And one day, I’ll be the bestest biologist there ever was.” Neri grinned, tearing into the bags and passing me something wrapped in grease-shiny paper. “Here. It’s from our favourite burger joint. I made Dad grab you something to eat before we came back to check on you.”
Jack huffed and unwrapped a juicy burger full of crisp lettuce, battered fish, and oozing white sauce. He bit into it. “It’s called the Nemo burger. Kinda wrong, really, to name a food after a children’s movie, and even more wrong for people who study fish for a living to eat it, but...hey.” He shrugged and took another huge bite. “That’s life, I guess. Food chain and all.”
Neri munched beside me, watching me intently as I slowly unwrapped my burger.
Just like my thirst had attacked me and made me lose all decorum, my hunger snarled to shove the food into my mouth as fast as humanly possible.
“Here.” Anna passed me a box of golden french fries.
My mouth watered so much I almost drooled.
“That’s super rude, by the way!” a voice yelled behind the flower curtain. “I can smell that deliciousness all the way from my bed.”
“Sorry!” Jack yelled. “Can’t share. Don’t know what drugs you’re on.”
“I’m allowed whatever I want,” another patient yelled. “Go on, share!”
“Ah, damn, but would you look at that!” Jack shouted. “All gone. Our shipwreck survivor just inhaled every bite.”
Cracking a smile, shocked once again that I could do such a thing, I did exactly what he said.
I shoved the french fries so fast into my mouth, I choked.
“Easy,” Anna admonished. “There’s plenty more. We bought two of everything in case you hadn’t eaten in a while.”
Neri never looked away as I finished the fries in a few massive mouthfuls and raised the burger to my mouth.