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They’re all sitting around the fire, nearly finished with what tragically counts as dinner on this hell-scape, when Fatin grunts, “I fucking hate myself for actually not just liking but loving this. I’m eating raw goat. Why is this the tastiest goddamn thing I’ve ever had in my life? Martha, you’re the best for this - and, for like, everything else - but oh my god, every day I become more and more disgusted with myself and yet this feels like my lowest point.” She scowls before she sucks a bone dry.
“Really, because wearing this?” Dot pokes the shoulder of the shirt she’s wearing, Fatin’s pink tee reading ‘I’M SEXY AND I KNOW IT’, with a bone. Fatin lets out an undistinguished noise of terror at the red stain it leaves behind. As if her clothes aren’t ruined enough. “This is my lowest point.”
Dot punctuates this with her amused half-smile. Fatin can’t help but grin, even though raw goat is all she can taste right now.
“But Dot,” Fatin says, peering at Dot from across the fire. “You are sexy and it’d be a damn shame if you didn’t know it.”
Martha laughs delightedly. Toni wolf-whistles. Nora nudges Dot with a small smile that lights up her entire face. Shelby nods encouragingly. Even Rachel chuckles which Fatin can’t help but preen at. Making Rachel laugh has to be one of Fatin’s top five accomplishments.
But Fatin can’t help but zero in on Leah. Sitting right next to Fatin, her knees hugged to her chest, one hand cupping the back of her neck, the other tracing the same line over and over again in the sand. It seems to be calming - yes, Fatin has looked over her a couple of times, maybe a dozen, which is more than reasonable considering Leah needs to be looked at - from how she’s done it continuously in the past few minutes since finishing her ‘dinner’. Her back is hunched, so it’s hard to see her face.
Fatin lightly nudges her knee against Leah’s. Leah starts, looking back at Fatin with wide eyes. But then Fatin can see, in Leah’s eyes, the recognition, or maybe just confirmation, that it’s only Fatin, before Leah visibly deflates. Her shoulders drop. Her forefinger stills in the sand. She raises a single eyebrow. Like Fatin can’t just nudge Leah just because.
Fatin doesn’t know why that bothers her.
“Don’t mind us, if your art project -” Fatin tips her chin at the thick line Leah had drawn in the sand. The group’s conversation has already shifted, moved without her and Leah, onto the impact LMFAO had on pop culture, which - God, Fatin has so much to say about that.
But Leah’s looking at her.
So Fatin continues. “- is taking up too much of your time, but we were having an important discussion I strongly feel you should’ve been listening to and taking part in.”
Leah does that thing she does sometimes, where the corners of her mouth raise but she doesn’t let the rest of her mouth follow suit and form what would be a wonderfully complete smile. “Oh, I was listening to it. We were talking about how hot Dot is. I pay attention.”
Fatin rolls her eyes good-naturedly. She sits back, digs both of her hands into the sand even though her fingers are still gross and sticky. “Trust me, I know you pay attention.”
Leah’s laugh is barely audible but Fatin catches it. Add that to Fatin’s list of accomplishments. Even though it’s something she’s been able to do more and more since they agreed to stop going after the other’s throat.
“I know everyone thinks I’m paranoid, but hey, at least I -”
“I don’t think you’re paranoid. Like you said, you just pay attention.”
Leah blinks. She hasn’t done her nightly body-wash - though it’s more of a rinse since they just rinse their face, hands, and feet - so specks of sand and dirt still cling to her eyebrows, her cheeks. She knocks a larger clump of sand hanging from her chin as she reaches up to touch it, looking strangely surprised.
“Leah, that was a half compliment. Maybe even just a third of a compliment,” Fatin says flatly even as she feels warmth pooling in her chest, spreading to every part of her dirt-soaked and sunburnt body. “Do not tell me you’re touched because I don’t think you’re crazy.”
It’s Leah’s turn to roll her eyes. She’s still not quite smiling but she does spread her leg out and tap Fatin’s foot, so, still a win. “I’m pretty sure you’ve called me crazy, like, half a dozen times. And that might just only include when I walked into the water like -”
“- the young white teen played by a thirty-year-old in an indie coming of age film with, like, no dialogue?”
That makes Leah laugh. “You’re the one who smeared your blood on my face. What the hell was I supposed to do, walk around with that on my face all day? Would that have been less weird?”
“Probably not, but I would have been really flattered. And also, it cannot make you any grosser than you already are.”
“Wow, thanks -”
“I mean in a you, like the rest of us, haven’t showered properly in weeks kinda way. C’mon, even if I was going to go back to bitching at you, I wouldn’t do it by calling you gross. I’m not an asshole.”
“I know,” Leah says slowly. Her forehead wrinkles with her frown. She scoots until her body’s angled towards Fatin. She’s close enough that her knee almost pokes Fatin’s thigh. “I was just ... joking. Or at least, I was trying to.”
“Oh.” Fatin kind of, sort of, really wants to face-plant into the sand now. “I’m -”
“Don’t apologize,” Leah blurts out. Both of her hands are gripping piles of sand, hard enough her nails must be digging into her palms. “My deadpan was just too ... dead.”
“I like your dry and self-deprecating sense of humour,” Fatin murmurs, feeling like a colossal idiot. She stares at the fire, watches it inhale and exhale and flick an ember onto the spot of sand in front of her bare feet. “It’s very -”
“Okay, no, don’t compliment me because things have gotten awkward and I offended you.”
“You didn’t offend me.”
“Yes, because your voice rising two octaves and when you just insisted you weren’t an asshole suggest you weren’t offended.”
“Do you want me to smear more of my blood on you? Is that it? You don’t even have to cause me to bleed this time, especially since you clearly have some weird -”
“- oh my god, Fatin, if you accuse me of having a blood kink I will push you again.” The split-second after the words are spoken, Leah gasps. She claps a hand over her mouth. “Oh my god. That’s fucked up, I won’t actually -”
Fatin nearly chokes on the laugh that bubbles out of her throat. She falls onto her back in a fit of giggles. The scrape Leah had given her on her leg has mostly healed, just a faint line of skin that she can only tell is slightly discoloured if she stares at it hard enough. But it pulses now, even more, when Fatin imagines it being reopened and absurdly begins to laugh even harder.
“Jesus, Leah, what did you tell her?” Toni asks with a breathless laugh.
Martha bends over Fatin and looks down at her. She’s smiling warmly, flicking sand away from the top of Fatin’s head as she asks, “You okay?”
Fatin can’t answer. She’s still cackling.
A stretch of silence follows before Leah stammers, “I threatened to push her again. In a playful, completely sane way.”
Fatin laughs even harder.
“Fatin, please.” Leah sighs. But then she’s bending over Fatin too, her hair falling in her face, a confused smile dancing across her lips like Fatin is completely indecipherable but she wants to figure her out anyway. “They’re going to think I’m insane. Even more insane.”
“We don’t think you’re insane,” Shelby says. Fatin can’t see Shelby, can’t see anything but the dark of the sky and Martha and Leah, but she can hear the sugary-sweet smile in Shelby’s voice. “You’re -”
“Intense in a way we all have come to appreciate and really like about you?” Nora suggests.
Rachel doesn’t seem to even try and conceal her snort. Judging from her yelp, Nora must’ve elbowed her.
“And outspoken,” Martha adds. “Very outspoken.”
Fatin is now breathless. Her stomach hurts. Her face aches. She’s not even sure what’s funny anymore, but she’s chasing that strange and delightful rush from Leah cracking an honest to god joke for as long as she can. With the state of their YA-dystopia lives, she deserves to laugh over something stupid.
“And you’re clearly hilarious, Leah,” Dot mutters. “Seriously, is Fatin going to be okay?”
Leah fixes Fatin with a soft smile, her eyes crinkling and narrowing ever so slightly. She wipes her hands on her bare knees before she combs Fatin’s hair back. As Fatin catches her breath, her laughter finally fading out, Leah lightly trails her thumb along the slope of Fatin’s jaw.
“She’s gonna be just fine,” Leah says.
.
.
.
Of course, an actually decent night can’t stay that way.
When Fatin falls asleep, she dreams of breakfast with her family. That’s it. That’s the dream. It’s all so familiar - squabbling with her first brother over who gets the last cup of orange juice, helping her second brother spread butter over his toast, pretending not to hear her mom’s reminders about an after-school practice, and laughing about that with her dad.
It’s nice, even, until her dad, mid-laughter, starts pouring himself a bowl of cereal and says, “God, Fatin, it was so much nicer when you were gone. Trapped on that island, when we knew you were far away and couldn’t stain this family anymore than you already have.”
Fatin’s stomach sours. Shell-shocked, she looks helplessly at the rest of her family but they’re all smiling like nothing’s wrong with what he said. Which shouldn’t surprise her. Her dad can clearly do no fucking wrong.
“Go to hell,” Fatin seethes.
Her father snorts like she’d cracked a joke. “With you here, I’m already there.”
Her mother laughs from the kitchen aisle. Her brothers chuckle into their cups of orange juice.
Fatin blinks back angry tears. “You’re so full of shit. I bet all this time, you’ve been sobbing your guts out when you realized how you fucked up, again, by sending me away, I hope you die from guilt, you -”
“Sweetheart,” her father says placidly. “Why do you think we sent you there? We knew. Of course, we knew.”
Fatin gapes. Her cheeks sting, like she’d been slapped, even though he hasn’t moved a muscle.
Her father sips his coffee. “Anything to get you away from us.”
Fatin looks at her mother. She’s half-aware now that this isn’t real, that her delirious, depraved mind is torturing her with a memory that doesn’t exist, but the sharp pain that stabs her directly in the heart is something she’s felt before: a unique sort of hurt only her dad knows how to inflict.
And yet it doesn’t hurt more than seeing her dream mother’s silence. It’s not real, but it’s happened before - her mother’s lips pressed together, her eyes flickering with a softness she’s restraining from giving her daughter, and her left hand clutching her stomach. Her silence rings in Fatin’s ears.
And then Fatin wakes up.
She’s laying on her back but that feeling of falling lingers even after she sits up, clawing at the sand, choking on her breath. It’s just a stupid dream. Her dad’s just a piece of shit. Her mom loves her, goddammit. They didn’t knowingly trap her here. When she returns home, both her parents will beg for her forgiveness and Fatin will forgive her mom and finally, her mom will choose Fatin over her husband.
And things will be okay.
They have to be.
Fatin draws her legs to her chest and looks around, ensuring the rest of the girls are here and safe and sleeping soundly.
Face-down into the blanket underneath her, Dot’s snoring into the back of her arm. Her leg is tangled with Shelby’s who drools with her mouth open. A few feet over, Rachel and Nora sleep side-by-side, Rachel’s head against Nora’s shoulder. A little further down, Martha snores into Toni’s back with an arm slung over Toni’s waist.
For a gut-wrenching second, Fatin doesn’t see Leah. She can’t breathe from all the panic suffocating her. Leah’s name is halfway past her lips before she spots Leah sleeping just a few feet away, her back facing Fatin, her arms wrapped around herself.
Fatin could sob with relief. She doesn’t even think about it, just instinctively crawls on her hands and feet across the blanket to reach Leah. She’s careful to be quiet. Figures that Leah would be a light sleeper and really would make Fatin bleed - albeit, unintentionally - if startled from her sleep.
As Fatin draws closer, Leah does move. But she only rolls over and stretches her leg out. Realizing that Leah’s foot will hit Fatin’s, Fatin lifts her one leg. But that just results in Leah settling her foot in between Fatin’s ankles.
Fatin knows it’s absolutely creepy to just watch Leah sleep. It’s just that she can’t fall back asleep. And Leah is right next to her, her chest rising and falling with measured breaths, wearing Fatin’s pink and black jacket without looking vaguely annoyed by it like she usually does.
No, Leah just looks at peace. It’s a look Fatin’s never seen on her. Naturally, Fatin’s obsessed with it.
Honestly, she doesn’t remember much of Leah from school. She was aware that she existed, sure, could probably - okay, no, probably wouldn’t be able to tell you her name. But she noticed a thing or two. That guy friend she always hung around with. That yellow cardigan she always wore, the same one she wore on the flight of fucking hell that trapped them here. It’s not a lot but it’s not nothing either.
She wonders what Leah had thought of her. She already knows Leah, and probably everyone else too, had thought of Fatin as a vain, sex-obsessed, and selfish moron. Fatin would be offended had she not, in turn, thought of Leah as a neurotic, obsessive, aggressive, and -
She’s not going to finish that thought. Because it doesn’t matter. She hadn’t seen Leah yet. Not really. And maybe she doesn’t see all of Leah now, but what she sees -
God, she sees so much.
Fatin doesn’t know what she’s doing when she reaches out towards Leah. Touch her hair? Touch her face?
Who knows because before she can find out how creepy her mid-night brain is, Leah’s arm shoots out and catches Fatin’s wrist. It’s a firm grip but it doesn’t hurt, an almost-welcome bit of strength. As soon as Leah blinks some of the sleep out of her eyes, her grip loosens. Her thumb drags down Fatin’s wrist, grazes her pulse-point. But she doesn’t let go.
“Fatin,” Leah exhales. “What the fuck, are you alright? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, I - why aren’t you mad?”
“Mad?”
“Because I was just -” Fatin has just enough decency not to finish that sentence.
Leah still looks concerned. It’s remarkable, how quickly she’d sprung to consciousness, her reflexes never turned off. Leah rubs her face once before sitting up and cross-legged. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, why?”
Slowly, as if not to frighten Fatin, Leah brings her hand up to Fatin’s face. When Fatin doesn’t bat Leah’s hand away, too stunned to do so, Leah gently wipes underneath Fatin’s eyes. “Because you’re crying.”
“Oh,” Fatin says wetly. She touches her cheek. It’s damp. “Wow. Bet I lose all my street-cred now, huh?”
Leah looks annoyed with herself for the snort of laughter she lets out. She wipes Fatin’s cheek with her thumb before she pulls the sleeves of Fatin’s jacket over her hands. “Yup. Don’t worry. I won’t tell the others.”
“Thank you, that really -”
“If you tell me what’s up.”
“You bitch.”
Leah shrugs. “Thought I was a cunt.”
“You’re both,” Fatin says plainly. “You have depth.”
Leah snorts a half-laugh, shaking her head. She starts to play with the sand again, drawing circles with her pinky, but her gaze never wavers from Fatin. “That sounds more like a compliment. Maybe not a full one, though. A half-compliment?”
“I just called you a bitch and agreed that you’re a cunt. Why are you flattered?”
“Like you wouldn’t be a little pleased if I called you a bitch.”
“Fair,” Fatin murmurs. She crosses her legs, self-consciously fixes her posture, hyper-aware of how close Leah is, how the only sounds between them are the flickers of the fire, the heavy breathing from the rest of the girls, and the constant rise of the water.
“Fatin,” Leah says weakly, her voice cracking between syllables. Fatin waits for Leah to say more, but she doesn’t. Just looks at Fatin with her big blue eyes made softer by the moonlight before finally, after a drawn-out silence that Fatin can’t bring herself to break, Leah adds, “Please.”
Fatin swallows around the lump in her throat. She glances upwards, staring intently at the full moon hanging up above, blinking up at the trail of glittering stars, before looking back at the one in front of her. “It’s nothing. I just had a stupid dream about my stupid fucking dad, and - I don’t know. He’s an asshole. He’s the reason I’m here. I hate him. I want him to feel sick with himself over not knowing where I am, to be drowning in - in guilt, in regret, in knowing that wherever I am, dead or alive, I’m still hating him. Except I’m not. I mean, I am, a lot, but I’m also just - missing him and my mom, even though she took his side, and - I fucking hate it. It’s so stupid. I’m so -”
“You’re a lot of things, Fatin, but you aren’t stupid,” Leah interrupts. The hand she places on Fatin’s bare knee is just as firm as her voice, grounding, steady, just solidly there.
Fatin can’t help but laugh wetly, staring across Leah at the fire. “Yeah, I am a lot of things. I’m a -”
“God, just shut up,” Leah says warmly. And before Fatin can throw Leah an irritated look, Leah closes the space between them, wrapping her arms around Fatin’s neck so quickly Fatin nearly falls over into the sand. But Leah keeps them upright. “You think I’m just gonna sit here and let you insult yourself?”
Fatin hides her sob in Leah’s shoulder. “You can’t even let me be self-deprecating. You’re the worst,” she murmurs as she wraps her arms around Leah’s middle and sinks into her, clutching her arm like it’s the only thing keeping her afloat. “Except, you know. You aren’t.”
Leah hums and leans her cheek against the top of Fatin’s head. “Now that’s definitely a compliment, right?”
“Oh, definitely.”
“Guess it should be my turn then. Fatin, your dad is an asshole -”
“How is that complimenting me?”
“Can you just -” Leah sighs while rubbing Fatin’s back. “Let me finish. Okay, your dad is an asshole who will grovel for your forgiveness when we get back home. He’ll have realized how empty his pathetic life is without you and whether you choose to accept his apology or not, you’ll know you’re the centre of his life. Because how could you not be? And you’ll finally not have to share your clothes anymore and have your own water and you’ll get to ... fornicate with whoever you want, for however long you want. Because you’re - well, you’re a good person, okay? And good people get good things.”
Fatin closes her eyes. Leah’s smell is strong and not in the worst way. Like everyone else, she smells of dirt, grime, and sweat, but there’s also something else that Fatin can’t describe, the same scent that you can only find in your home but can’t ever explain what it is, something that’s just Leah. Fatin breathes it in and tries not to cry.
“You really believe that?” Fatin asks.
“No,” Leah says. “But I want to. I have to. I know that you’re a good person, and well, us being friends is already weird enough. The existence of karma and hope and what the fuck ever can’t be any weirder, so why not?”
“You give the longest compliments.”
“You said thank you wrong.”
“Leah?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you,” Fatin says.
Everything about this fucking place has felt like a nightmare. There’ve been numerous times in the days where she’s not even doing anything - splashing her face with water with Nora in the mornings since they wake up around the same time; rooting through their belongings with Dot to find just one more hair tie; making up details about Marcus with a giggling Martha while Shelby listens, biting her lip with a pained expression; complaining about how gross their meals are while ‘preparing’ it with an annoyed Rachel and bemused Toni - and it’ll just hit Fatin that this is real. She’s actually stuck here. She could die here.
But moments after, something just as simple will bring her back to herself. Nora’s shriek of laughter when Fatin splashes her with water. Dot’s triumphant cheer when she finds that elastic. Martha saying something terribly filthy that shocks even herself as Shelby lets out a gasp before stuttering out a laugh of her own. Rachel’s smug “I told you so” smile when Fatin takes her first bite of dinner and admits that it doesn’t taste that bad at all followed by Toni insisting she tries it next.
It all grounds her. Exactly like right now, when Leah pulls back, just far enough so they’re eye-to-eye, and smiles at with her eyes. She doesn’t even say anything. Somehow this makes Fatin feel more - just feel more, than if Leah would have spoken.
Fatin tries to think of something witty to say. She knows how to be sharp but she’s not sure she’s that good at being soft.
So she figures hey, maybe nothing has to be said, and welcomes the warm impulse to bridge the space between them by leaning forward. Nudging Leah’s nose with hers. And kissing Leah.
After a beat, Fatin draws back. She raises her eyebrows at Leah and begins to fiddle with her hoop earring that she’d forgotten to take off before sleeping. “So. Thoughts?”
Leah’s got the best poker face Fatin has ever seen. It’s fucking unfair and sours Fatin’s mouth.
But then Leah opens her mouth. Shuts it. She starts to smile, looks down at her lap, back at Fatin, then back at her lap again. She’s tracing something in the sand again. Fatin leans over to see what it is because it better be a fucking heart -
“Hey,” Leah says, regaining Fatin’s attention. “I'm going to try something right now. You let me know if it goes okay.” And then she’s kissing Fatin with both of her hands cupping Fatin’s face. Their noses bump, and Leah’s brought sand to Fatin’s face, and it’s messy in the best way possible.
Fatin’s been kissed so many times before. She knows what a good kiss looks and feels like. This is that but it’s also unlike anything she’s ever had before. And okay, it’s partly due to where they are. But it’s also because both Leah and Fatin are smiling against the other’s mouth, and Leah’s touching Fatin with both a hunger and tenderness, a balance of which Fatin has never known, and a spark grows hot and bright in her chest that lights her up from the inside.
Leah guides Fatin’s back to the blanket, straddling her waist with ease. But before Fatin can pull Leah closer by the collar of her shirt, Leah breaks apart.
Fatin barely holds back a whine. An order that Leah starts kissing her again dies on the tip of her tongue when Leah rests her forehead against Fatin’s and asks, “So? How’d it go?”
“Don’t know,” Fatin murmurs. “Haven’t decided. Let’s try it again so I can let you know.”
“We’re not doing this while everyone is sleeping a few feet away from us.”
“Why not?”
“If we wake them up?”
“Then they wake up.”
Leah’s flat look is so powerful that even in the dim light, Fatin sees it clearly.
“Okay, fine,” Fatin acquiesces. She steals another peck. “Just another one.”
“Mm.” Leah leans down, and Fatin thinks she’ll kiss her mouth again, except Leah just plants a soft kiss to Fatin’s temple, which. Okay, yes, that is better.
Leah rolls off of Fatin and drops next to her. Fatin stares at her expectantly.
“I’m not a mind-reader,” Leah says, sounding amused.
“Fine.” Fatin inches closer and nestles her head against Leah’s shoulder. She slings her arm over Leah’s waist and waits.
After a beat, Leah winds her arm around Fatin and snuggles a little closer. She brushes her lips against Fatin’s hairline, an unspoken goodnight that Fatin glows in.
In the corner of Fatin’s eye, she spots what Leah had been drawing in the sand right after Fatin had kissed her. She was right. There’s a heart. It has a line drawn in the middle. Not breaking the two halves but just separating them.
Fatin knows Leah’s all intellectual and into reading and writing. She’ll probably publish a memoir, detailed but classy and not exploitative of the other girls, or maybe autobiographical fiction about their time here. Fatin wonders how Leah would describe all of them. How, if she even would, write in this very moment.
She squints at the line in the sand. Leah’s thoughtful but Fatin just knows that line is nothing more than that - a line.
Still, she leans over Leah to smudge that line away. Leah stirs, starts to mumble in Fatin’s hair, but Fatin just shushes her and presses a kiss to her collarbone. Leah goes back to sleep. Fatin follows her soon after.
Fatin doesn’t dream of anything.
(In the morning, Fatin is the last one to wake up. She’s a little disgruntled, as is typical these days, from the sun in her face and the dried sweat on her skin. But as she blinks into consciousness, she slowly spots everyone.
Tending to the fire, Nora watches with fondness as Shelby shows Martha how to do a handstand.
A few feet away from them, Dot and Toni play hopscotch in the sand. Dot cackles at Toni’s half-hearted swearing about “how fucking impossible this looks, don’t laugh at me, Dot, this shit is a maze”.
Running towards them from the direction of the water, Rachel and Leah carry a fish each.
“Look what we caught!” Rachel exclaims.
Leah just grins, laughing as Dot runs up to her, beams, and shakes her by the shoulders.
Fatin sits up. She stretches, watches the girls all convene and celebrate tonight’s dinner together, and lets her lips twitch into a smile.
Leah deposits her fish to Shelby before she turns back to Fatin. She raises a single eyebrow.
Fatin’s about to joke - well, partly joke about how turned on she is until Leah says, the softest Fatin’s ever heard her, “You getting up?” Leah offers Fatin her hand.
And then the other girls register that Fatin’s awake. They look at her. Everyone, Fatin included, looks disgusting with their sunburns and increased acne and dry, dirty skin with sand underneath all their fingernails.
But they’re beautiful too, each carrying a light that fills Fatin up to the brim until she can’t stand not celebrating with them.
She accepts Leah’s hand, grins sleepily at the cheers that continue, now in favour of Fatin finally being up, and walks with Leah to the fire.)