security and serenity

1

The plane is crashing. How fucking fantastic MJ thinks to herself with a chuckle. Amidst the chaos of everyone freaking out, she embraces it laughing at how her life is going to end. The only other person unfazed by the plane going down is Leah who is so enriched in a book.

..............

"Hey!" Leah shouts in the middle of the ocean. "Hey! Is there anybody out there?"

"Help! I found someone!" MJ shouts over to Leah. Huffing, Leah finally manages to swim to the other two in the water.

"It's Jeanette!" MJ says remembering the optimistic girl from the plane.

"Help me put her on the board." Both use all their strength to throw the unconscious girl on the floating piece of wood.

..............

"Is there anyone else out there?" Dot questioned.

"I- I didn't see anyone. I don't-t think so," Leah stuttered from a mixture of shock and exhaustion.

..............

She's dead. Jeanette is dead.

..............

We've been on this stupid island for a day. Fucking 24 hours and so much has already happened. Everyone had someone they came with, but not me. Nora came with her sister Rachel. Martha and Toni are best friends. Fatin and Leah were from the same school, but I wouldn't say they were close and the same goes for Shelby and Dot.

"I'm going to get firewood," I say making myself useful and wanting my own space to think.

"I'll come with you!" Dot says getting up and wiping the sand from her legs and hands. "Buddy system."

I force a smile which seems convincible to indicate that I'm okay with that even though I was a little disappointed not to get time to myself.

"They are going to find us." Dot says breaking the silence as we searched the woods for dry brittle sticks. I guess she felt my tension. "We just gotta survive for a few days until they can locate us."

I stop and turn to her and just give her a nod. She takes it knowing that's all she's going to get from me. Over the past few hours, we all learned a lot about each other and how we interact. Toni is easy to instigate and speaks her mind. Martha calms Toni down and is very positive and innocent. Dot is tough, but a caring leader. Fatin is... well Fatin. Rachel is goal-focused and is ticked off whenever her sister speaks. Leah is in her own world but is able to communicate what she thinks as well. Nora doesn't speak much but when she does it's funny or informative. Then there is me, MJ. I'm closed off to the other girls, but I've been trying to put an effort into speaking and being present.

I shouldn't even be here. My parents signed me up for this months ago, but they ended up passing in a freak accident. I didn't want to come here, but some social work lady told me it would be a good break from the foster family I was staying with. I wish I didn't let her convince me it was the right choice.

"Are you ready to head back?" Dot says bringing me out of my thoughts.

We end up walking back in silence and I respect Dot for respecting my boundaries.

"Do something!" Toni yells at Shelby.

Shelby holds her ground and stands up after checking out Marty's ankle. "We can't do much! She's in pain and we don't have pain meds!"

Dot and I quickly put down the firewood making our way to the group of three not wanting things to get out of hand.

"You've been kissing Marty's ass since the moment you two met." Toni steps closer to Shelby as Shelby holds her ground but we all notice her flinch.

"Toni, stop it! She's just trying to help." Marty tries to calm her best friend down.

I make my way over and push Shelby to the side so I am standing in front of Toni. We are the same height and we look each other in the eye. "Let me try to help Marty. Tell me what happened." I say trying to diffuse the tension and everyone is taken aback as I have usually kept to myself and stayed in the background.

"Her ankle is only getting worse. It's the size of a softball and all bruised." Toni bends down to show me and I follow her motions. "Her pain is getting bad too."

"Okay," I turn to Martha. "Do you mind if I take a look? I kind of have experience with different injuries." I get questionable looks from everyone wanting more to the sentence that just left my mouth, but nobody pushes for more.

As Martha nods, I use my hands to assess the injury. It looks bad and as I palpate the area she winces in pain. I ask her to move it in different directions and she's able to. After a few more questions, I decide it's not broken but severely sprained.

"I'll be right back," I say jogging to the firewood we just picked up and bring back two thick pieces making a makeshift splint using the sticks and my shoelaces.

"Smart move, kid!" Dot says impressed. "If anyone needs an injury checked out, they can come to you." Dot says designating me the island EMT.

"I don't know anything about meds though," I say but she interrupts me saying she has that portion covered.

"Just elevate it as much as possible. We'll try to find you a makeshift cane or crutches in the meantime." I say walking away having had met my social meter for the day.

"Wait." Someone says grabbing my shoulder, but I am quick to shrug it off and yank myself around panicked. "Hey, it's just me, sorry I didn't mean to scare you," Toni says putting her arms up to show me she meant no harm. "I just want to thank you for helping out back there."

"Yeah, yeah it was no problem." I quickly recovered from my panicked state.

"Um yeah, I'm going to head back now. Thanks again." She awkwardly waves and nervously chuckles before jogging back to her friend.