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Back 3 a.m.
Chapters (67)
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  67. 3:46 a.m.

Meow.

“Right, I was holding him back.”

Meow.

I reach out a berry for him to eat, then pull it away.

Meow.

“How is it not the same?”

He shakes his head.

I take a deep breath. If I am completely honest, I miss Opik too. Though I told him to leave, told him you have to go, I didn’t want, or expect him to actually leave. How selfish am I? I wanted to keep him around, to help us find berries, to help us find our way out of here, knowing full well he stood a far better chance of making it on his own. He could be twenty miles upstream by now. He could already be saved. Hell, he could be back at the Olympics competing in some weird staring contest as we speak.

But it doesn’t matter. He is gone.

I pick up Lassie, who squirms in my arms until his back faces me.

“Real mature.”

Meow.

“He was not the best friend you ever had,” I say. “And that hurts by the way.”

We trudge through the brush, back to the berry bushes. I pick berries for five minutes, then we head back to our camp.

It is 3:17 a.m.

I dig a hole in the sand, about two feet from where Opik had dug his the previous evening, and take a long drink. I pick up Lassie and feed him water from my hand. He is pouting. I say, “Drink. We don’t know if there will be a sandbar up ahead.”

He drinks.

I find a stick and scribble an updated message in the sand: Stranded. June 26th. Headed east with river. Henry Bins. And Lassie the Cat.

Meow.

“No, I’m not adding Opik’s name.”

Meow.

“Because he’s gone, he’s probably twenty miles from here.”

Meow.

I turn.

Opik is standing at the edge of the brush.

He is smiling.

And he is holding two fish.

::::

Lassie and I watch as Opik slices open the fish with a small stick. I thought he was gutting the fish, but he isn’t, he is simply making it easier to eat the fish’s guts. He pulls out the slimy mass of fish hardware and offers it to me.

“No, you go ahead,” I say, with a slight shake of my head. “You caught them,”

I’d only eaten sushi once in my life and it wasn’t for me. It was a textural thing. The slime of the fish as it moved down your throat.

No thank you.

Opik offers the guts to Lassie, who can’t eat them fast enough.

Sensing my hesitation with the fish’s eyeballs, heart, kidneys, and a couple other things I didn’t know were part of a fish’s anatomy, Opik rips off a large filet of meat and hands it to me. It is translucent white.

I take a bite, ripping at the fish’s thick silver skin.