After a while Ashley turned her face into Mara’s neck, and her lashes fluttered.

“Mara,” she said.

“Is this okay?”

Ashley moved, and for a terrible instant Mara thought she shook her head. But she was just stretching, sloppy in her body as she came to. “I just wanted to say it.”

“Ashley,” said Mara. Trying it out.

It felt like they were waking up. Were there cameras? Mara didn’t care. There was no part of her that cared about anything but the body on hers. Not the sharp stones beneath them, the mosquito she flicked from her shoulder as Ashley slid her bra into place. Mara didn’t care that they were hungry. That they would sleep in the grass tonight and forever. That the crew had come back and were bustling around, not here but not far away, and may have seen them or may have not. She knew then that she had sensed this coming, that some part of her had been waiting, but she had not believed it, because it is hard when you are hungry to believe you will ever be full.

They made their way to the shelter and lay down there, and Ashley took a nap in Mara’s arms.

Still, as the shadows grew long, Mara extricated herself. Pulled herself away. She slipped off toward the creek and found the protein bar under the rock, and then she went to the lake, where they had touched, and sat for a while remembering. Footsteps. She thought they were Ashley. But when she looked up, Tom stood above her.

“That’s new,” he said.

So the crew had seen her with Ashley. Mara was too high to care. The world would know, and she didn’t care. She had never felt this before, the not-caring.

She thought Tom might be angry, and in some part of her mind, absently, dutifully, she lined up the words to reassure him. That he was important; that he was brave, and hers. But the truth was, she didn’t need him anymore. She didn’t need him at all.

Tom wasn’t angry. He only smiled. Shaking his head. Shaking his head.

“You really are naive,” he said.

He reached a hand out, as if to touch her, and Mara flinched. He brought his hand back and set it on his hip. It seemed odd that he had approached her so close to camp, but maybe he knew something. Knew that the others weren’t around. With the same smile, he turned away.

She waited until his footsteps faded. Until the sun had slipped below the trees. And in the dusk, she pulled the bar from her shorts, the one she’d been saving, and opened it.

The smell was overpowering. Peanuts and chemicals. She imagined the taste, the crystals of sugar and salt, how the first tough bite gave way to a putty that coated the tongue. Surely she could take one bite.

No.

She broke the bar into pieces and threw them in the trap. Plops and splashes. The smallest pieces floated on the surface of the water, and the bigger ones sank, releasing bubbles as they drifted out of sight. Now all they had to do was wait.