Love Not at First Sight by Sarah Ready

4

SAM

I kick my legs,fighting to pull the woman to the surface. I have a hold of her beneath her arms. She’s a dead weight and I pray that she’s okay, that she didn’t get hurt in the fall. The icy water urges me to kick harder. There’s no light. I can’t tell up from down. I’m going on pure instinct, and a prayer, please God, let me be swimming toward air.

I kick harder. My heart pounds in my ears and my lungs ache. Maybe I chose the wrong direction. Up was down, or down was up and I’m swimming to the bottom of the water. I start to panic. Then, just when I’m about to turn around, reverse direction, we break the surface. I gasp, drag in a harsh breath then cough and sputter. I draw the woman’s head higher. Float on my back and hold her against my chest. She coughs and sputters.

Then, “Are you okay?” she asks. Her voice is ragged and soft.

Before I can answer, her head falls again to my chest and her body goes limp.

My blood goes cold.

“I’m okay. Are you alright?”

She doesn’t answer, she lies heavy and still against me. I kick my legs to keep us at the surface and feel for her pulse. I let out a sigh of relief, it’s strong and steady. At least there’s that. She shivers and I’m reminded of how cold the water is. Like an ice bath. We’re going to get hypothermia if I don’t get us out of it soon.

But I can’t see. There’s no light. I dropped my phone when I went to grab her. I saw her flashlight fly from her grasp. Then I remember my watch. It’s a waterproof divers watch, a twenty-thousand-dollar piece that Evie bought me last year for my birthday. She laughed because she said she’d spent my money to get it. I’ve worn it ever since. Thank the Lord. I press a button on the side and the display glows. It gives a dim light that barely illuminates the space around my hand. I hold up my arm and twist the watch in the air. The light catches on the white stone and reflects around the cavern. The water that was black in the pitch dark is turquoise and clear where the light hits. There. About twenty feet away I can just make out what looks like water hitting rock. I can’t be sure. The light is too dim. But I swim that way because right now it’s our best chance.

I’m breathing hard and shivering harder by the time I reach the rock wall.

“We made it,” I tell the woman. I lift her onto the rock first, roll her onto the surface and then I climb out after her. Water sluices onto the rock and runs around us. It’s cold. It’s too cold. I feel for the woman’s pulse. It’s still strong, but her skin is like ice and she’s shaking.

“You’ll be okay,” I say. I keep talking, because it’s so dark and quiet in here that any voice, even my own, is better than the silence. “I’ve never been so scared as when I saw you fall,” I tell her. I keep my voice low and soothing. I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here. Or even if there is a way out. My phone is gone, hers is likely in her pack which is still up on the stalagmite at the top of the crevice. To be sure I pat her pockets. Carefully. I don’t want her waking up thinking I’m some creep taking advantage. Nothing. They’re empty. Not that a phone could get reception down in the depths of a cave.

“We’ll get out of here,” I tell her. I put my hand on her arm. Dang, she’s cold. “I’ll get you out of here. I promise.”

I hear a scratching noise and then a rhythmic crunch, crunch, scratch. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. There’s something else here with us.

I hit the display of my watch and look around. Nothing. I can’t see anything. I hold it over the woman. I can barely make out the shape of her face.

She shivers again and I make a decision. I have to get her warm and I have to get her to help. I think the most urgent thing right now is getting warm.

But how?

Body heat. But first we need out of these soaking wet clothes.

“Dang it.”

I kick off my shoes and socks and then pull off my T-shirt. I wring the water out of them and set them out on the rock. Then, I strip down to my boxers and wring out my shorts. I’m too cold to feel awkward. I jump up and down and rub my hands over my clammy skin. Then I kneel down next to the woman.

I untie and pull off her hiking boots and socks. Then I work the soaking wet long-sleeved shirt over her head. I wring it out and put it next to her socks and boots. I feel around in the dark for the buttons to her pants. The skin of her stomach is cold and taut.

I find the button.

Suddenly, her hand lashes out and grabs my throat. She squeezes and I freeze.

“Take off my pants and I’ll kill you and leave your body in the dark.”

I can’t see her. I can only feel her freezing cold fingers pressing into my Adam’s apple. I swallow.

“You’re awake,” I say. “Thank God.”

Her fingers shake and relax on my throat.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“What are you doing?”

I take her wrist and move her hand from my throat. “When we fell we landed in water. It was forty degrees at most. I’m worried about hypothermia. I was getting our clothes off so they can dry. I’m not…” I clear my throat.

I hear her moving over the rocks and dirt as she pushes herself up into a sitting position.

“Are you hurt?” she asks. Then even though we’re not touching I feel her shiver violently.

“No. I’m fine.”

She shivers again.

“Dang it, you’re right,” she says. I hear her zipper and she kicks off her pants. I grab them and wring the water from them. They’re the quick-dry kind of material hikers like to wear so I think they’ll dry fast. I lay them next to the other clothes.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“Sam,” I say automatically. Usually I introduce myself as Frederick to strangers. Frederick Knight. But this situation is different. I don’t want to be Frederick Knight down here. Not in this dark cave, freezing, cut off from civilization and possibly without a way out.

“I’m Veronica,” she says. “Figured we should introduce ourselves before we do the horizontal tango.”

I cough and sputter. “Ahh, what?”

“Kidding. Don’t they always have sex in the movies to ward off hypothermia?”

“Right.” I swallow.

“Seriously. Come here. My head hurts like a son of a gun and I’m freezing.”

I feel the ground and move across the damp rock. When I touch her arm she lets out a long sigh. It does feel good. She’s cold. So am I. But where our skin touches there’s a warm thrum that makes me want to press every inch of our bodies together.

“Feels better,” she says. “Do you mind?” She inches closer and presses her side to mine.

“No. That’s good,” I say.

I sit for a moment and enjoy the warmth between us, but then she shivers again.

“Screw this. Come here.” I open my arms and legs, and even though she can’t see, she can hear. She moves in between my legs and leans her back against my chest. I wrap my arms and legs around her and start to rub my hands over her skin. Then I rub my hands briskly together to create heated friction and run them over her again.

She burrows against me and lets out a sigh.

“Thank you,” she says against my chest and the heat of her breath and her body warms me.

“Of course,” I say and I keep running my hands over her.

After a while her skin warms and her shivers become less violent and more muted. When they do she shifts around and rubs her hands together. Then she moves them over my arms and my chest. Her hands are delicate, her fingers are long and thin with calluses at the tips. I shiver as she drags her hands down my chest.

“Cold?” she asks.

I nod, even though I know she can’t see me. I don’t think I can speak. She keeps creating warmth between her palms and then running her hands down my arms, my chest, my legs. I can’t see anything. Which is the only explanation I have for why I find her touch the most erotic thing I’ve ever felt in my life. I don’t know where her fingers are going to land next. And because I can’t see anything, my other senses are completely focused on her. The rhythm of her breath and the whisper of her shifting movements against the rock. The heat of her hands dragging over me and sending warmth coursing through me. Everywhere she touches, heat spreads. Her hands move up my legs, my thighs… I stop her progress by placing my hands over hers. She stills. Then I draw her in close and wrap her against me. My breath is harsh in the quiet.

She relaxes and leans into me. Her hair, damp now rather than soaking wet, fans out over my chest as she presses her cheek into my shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” I say.

She shifts in my arms then pulls away. I feel cold when she moves away, and it’s not just from the lack of body heat.

“My clothes are dry,” she says. I hear the fabric rustling as she gets dressed. I stand and pull on my shorts and shirt. They’re still damp and cold and feel uncomfortably clammy. I fold my socks and put them in my pocket, then slip on my shoes.

“Do you have a light?” she asks.

“My watch,” I say. I press the button and the low glow gives its dull illumination. I can see the outline of her. She’s about six inches shorter than me and athletic. I can’t tell she’s athletic from the light, I know that from the feel of her in my arms. And that’s all I know about what she looks like. I raise my arm and turn the display so that the light can reflect off the walls. Some of the white crystals catch and spark.

“I don’t remember…which way did we come from?” she asks.

I walk to the edge of the rocky shore. “Here,” I say. The water glows clear blue under the light. “We fell from up there. I swam us to shore.”

She lets out a long sigh.

“From what I could tell,” I say, “we fell thirty, maybe forty feet before we hit the pool. I don’t think we’ll be able to get back out that way.”

She walks to the edge of the water. I hold out my watch and try to illuminate the pool and the walls. I think we’re in a large dome. The walls slope up in a sharp curve and are full of twisted stone and spiked mounds. Somewhere in the ceiling of the dome, thirty or so feet above us, is the hole we fell through. It’s too dark to see where it is. The only thing I can tell is we aren’t getting out of here by going back up.

I hear rustling and turn to Veronica. She starts to pull off her boots.

“I’m gonna try. I’ll wade in, locate a route. Climb out, get help.”

I’m dumbstruck. “Do you see the wall? It curves like the inside of a sphere. You’d have to be Spiderman to climb that. Look at the condensation on the stones, they’re slicker than ice. And what happens when you fall? What if you’re hurt and I can’t find you?” The thought of her lost in the black water sends a chill through me. “It’s not climbable.”

She paces the edge of the water and peers into the blackness and up into the dark. Finally she stops.

“You’re right,” she says. Her voice breaks a bit, but then she turns and walks back toward our resting spot. I follow, breathing a sigh of relief. The only thing that would’ve come from attempting to climb the wall was injury or worse.

“Do you have any outdoors experience? Caving? Hiking? Anything?” she asks.

“My parents took me camping when I was eight,” I say. “We went on this trippy cave tour that dumped into a gift shop.” I hear her sigh. “No. No experience.”

“Why’d you go in this cave? What were you thinking?” she asks. She sounds angry.

“Hey. Why’d you? If you remember correctly, I was trying to save you.”

“No. I was trying to save you. I saw you from the trail. I wanted to make sure you didn’t get hurt so I came after you.”

“Oh. Right.” I clench my hands, I shouldn’t have come in the cave. There was something about it that drew me in, but I should’ve kept walking. “You’re from around here?” I ask.

“I live nearby. I hike and camp along this trail nearly every weekend.”

“Then you know how to get out?”

She’s quiet. I know her answer before she says it.

“No.”

“What does that mean?” I ask, although I can already make an educated guess.

“It means we can stay here and wait for someone to find us. It’s not likely they will, though. Did you tell anyone where you’d be today?”

I want to kick myself. “No. No one knows where I am.” I was just going out for a short walk. I’d driven up from New York City this morning and wanted to stretch my legs and explore the woods around the new house. “No one will miss me. Not for a day or two at least.”

She lets out a long breath. “Me either. I mean, my friends know I’m hiking, but they’re used to not hearing from me for days.”

“We could stay here and wait, see if someone comes in, or if rescuers find us,” I say, thinking the situation through. A sense of doom closes around me.

“It would make sense to stay and wait for rescue. That’s usually the wisest course of action,” she says.

“Do you have food?” I ask.

“No. Do you? Water?”

“No.”

“Everything was in my pack,” she says. Her voice is full of recrimination.

“It’s alright,” I say. I point to the passage a few feet from where we stand. “That might be the way out.”

“Or the way deeper,” she says.

We’re silent for a moment and the enormity of the situation hits. It’ll take days for anyone to notice we’re missing, Evie might get worried after two or three days of no contact, but not any sooner than that. Then, it will take days more for rescuers to search the vast woods of the area, and it’s unlikely they’ll think to look in a cave a hundred yards off the trail. It could be weeks before we’re found, if ever. And we have no food. We could starve to death sitting here waiting for someone to find us.

Veronica starts to pace. “Eighty percent of survival is a mental game. We got this. The pool water probably isn’t clean, but we can drink the water drops coming off the stalactites. We can huddle together for warmth. But we have to decide, do we wait here or do we take the passage and try to find a way out?”

“Do many people come in this cave? A random hiker? Kids? Is there any chance of that happening?”

“It’s not likely. Two or three people hike this section of the trail per week. I’m one of them. The chances are close to nil that anyone will come looking in here.”

It seems pretty clear what we have to do.

“Let’s find a way out,” I say. Although my voice sounds firm, the sense of doom presses harder. “The entrance is probably only forty feet down this tunnel.”

“Right. Exactly. Let’s go then,” she says.

I pause. Wait for her to move.

“Hold my hand,” she says.

I do. I thread her fingers through mine. I hear her let out a low sigh.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

I squeeze her hand. “You’re welcome.”

Then we step into the low, tight confines of the dark tunnel.

Forty feet later we make it, not to an exit, but to a choice.

Left or right.