Chapter Four
Kay woke up disoriented for the second time in as many days to find Miguel staring deep into her eyes with concern. She blinked a few times to clear her fuzzy vision, and sighed. "Miguel? What's going on?"
"You fell overboard, so I dove in after you," Miguel explained quietly as he brushed her damp hair away from her cheek.
"Where are we?" Kay asked, reveling in his simple, caring touch.
"I'm not sure," Miguel admitted as he unconsciously continued to stroke her face. "How are you? Does anything hurt?"
"Besides my head?" Kay joked, then felt her breath catch as Miguel started to gently run his fingers through her hair. "What are you doing?"
"Checking for bumps," Miguel answered sensibly. 'Her hair is so soft,' he thought to himself. They stayed that way for a moment, Miguel stroking Kay's hair as she looked up into his eyes. "Miguel?" she asked quietly, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled between them.
"Hmm?" he asked, never taking his eyes from hers.
"What's going to happen to us?"
Miguel searched her eyes for a moment, expecting to find fear or uncertainty, or possibly both. What he found instead was complete trust. "I don't know yet," he told her. "But whatever it is, we'll get through it together."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
~*~
"What do you mean you can't find them?" Luis asked with barely repressed anger. "They have to be somewhere! They couldn't have disappeared into thin air!" It had been almost three hours since Luis had told everyone to meet on the top deck because the boat captain had thought he hit something. As it turned out, it was just a bad storm, but Kay and Miguel hadn't come up to the top deck, and no one had seen them since.
"Maybe they just got trapped in one of the cabins," Sheridan suggested.
"What would they be doing in a cabin?" Luis asked testily.
"Coach?" Justin interrupted. "When I told Miguel that you wanted everyone to meet on the top deck because we may have hit something, he said that he had to go get Kay because she has a problem with water and he would be the only one able to talk her into leaving her room."
"Kay can't swim," Luis explained. "She's had a huge fear of water since she was about four."
"So, it's possible that she and Miguel may still be stuck in a cabin somewhere," Sheridan pressed.
"I want every room on the ship searched," Luis ordered. "Justin, go tell the team to start searching."
Justin did as he was told, hoping that wherever Kay and Miguel were stuck, they were stuck together.
~*~
"Do you remember the time we decided to run away, but we since we weren't allowed to cross the street by ourselves we ended up just walking around the block for three hours?" Miguel asked as he and Kay walked through the thick foliage of the forest beyond the beach he had gotten them to.
"And when we got back to my house no one had even noticed we were gone," Kay remembered. "Not too different from now," she added under her breath.
Miguel heard her. "What does that mean?" he asked as he hopped down a three-foot incline in the path and reached up to help her down.
She braced her hands against his shoulders as she hopped down, and replied "nothing."
She tried to start walking again, but Miguel kept his hands firmly around her waist as he looked into her eyes. "Tell me," he said.
"It's just that people haven't noticed me for months now," she said as she looked down. "I should have gotten used to it back then. Would have made things a lot easier now."
"What are you talking about? I still notice you," he said.
"As long as Charity's not in a three mile radius," she retorted as she broke free from his grip and headed away.
Miguel watched her sadly, knowing she'd need time to cool down. 'Why didn't I pick up on this sooner?' he wondered to himself. 'I hope I can still prove to Kay that I need her in my life.' Miguel just wasn't sure what he needed her to be: his best friend, or his girlfriend.
_________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________