The girls were all prepped out with floppy hats, and I kicked myself knowing that I should’ve taken the time to bring my hat, a cap, a scarf, sunglasses…anything. Why hadn’t I?
“Are you okay?” Sunny asked as we ventured along the dusty paths between rocks and sparse shrubs.
Despite the ocean being right there in front of us, it wasn’t enough to keep me cool.
My mouth was parched by the time we walked back to the trailhead to go down the other path. I’d already drunk all my water.
“Hey.” Sunny had slowed down to meet my even slower pace.
Here I was, big sister to a local who came here all the time and was always in tourists’ faces about this and that, and yet, I’d failed the most basic thing. Cover thyself and always have water.
“Umm…” Yet I didn’t want to spoil their adventure or make him worry. “You go ahead.”
His friends were getting farther ahead of us. He looked at them and then at me. “Bane?”
The sudden chills, the unholy level of burning coursing through my body, the way my skin felt singed, the parched mouth, and the slowly, but surely, bit of dizzy spell that would come. Heat exhaustion. It was coming. Even at eleven in the morning, it was too hot with the sun blazing right on this equatorial region.
I gulped hard after drinking the last drop of my water, my steps slowing down even more as my legs turned jellylike. The goose bumps came, the shivers, and oh, no…it was too late. It was here.
I immediately sought shade, but there was very little shade beneath scant, short trees that were more gangly branches than leaves. The group was taking pictures and looking around, leaving us behind. So I just turned around and went back up the path. No need to bother them.
“I’m going to go sit down,” I announced.
“Bane! Where are you going?” Sunny called out, jogging after me.
“How are you not hot?” I wheezed.
He shrugged. “I am, but it’s just for a short while.”
I smacked dry lips and hobbled back toward the parking lot. “Give me the keys…to the car…” I rasped.
“What’s wrong?” He stopped me by the shoulder and bent down to look at me.
I rubbed the goose bumps from my arms, every word labored. “I’m getting heat exhaustion. I need shade, AC, water.”
“Okay. Okay,” he said, sounding panicked. Oh, boy. He’d never make it in the medical field.
“It’s fine. I just need to sit in the car.”
He called back to the others, “We’re going back to the car!”
I flinched.
“Sorry,” he said, touching my back. “I’ll text them when we get you settled. Are you okay to walk?”
“Yeah. I’m just slow. My body temp is probably rising; I’m getting achy.”
“Bane.” He looked me dead in the eye in the most devastatingly serious manner. “Is it okay if I pick you up?”
“Wha-what?”
“To take you to the car faster. Because you don’t look good and you’re barely moving, and I don’t know where the closest hospital is.”
“Oh.” Here I thought I was moving quickly enough. I wanted to decline, truly, but without sufficient shade in sight and the degree of my symptoms, pride had no room to make decisions for me. I nodded.
He swept me off my feet in one fluid motion, carrying me through the trail and deftly zipping past a few onlookers, as I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face against his chest. I didn’t welcome the extra heat from his body, but I welcomed the shade, or what little there was to be had.
“We’re here,” he said in a matter of minutes, or hours. It was hard to tell when I was just trying not to pass out.
He set me down by the car, unlocked the door, and let me in on the shady side. Of course, the car was blazing hot. Sunny ran to the driver’s side to turn on the ignition and ran the AC full blast with the windows down. He rummaged through the trunk for water and handed it to me. It was tepid, but I took it.
I drank and drank, my stomach rolling with nausea, then I dabbed some water against my face, neck, shoulders, and arms, not caring that my top turned damp and sticky.
Sunny, sitting in the driver’s seat, quietly watched me as I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, worry oozing off him and filling the car. Once the AC was blowing cold air, the windows went up. After about ten minutes, my body had cooled down and the goose bumps and shivers subsided.
I pried open an eye and looked at Sunny. He was turned toward me, frowning, and watching my every move. “Crisis averted,” I assured him.
He sighed, as if he’d waited with bated breath for my assessment. I hadn’t seen him look so relieved since that time he thought he’d butchered the master copy of code but had really been working on a local branch and his error was totally fixable. Actually, this level of genuine concern was sweet. Beneath all that surly smugness was an honest-to-god kind person.
“Thank you.”
He nodded once. So serious with that wrinkle between his brows.
“I usually never forget to bring a hat and extra ice water and account for every source of shade,” I explained, tamping down the tinge of embarrassment. “Ever since I realized on my first trip here that I’m prone to heat exhaustion, I try not to go to places like these during the hot hours.” Or during my period, because, boy, that only intensified matters.
“You’re fine?”
“Yes.”
