Catherine POV
A week on a deserted island doesn't feel like seven days. It feels like one long, blurry cycle of heat, salt, and the smell of smoke. By day twelve, the routine had settled into our bones. We woke up, checked the signal fire, hiked for water with our bamboo canteens, and scoured the lagoon for anything that wasn't a bitter tuber.
We had our moments of "fun," if you could call it that. One afternoon, we spent two hours trying to name the different types of birds that nested in the cliffs, eventually giving up and calling them all "The Board of Directors" because they looked judgmental and made a lot of noise. We even had a contest to see who could skip a stone the furthest across the calm water of the lagoon. I won. Mr. Collins claimed he had a "rotator cuff injury" from the
