Day Two

After the touching incident, Hunter had gone for a jog down the beach and back while Dot and Fatin continued to look through inventory and Martha and Toni went a walk together. She had been prone to running at least 3 miles a day back home, and she didn't want to stop doing something that was going to keep her sane.

She'd passed Toni and Martha who had stopped their conversation to cheer her on, causing her to send a laugh their way before she continued down for what she thought seemed like a mile and a bit. Doubling back on herself, she playfully rolled her eyes as the duo cheered at her again, laughing as she powered on past them.

Once she got back to camp, she changed shirt since she stank of sweat and watched Fatin and Dot for a little bit before she felt herself drifting in and out of a nap. The two girls looked at her, knowing that she was going through something that none of them had any idea about and smiled at her, telling her they'd wake her up when the others got back from their hike with good news.

Only, the news wasn't good.

___

"Just for context, what did you hope to see from the summit?"

"Something, anything. A dock, a house, some kinda sign that we weren't alone."

"But that didn't materialise?"

"Sorry, what?"

"Well, you didn't find anything to suggest that you weren't alone."

"I did, and I didn't. I did and I didn't." 

____

Hunter didn't need to be woken by the girls returning. She had heard the dragging of a duffel bag form where she had been resting, shooting up to notice that Shelby was towing a black bag of supplies towards camp. The other girls were already there which told her that they'd finished their trek and she knew it was bad news without even asking judging by the look on their faces.

Dot held the identity tag up as they all sat on the ground in a circle, looking at the girl as she investigated the tag.

"Gotta figure this was our pilot. Now, sir, I don't have a great feeling about where you're at right now but the shit you left behind will not be wasted," Dot spoke out loud, everyone rolling their eyes lightly at the girl's dramatics.

"Dottie," Shelby warned, not liking how Dot was almost finding dark humour from the situation. "Don't be morbid."

"Uh, well sorry but this is a haul," Dot announced as she lifted a clear bag that contained a stash of medical supplies. She smiled as she rummaged through it, aware of what many of the things were able to do. "Pain pills, disinfectants... basically a whole medicine cabinet."

"That's good, right?" Hunter asked, wanting to make sure they were all on the same wavelength. Dot shook her head as she continued to rummage, looking up at the cheerleader with a grin on her face.

"It's more than good, its great."

Hunter watched from her large rock that she had been sitting on as Shelby passed two pills to Martha, while Toni who was sitting beside her friend watched on with wary eyes.

"You ma'am, are gonna be ship-shape in no time," Shelby announced to Martha as she passed her some of the pills that Dot had passed over to the religious teen. Hunter watched the interaction play out, noticing how Toni's face warped as Martha admired Shelby.

"I've only ever have the store brand before," Martha spoke, reminding Hunter that while her life was pretty shit recently, she was still fortunate in some aspects in life. Her parents - albeit hating their children - always kept their medicine cabinet stores with top branded pills and medicines. She'd always taken that for granted, but once she got home she certainly wouldn't again.

"She didn't buy them for you, she had some dumb fucking luck," Toni pointed out, annoyed at how Martha seemed to be almost trying to replace her with Shelby.

"Shelby, thank you so much."

"How do you say you're welcome in Native American?" Shelby asked, and Hunter had to hold back a small laugh at the face that Toni made as Shelby asked the question. She knew that it was upsetting to Toni but there was some humour in the jealousy display from the girl to Hunter.

"In Ojibwe, it's miigwech," Martha said, and watched with a grin on her face as Shelby smiled brightly at that. That was the final straw for Toni who stood up and stormed away from Martha, looking for the furthest away rock from Shelby as possible.

Her eyes latched on to where Hunter was sitting and sighed, but before she had to pick another one, the blonde simply budged over and made space for the other girl. There was a brief moment where Toni stared at her in utter surprise that she was willing to let her sit so close to her, but Hunter didn't seem to mind.

Not passing up the opportunity, Toni sat down beside the Texan that was slowly becoming her favourite out of the three from the state and scowled across at Shelby taking the seat that she had just left. Hunter smiled slightly, knowing that the jealously would fade eventually. 

Later on, they all sat at their camp base as Rachel and Nora sat closer to the tide talking amongst each other. It was the first time that they had all witnessed the girls actually act like sisters, and it did bring a smile to their faces. Life would be much easier if they got along well enough to even have a sentence between each other.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Fatin asked as she munched on some of the granola they had. Everyone shrugged before Hunter surprised them by answering what she honestly thought they were be talking about.

"Whatever it is, they'll get through it," Hunter announced, causing them all to swivel round and look at her in sheer surprise. She didn't usually speak up unless prompted, but it looked like two days of being on this island was already starting to chip at her walls.

"How do you know?" Martha asked, still sitting beside Shelby much to Toni's disgust. Leah had rejoined them after leaving Rachel's side, and she too was curious as to the reasoning behind Hunter's thoughts.

"Hey, I heard you and Hudson have fallen out," her father told her as he picked her up from cheer practise. Usually, Hudson would have driven her back after his football practice but they weren't on speaking terms so he had left without her and told his parents he had 'other plans'. Hunter furrowed her eyebrows at her dad, used to sitting in silence anytime he had to pick either of them up from school.

"Who told you that?"

"Coach told me today. Asked how things were between you two at home; it's apparently been the talk of the sporting department at your school," her father replied, a little harshness in his tone but also a deep hint of curiousness in his voice. He didn't care much about the drama his children went through, but he did care if he had to be worried that their family reputation was potentially going to get dragged through the mud.

Hunter huffed as she hugged her knees to her chest in the passenger seat of his expensive new car, looking out the window at the parents who were hugging her teammates and chatting away happily to them as they left practice. It was all she wanted - parents who actually asked her how her day was or even turned up to all of her meets and competitions. The only time he parents would ever come to a school event for her and Hudson was the State Championship Game. They always had some excuse as to why they couldn't make it for everything else.

"We're just not speaking at the moment, that's all," Hunter replied, not wanting to go into details incase her family found out the exact reason why they had fallen out. She knew her parents either wouldn't believe her, would blame her or would ignore the situation all together and she wasn't sure what would have hurt most if they knew.

"Well, whatever it is, you'll get over it," her father said, not an ounce of concern in his body as he pulled out of the school parking lot. She adjusted her cheer skirt as she fidgeted with the leather band around her wrist, watching as Hudson got into his car in the distance with some of his football friends and drove past them. They were set to share the same car, but she had failed her test and was due to resit it the week following, so until then he had free reign of the car - but the twins knew that her parents would end up buying a second car for her so that they were more likely to not see the twins that often.

"How can you be so sure?" She asked, unable to stop himself. 

"It's a twin thing," he told her, thinking about how his father had been with his uncle - identical twins they had been. "You'll get over it."

Hunter paused before she answered the others, a small smile on her face as she looked back across at where the twins were sitting with the sun setting in front of them.

"Call it twin intuition," she mused before standing and brushing the sand off of her jeans. Without another word, Hunter headed back across to where they had been sleeping, grabbing her shoes and heading into the bushes to go to the toilet in private.

The rest of them all sat in silence before Martha turned to look between Shelby and Dot, a curious look on her face as she looked back to where Hunter had disappeared into the bushes. She had many questions, and she knew that the Texan's might know more about Hunter.

"Did you know Hunter and her twin before coming?" Martha asked, knowing that Dot and Shelby had been briefly aware of each other before getting stranded on the island.

Shelby and Dot both chuckled slightly at that, sharing a glance before Shelby went to answer her question. Even Toni who was annoyed at Shelby was hooked on her words, wanting to know more about the girl that seemed so hot and cold with everyone.

"Hunter and Hudson are like, big stuff back home. He's helped the football team win three consecutive State Championships and she's the award winning Head Cheerleader of the cheer team too," Shelby gushed, as if the duo were famous celebrities. Toni and Leah shared a raised eyebrow before Dot continued with the more realistic view of the Boyd twins.

Shelby knew what Dot was going to say before she opened her mouth, and she instantly felt uncomfortable with where the conversation was going. Shelby always wanted to give people the benefit of the doubt and not bring up the bad parts of their past, but what had happened was hard not to bring up when discussing the Boyd twins.

"I'm surprised they've let him stay as football captain, let alone even stay on the team after what happened," Dot announced, forgetting that the rest of them wouldn't have any idea what she was referencing. She snorted slightly before noticing that everyone was staring at her and waiting on either her or Shelby to expand on what she meant by that.

"What happened?" Fatin asked, drinking one of her diet cokes as she smiled slightly, enjoying the familiarity and comfortless of a good gossip. It almost made them all feel like teenagers again and not survivors of a plane crash.

Shelby and Dot exchanged looks before Shelby sighed and began giving them the PG version of the story that even her father had came home and told her mother about - it truly had been the talk of their small hometown.

"Her brother got into a little fight with her boyfriend the night that they broke up," Shelby said, shrugging as if it was nothing but a small punch thrown here or there. Everyone nodded in slight disappointment at hearing it was something so trivial, but instantly snapped their heads back to Dot as the girl sniggered and waved her hands a little bit in the hair.

"A little fight? Nah, it was certainly not a little fight!" Dot exclaimed, rolling her eyes at Shelby's nature of making everything sound better than it was. "The ex, Riley Black, Hudson left him close to being in a coma. The doctors have said he's probably gonna be out of playing for the entire season and he's their 'star quarterback'. It was some proper insane shit," Dot continued, a slight grin on her face as she remembered getting to witness it from the sidelines of the game.

"It was horrible to watch," Shelby admitted, with everyone now looking at her in surprise. "It was just after the final whistle was blown on the last game we had a few weeks ago, the entire town pretty much witnessed it."

Fatin chuckled slightly, raising her diet coke as if she was toasting the occasion and shrugged as everyone turned to look at her in confusion.

"I've had my fair share of bad break-ups," the girl told them all as she explained why she had chuckled at the situation. "But never has anyone almost been put into a coma because of it."

There was a murmur of agreement between them all as they continued to look at where Rachel and Nora were still sitting on the coast line, having their deep chat that had been long needed.

"Has she always been this like... jumpy about contact?" Leah asked, all of them having realised over the past 48 hours that she had some severe issues with people touching her without permission. It didn't even always seem like she knew what she was doing, but it was horrible to watch how upset it made her.

Dot shook her head. "Nah, I don't think so. I've seen her around, it's hard not to notice the most popular two people in school - especially when they're twins - and I've defo seen her touching other people before."

Shelby nodded in agreement at that. 

"Yeah, it's a recent thing. My father and the twins' father are somewhat friendly and he said that they were worried over the past two months that they had both changed a lot. Even I noticed in school that they had both gotten a lot more irrational, and dating Riley didn't seem to help it at all."

There was more silence before Dot spoke the one thing she had been thinking of the entire conversation.

"It does make you wonder what Riley did to her for Hudson 'Couldn't Hurt a Fly' Boyd to beat him within an inch of his life."

______

"The story of me and my sister is that I had her all wrong."

"How do you mean?"

"She was always up ahead, standing in front of me somehow. And there I was thinking that she was just casting some kind of shadow that I had to get out from under."

"But that wasn't the case?"

"It was protection. She was throwing herself in front of the world for me. I don't think I really realised it until I listened to Hunter talk about Hudson."

"This story, the two of you, you mind if I ask how it ends?"

"I don't know, I guess that's in your hands now. It's true what they say, you know, that you can still feel things. Messages from old nerve endings,  sensations from the past. You know what I feel? It's her hand, holding mine. Forever."

_____

"Mr and Mrs Boyd, it's lovely to hear from you. I know you had your concerns about Hunter so I thought I'd let you know that she is excelling at the Dawn of Eve retreat, and she seems to be making some good friends too," the woman, Gretchen Klein, told the couple over the video call as they both let out a sigh of relief.

"That's great to know Ms Klein," Jared Boyd said, genuine relief in his voice. "I know she thinks we hate her and her brother, but we really do want the best for her. It's just been hard balancing work and both of the twins."

If Gretchen knew this was a lie, she didn't bother to comment on it. She simply smiled warmly at the parents through the screen, knowing that their genuine lack of concern and parental responsibility for the blonde only made it easier for her to keep her social experiment under the radar. It helped that she had told them that the girl's phone had broken: to which the parents had brushed off and said that she breaks it all the time and would do her a world of good without the phone.

"I know it was a really last minute addition but what about..."

"Hudson? Oh he's fitting right into the Twilight of Adam retreat just perfectly too."