He doesn't want to lose me, but it makes me think he also doesn't want me like that, which is fine. I'm probably not his type, though for a caveman like him, what is his type?
But by the end of the third week, I'm tired of working. I groan as I get out of bed, my muscles sore. The work I've been doing is way harder than any cardio I've ever sweated out at a gym. This is backbreaking work. No wonder the cavemen didn't live long. They were fighting tooth and nail for every breath they took. Nothing was easy.
I push away my fears that the rest of my life is going to be hard and try to smile.
"Let's have some coffee," I say as Stone adds some kindling to the fire. "I know we said we should only use it every once in a while but I think today we should take the day off. I want to look in the caves and see if there is something we can do to get out of here.”
Stone lifts his chin. “This is where you live now, Skylar. This is your home whether you like it or not."
My eyes narrow. "Don't say that. I'm going to figure out a way to get out of here. I'm going to go back to those caves, and I'm going to see if I can do something to trigger the time travel. There's got to be something."
“It’s impossible. I spent months doing the same damn thing. Went down to the caves for years, every day trying to get the hell out of this place, but couldn’t find any magic doorway to help me escape. There's nothing I could do to start the charge that made the cave spin and made me wind up here," he tells me.”
"But you gave up," I say. "I don't want to give up."
He clenches his jaw, angry. "I didn't give up," he says. "I'm not a quitter. I'm a goddamn fighter. How do you think I ended up here? I was in the special forces on a mission, trying to make the world a better place. I know what it means to go all in for a cause you care about. You think I wanted to be here alone?" He shakes his head, snarling. His words tight, tense, taut.
“I don’t want to make you mad, but Stone, I don’t want to live here forever.”
“Neither do I. If you want to go to the cave, come on, let me take you.”
“Really?”
Stone’s dark eyes meet mine. “I wish I could give you the fucking world, Skylar, but I can’t. If you want to try, let’s go. I’ll give you what I can.”
We clean up the cave, rolling the rock in front of the entrance, and then make the short trek to the cave where we time travelled.
Once we enter the dark cavern, Stone takes my hand. “I don’t want you to fall.”
“Thanks,” I say softly, anxious to see what we might find.
But after a few hours it’s clear there is no portal waiting for us to walk through, no exit sign. Nothing. Whatever happened to get us here isn’t happening now.
“The thing I came to realize,” Stone says, “even if you managed somehow to get the cave to spin again, and threw yourself back into a time-traveling warp, what if you ended up somewhere worse than this?”
I frown, not having thought of it like that. “I can imagine a whole lot of scenarios that would be more terrifying. Landing in the middle of a civil war, or a post-apocalyptic world that’s deadly, or being thrust into a future where robots and aliens have invaded the earth.”
“Exactly, and what if we were separated?” he says. “I would hate thinking you were alone out in some dangerous time and place.”
Before today, I'm not sure I would have believed it if someone told me one conversation had the potential to change the way I saw the world, saw myself in it. But this conversation with Stone has opened my eyes.
“I hate that you feel stuck,” Stone says. “I want you to be happy.”
I blink back tears and Stone cups my cheek with his hand. I think he might lean in closer to kiss me, but he just brushes my tears away with the back of his calloused thumb.
“Let’s go have some fun."
"Fun?" I smile, not expecting that. “Really?”
"Sure. There isn't a movie theater or mini golf course, but I’ve got an idea of something we can do to entertain ourselves.”
"Really?" I grin. "You mean it?"
He turns to leave the dank cave. "Anything to keep you happy."
"You scared I'm going to run away again?"
"You didn't run away before, you hardly stepped out of the cave."
I smile, following him. "So where are you going to take me?" I ask. "I bet you know all the good spots."
He laughs. "Skylar, you act like this is some..."
"What?" I ask, cutting him off.
"...paradise."
I reach for his hand as we exit the cave. “I think maybe it is.”
Back at the cave, he tells me to pack my swimsuit if I have one, which I do from my camping trip. We prepare a lunch of cold meat and papaya. After loading it in my backpack, I offer to carry it, wanting to do my part.
"You take the water in the canteen, I'll take the food," I tell him.
Stone smiles, clearly appreciating the chance to share the load. "All right. Can I also take your hand?" He looks at me cautiously. "So you don't slip and fall on the rocks. It's slippery where we're going."
"Right," I say, my stomach flip-flopping, feeling like a fool. For a moment I thought maybe he'd want to take my hand for another reason. You know, like to hold onto, but no. I am clearly in the friend zone. He could have kissed me in the cave, but he didn’t.
Not wanting to slip and twist my ankle, realizing how detrimental it would be to lose my footing out here without a doctor to look at me, I let him take my hand once more.
When he pulls back vines, revealing the place to me, I gasp.
"Stone, why haven't we been here before?" I ask, looking at a majestic waterfall with a beautiful, clear blue lake.
He shrugs. "There's no meat out here."
"There's probably fish," I say.
"I hate fish."
I laugh. “To be honest, I’m not a huge fish fan either.” I look around, taking in the majestic waterfall. “This place is beautiful."
When I turn to him though, he's not looking at the waterfall, he's looking at me.
"You are beautiful," he says, letting go of my hand.
My whole body lights up at his words, at his gaze, and I want to know if he means it, like really, really means it. I don't have time to ask though, because he's dragging me toward the waterfall, dropping the canteen of water and sliding off his shoes.
"Come on," he says. He's got hardly anything on, just his little Tarzan outfit, which is actually pretty damn cute now that I'm used to it. Me, though, I’ve kept dressed in my hiking clothes, but for this adventure, I packed a bikini as he requested.
"Turn around," I say, "let me change."
He snorts as if modesty is ridiculous out here, but I'm still a lady so I wait until he spins around and then I take off my shorts and underwear, my bra and my T-shirt, and I pull on the bikini I packed for my vacation to Mexico.
"Okay," I tell him, "I'm decent."
When he turns back around, his eyes are filled with something I wasn't anticipating – wanting maybe, dreaming about probably, but not expecting.