“There you are! What are you doing out here? The party is inside!”
Sage turned his head to look back over his shoulder at the person who had spoken but as it turned out they weren’t even looking at him at all, rather a woman who had been standing some feet away. With a small sigh Sage turned his head to look out at the darkened sea around the small yacht, raising the small glass of champagne – his sixth glass – to his lips to finish off the rest of it. Really, he didn’t want to be here at all but for another three days it was time away from his one of his ex-boyfriends.
His hand moved to the light blue sweater sleeve he was wearing, tugging it down a little more even though the bruises on his arms were well hidden. For the past year Sage had been running through a string of bad luck when it came to boyfriends, each way just getting a little worse than the next. First there had been his boss – a leach if ever there had been one – who Sage had made the mistake of saying yes to for a date where he had become drunk, waking up the next morning to find he had slept with the man. That had been bad enough as it was, and Sage had tried to let the man down but by then the damage had been done since his boss had already run his mouth about how easy Sage had been to some of his friends. Everyone in the modeling agency that he had worked at how found out about it, people he had thought were his friends had turned on him and pretty soon it had spread to other agencies the he was willing to go down on the boss to make it to the top. It had been painful time for Sage, and it still was since even after switching to a different agency in New York people had found out about it as well.
His next boyfriend had been another young model, six years younger than Sage who was twenty eight – though he still looked like he was twenty – but that hadn’t bothered the other in the least. They dated for three months and all had been fine, until Sage learned that the other had just been using him in order to get higher up on the food chain. Sage later learned after the break up that the man used it in order to play the ‘heartbroken victim’, dragging Sage’s name through the mud about how he had given Sage everything only to have the other throw it back into his face by cheating on him. Which wasn’t true but no one believed him again.
Then a month ago, just barely five days into December Sage meet his latest boyfriend in a coffee shop in Florida – Sage having once again switched to a different agency -.
Tears built up in Sage’s greenish blue eyes as he let the empty glass slip from his fingers to disappear into the black sea under him, the tears soon following after it. The man had been like something from a dream to Sage, kind and wonderful. He worked as a cop, and had believed what Sage had told him about his past. For nearly three weeks Sage was in heaven and had quickly fallen in love with the Derek, believing that perhaps this time it would be different.
Until Sage found out Derek had a wife and two children. A choked sob came from Sage but he soon covered his mouth with one hand, his whitish blonde hair blowing around his face as the tears kept pouring freely. When Sage had learned about it he had tried to break up with Derek, key word being tried. The man had beaten him until Sage had begged for him to stop, to forgive him, anything to keep himself from being killed.
Being a model it was impossible for him to hide the bruises so he had taken a week’s leave for New Years, and on a whim had accepted to go to the first party he had been asked too. Which was how he had ended up on this yacht without the furthest idea who anyone was, where they were going and not having any idea what he was going to do the moment they returned. Derek had been blowing up his phone ever since Sage had left but he was smart enough not to answer it, even an airhead like him knew better than that.
Hearing the people behind him start counting down Sage lifted his head, rubbing his nose on his sweater until everyone suddenly shouted. “Happy New Year.” Sage said softly to himself, raising his eyes toward the stars when fireworks began to burst across the sky. Even there bright colors weren’t enough to bring a smile to Sage’s face; rather he turned and headed back into the yacht to return to his room for the night.
xXx
Have you ever been in a crash before? It doesn’t always happen in flashes you see, sometimes it could be as clear as any other day but over time it starts to fade. Sage just wondered how long it would be until it started to fade from his mind.
It wasn’t like what you saw in books or movies, the storm hadn’t come out of nowhere, really the ship’s captain had seen it coming and had done everything it could in order to avoid it. They just hadn’t been all that fast enough even though they had done everything right, warning the passengers to return to their cabins and ensuring that the lifeboats were on standby. It didn’t matter in the end though.
Sage had been awoken with a wave crashing into the side of the ship with enough force to make it tilt, sending him sprawling out of bed and onto the floor. For the next five minutes he had struggled to try and stand but each attempt was met with another wave to the boat, another toss around his room until he was clinging to the side of his bed covered in fresh bruises and utterly terrified. It had seemed like hours to Sage before water started to pour into his room from under the door and he knew that he couldn’t stay there anymore. It was hard to say if he had really made a mistake or not – there was nothing he could do about it now however – but the moment Sage opened the door he was greeted with pure chaos and icy water.
Outside the ship the storm was still going on however, knocking people off of the yacht to the water below where they were quickly lost and doing the same to any lifeboats that were lowered. Sage didn’t know if perhaps a wave had done it or maybe someone had pushed him, all he knew was one second he was stumbling out into the open and the next he was fighting the sea with all his might for a single breath of air. When his hands had hit something solid Sage latched onto it, not able to know what it was until hours later when the sun finally started to come up and the storm had moved off at last.
When next Sage opened his eyes he found himself on top of an overturned lifeboat, his silk night clothes torn in places and his pale skin already starting to sunburn. Looking around Sage couldn’t see anything for miles around, no signs of the storm and worse yet no signs of the ship. There was nothing around to even say that the ship had been there at all other than the fact that the lifeboat he was on had its name printed on the side. Using what energy Sage had left he flipped the boat over and crawled inside were he had passed out once more, waking up nearing sundown with his skin bright red. He had no food or water, nothing but the clothes he was wearing which did nothing to protect him from the cold at night.
Which was were Sage was now, two days later and still floating aimlessly in the boat. At the moment he had removed his silk top and placed it over his head, squeezing himself as much as he could under one of the seats to try and hide from the wrath of the sun. His skin was red, raw and had started pealing in some spots and so tender in others that the smallest of touches caused a great amount of pain. Every time he opened his mouth the skin of his lips would tear causing them to bleed, his head pounding in a horrible headache while his heart beating so heavily in his chest that when Sage watched he could see it through his bruised skin.
The worst of it all however wasn’t the fact that he was dying, it was because he was going to die trapped in some little boat while lost at sea with no one. Where they still looking for him? What were they going to tell his parents if they didn’t at least find his body? Sage would have cried but he had already learned that he didn’t have any tears left to shed, and it only made his headache worse.
‘I don’t want to die alone… Please… Please don’t let me die alone.' Sage mouthed the words causing a new tear in his once pink lips that started to bleed, his voice long having been lost by this point and his mind barely able to form a though through the throbbing. Slowly his vision started to become black as he slipped into nothingness, not even able to bring himself to fear that maybe this was going to be the last time he did so. What Sage didn’t know, since he had kept himself down in the boat without coming up for at least a day now, was how the lifeboat was now slowly drifting toward the edge of a beach where it caught itself on some rocks near the shore. Slowly rocking from side to side, like some sort of beacon for someone to find it and help the poor soul inside.