Free End of the Line (Book 2): Stuck in the Middle by Lara Frater

think of you. Listen, Jimmy, the operator won’t let me stay on much longer. He has to do regular reports.”
    The room remained quiet during the conversation. I didn’t say anything because I was jealous. I shouldn’t be. Jim lost his great love, now his mother and sisters. I lost everyone. Every single person that I loved was dead.
    Jim and his dad promised to talk once a week and then disconnected. Mike changed the frequency back to Bob. Tanya touched Jim’s shoulder and smiled. He smiled back, left the room, probably to share the news with Eric or to be alone.
    I decided to go back to bed. Since Henry was on watch, I wanted to enjoy having the bed to myself. I placed the blanket over my head and gave myself a little hole to breath. It was cold, but not freezing. I tried to enjoy the warmth of the blanket. I closed my eyes and ignored the slight motion of the ship. I tried to pretend I was home. My last Christmas with Mark, I was snuggling under the covers and he brought us two cups of cocoa. Not diet, or sugar free, but hot cocoa made with full milk, marshmallows and whipped cream. We had dinner with his parents the night before and he was happy they liked me. Today we would be going to my parents. Despite their issues with us shacking up, they loved Mark. Mom told me I picked a great guy and that I should always make him happy. My mom would then end the night with how I should diet. My sister meanwhile always needed money but she had my grandfather’s genes and was a bean pole. She could never do wrong with a figure like that. I tried not to get jealous of her.
    I thought of the cocoa I had last night. No whipped cream and we didn’t take marshmallows. I made sure that the essentials were taken, canned beans, meat, vegetables, and then we trolled the aisles for frivolous foods. I took ten bags of different kinds of chocolate but didn’t think to take marshmallows. I had two chocolates a day after dinner. I thought that we might never get new shipments of chocolate. Whatever left on the shelves was it. No other imported fruit like bananas, grapefruit, pineapple, oranges. I haven’t had orange juice in almost two years. We have a lot of canned pineapple juice. Jim wants to try to pick farmland that has apple and pear trees. We can plant all kinds of berries but it was too cold for oranges. 
    I wondered about the state of the South or California? I wonder if we can ever make a road trip to Florida to get oranges.
    I thought about making my own marshmallows, before I fell asleep.

Chapter 4
                  Day in and day out, we stayed on the boat. It was tedious with the same routine every day. I wished for change and got it with food poisoning.
                  It started in the morning. I was asleep when Henry woke me on a mad dash to the deck only wearing slippers and a robe. I didn’t think anything of it. Every other day it seemed Henry was running from the room to barf. Then I felt a strong wave of nausea. Lying down kept it from coming up immediately, but I knew I had seconds before it made an appearance.
                  I jumped out of bed, grabbed my robe and slippers because I had no time to get into boots.
                  I almost didn’t make it. I had to cover my mouth to stop the vomit from coming, I felt the disgusting taste in my mouth and felt its texture in my palms. When I got to the deck, I saw three other people besides Henry and me throwing up. I didn’t care, I went to the side and my entire dinner came out and hit the choppy water. Everything I ate was gone and still more came up. Stomach cramps rode in waves like the sea ahead of me, forcing up everything in my digestive system.
                  When I couldn’t vomit up any more, when only bile came up, I turned around. Despite the fact that it was freezing outside I was both sweating and shivering. My legs had turned to jelly and I slid down to the cold deck. I couldn’t move,