Belize

Chapter Two

Rebecca Chambers woke up when the slivers of sunlight coming through the venetian blinds passed across her eyes. She blinked and then turned her face into the pillow. Peeking at the nightstand, she looked to see what time it was.

6:58. She closed her eyes and sighed gently. How did she always manage to wake up minutes before her alarm was set to go off? Two extra minutes of sleep might not help her feel more awake, but they certainly couldn’t hurt.

She sat up and shrugged off the blanket. Her short reddish-brown hair was sticking out in every direction, and she absently ran her fingers through it, blinking a few times and mentally preparing herself for the difficult task of actually getting out of bed. Standing up, she stretched and walked over to the window, dressed only in a faded blue t-shirt and white panties.

It took a few seconds of fiddling with the venetian blinds to open them up, but she eventually succeeded, and more light streamed into the cramped bedroom. Lying on the other side of the bed was Billy Coen, who grimaced when the light washed over him and grumbled something before rolling over on his other side. Rebecca smiled and returned to the bed, kneeling over Billy and putting her hands on his arm.

“Wakey, wakey, sweetie,” she chirped.

“Go away,” Billy muttered. “The alarm hasn’t even –”

Just then the alarm began to bleep 7:00, and Rebecca chuckled to herself as she reached over to shut it off. “You were saying?” she asked.

“Give me five minutes,” Billy groaned. “For the love of God, just five minutes.”

“I’ll give you two and a half,” Rebecca replied.

She hopped out of bed and wandered down the short, narrow hallway to the living room-slash-kitchen, flipping on light switches as she went. Two slices of bread went into the toaster and a jar of strawberry jelly was procured from the fridge. She made a quick trip to the bathroom and then frowned at her own reflection in the mirror before hurrying back into the kitchen as the toast popped up. She started the coffee maker while scooping jelly onto the toast while it was still warm.

The apartment was tiny and not very clean, but it was cheap and in a convenient neighborhood, so they put up with it. When they first arrived in Belize, they had barely any money to their name and no idea what they were even going to do once they got there. Thankfully, the official language of Belize was English, even though many locals spoke Creole or Spanish as well, so communication was not a major problem. Billy’s family wired them some money to help them get started, and they managed to find an apartment in a small neighborhood with other native English-speakers as well as a few other American expatriates. So far they had lived there for six months and were slowly getting used to their new surroundings.

Belize had not been their first choice. Originally, they intended to travel further south to Costa Rica, but that meant traveling through several other countries, including Nicaragua and Honduras, unless they wanted to fly, which neither of them was comfortable with. Billy was a convicted felon and was also legally dead, and all of his paperwork and documentation was fake, so they felt it was best not to tempt fate. Traveling by car was much easier, and after driving all the way through Mexico and crossing the border into Belize, they decided to stay there instead of continuing south.

The dirty window in their living room did not offer much of a view. It looked down a winding street packed with tiny cars, but she could make out the Caribbean Sea over the tops of the nearby houses. This early in the morning it had a faded blue look, but once the sun was fully up, the sea would sparkle like a crisp blue gemstone. They lived in Belize City, which sat on the Caribbean coast, poking out like a thorn, the farthest point east in the whole country. It was a perfect place for them to stay, since it was the biggest city in the whole country and was always brimming with travelers and tourists from all over. Huge cruise ships stopped there regularly during peak tourist season, and the downtown streets became packed with middle-aged American tourists in Hawaiian shirts, snapping pictures and moving in groups like obese schools of fish.

Rebecca returned to the bedroom, toast in hand. She tapped Billy on the arm and he reluctantly sat upright so she could hand him his breakfast. She munched on hers and leaned against the wall. Billy groaned and sat up, swinging his legs off the bed and putting his bare feet down on the carpet.

“Coffee?” he mumbled, staring at the toast as if he didn’t know what it was.

“Being made as we speak,” Rebecca said.

“Thank you, darling.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie.”

Calling each other cutesy pet names like “honey” and “darling” had been her idea, and started off as more of a joke than anything else. Rebecca wasn’t sure if it really meant anything yet. Hopefully, she thought, in time they would mean it.

It’s only been six months, she thought. Technically, it was still the shortest relationship she’d ever been in; even her dumb boyfriends from college had lasted eight or nine months. Six months and now they were living together like a married couple. It all happened so fast, so unbelievably fast, that Rebecca’s mind spun just thinking about it. When they arrived in Belize, they still barely knew each other. She didn’t know Billy’s favorite band, she didn’t know what kinds of food he liked, she didn’t even know his middle name.

There were times when she found herself in a state of near-panic over all that she didn’t know. What if Billy turned out to be a heavy drinker and a mean drunk? What if he met another woman in Belize and cheated on her? What if he turned out to be a racist or a bigot? What if Rebecca had just bound herself to a man that she would learn to hate?

Thankfully, Billy’s worst habits were pretty tame. He was an unrepentant grouch in the mornings, he wore his shoes inside the apartment and tracked dirt on the carpet, and he left the toilet seat up. Rebecca could live with that. Well, the toilet seat thing she’d eventually have to make him stop doing, but the others she would live with.

Somehow, they managed to struggle through those awkward first few weeks living together, getting to really know each other’s moods and behaviors, learning all those basic things that people normally ask about on the first couple dates, and coming to terms with the decisions they had made. And now, after six months, things seemed to be going remarkably well.

Billy ate his toast and used the bathroom, and then shuffled his way into the kitchen to get some coffee. Knowing he wasn’t in a conversational mood when he first got up, Rebecca instead hopped into their tiny shower, which was so narrow that Billy barely fit inside it. By the time she returned to the living room, in clean clothes and her hair wrapped in a towel, Billy was already lacing up his work boots. He was dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt.

He had to be down to the marina by 8:00. They had no car yet, so he had to walk there, which meant he had to get out of the apartment by 7:30 at the very latest.

“You work this morning, right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, leaning against the wall in the hallway. “I’m on morning shift all this week. Next week I work evenings.”

“Okay. I’ll see you tonight, then,” he sighed. He stood up and went for the door.

She hurried over to him. “Hey, wait a sec.”

“What is it?” he asked, turning back around.

She got up on her tiptoes and impulsively gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Have a good day at work, okay?”

He seemed surprised for a moment and then smiled. “You too, babe.”

“I have a treat for tonight,” she said quickly, digging into a pile of papers and dirty clothes on the couch. She pulled out a DVD of the movie Blade Runner and held it out for him. “I found it at one of those sidewalk markets down near the beach. It’s probably a pirated copy or something, but it was only a dollar.”

He gave a laugh and looked at it for a second before handing it back to her. “Thank you. Yeah, sounds like a great idea. We can watch it after dinner. You said you haven’t seen it before, right?”

“I think I saw part of it when I was in college, but I don’t really remember it.”

“Okay. I’ve probably seen it twenty times, but … but not in a while, obviously. I can’t wait to see it again. Thanks for getting it.”

“No problem, like I said, it was only a dollar.”

Billy nodded and then shrugged. “Well, I’ve got to go. See you tonight.”

“Yeah,” Rebecca said.

After the door closed behind him, she stood in the middle of the kitchen for a few heartbeats before sighing to herself and looking down at the DVD in her hand. She pulled the towel off her head and ran her fingers through her still-wet hair. She walked over to the table and started to set the movie down, but hesitated and let it linger in her hand.

She should have waited until he got home to show him. He was still sleepy and grouchy before work, and he seemed more surprised than happy when she showed it to him. But he thanked her for getting it and said they could watch it together. Rebecca idly tapped the DVD against the table and then finally set it down.

She walked over to the window and crossed her arms. She had to remind herself that she and Billy had gone through a lot together, but the series of events that led Billy here was far more convoluted than hers. Less than a year ago, Billy was in prison, facing a lifetime behind bars after being betrayed by his fellow soldiers in the military. In a lot of ways, Billy had been broken by that event, and everything since then had been a slow process of coming to terms with what had been done. He had literally been on his way to serve out a life sentence when he was caught up in the outbreak in the Arklay Mountains and forced to fight for his life with Rebecca by his side.

And now, he was living in a foreign country, forever separated from his family just as much as if he’d been in prison. Rebecca did her best to be supportive, to keep him positive, to help him deal with the aftermath of everything that had happened, even as she had to deal with it herself. But deep down, she knew that coming with Billy and living with him was her own choice. Billy didn’t really have a choice at all.

She ran her fingers through her hair again, looking out the window at nothing in particular. They’d been living together for six months, and so far things were going well, but how long would it last? She wondered if Billy was having second thoughts. He had done his best to prevent her from coming along with him in the first place, and sometimes she wondered if he regretted finally letting her join him. What if Billy told her to go back to the United States? What if he ended their relationship and went out on his own?

Rebecca was here by choice. If worse came to worst, she could return to America and start her life over somewhere. That single fact alone put pressure on their relationship. In a way, Billy resented her for it. And Rebecca felt guilty about it. She lived each day in fear that Billy might change his mind about all of this.

She didn’t want that to happen. She chose to come to Belize with him, but that choice had not been easy. She still had family back in the United States, including her mother, who simply couldn’t understand why Rebecca had gone to live in another country with a strange man she had just met. Rebecca abandoned her life in America to be with Billy, and the thought that he might push her away terrified her.

Tonight, they could cuddle together and watch a movie like a normal couple. And after the movie, she would tell him everything that was on her mind. For weeks, they had been avoiding having a real conversation about their future plans. But Rebecca knew that their lives were bound to change soon, and they needed to get it all out in the open and be honest with each other about what their relationship really was.

Was their connection nothing more than the leftover emotions from a shared traumatic event? Or was there something more, something they could build on? Did they truly, honestly have a future together? Rebecca believed they did, but she needed to hear Billy say it too.

She looked at the clock. It was almost 7:40, and if she kept standing around thinking to herself, she was going to be late for work.

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