"Perhaps so. It wouldn't have taken much. Perhaps a rock had been placed a few inches to the right, so an impalement or breaking hip became a bare graze instead. In that case, what's to stop one of us from catching on to the other, us both together as we washed up on shore? What's to stop us from bandaging each other and moving on from there?"

He takes the pan expertly tosses the omelet, catching it after it's flipped. "If he wanted me dead as a doornail, no chance for survival? He could have merely slit my throat."