The Living

31 Lost at Sea

By morning Shy’s stomach was cramping, and he felt weak. He was so cold he couldn’t stop shivering, but he knew by the afternoon the sun would be beating down on them relentlessly. His lips were cracked and swollen from the day before, his face so sunburned it felt tight and stung in the salty air. Tiny sores had started popping up on his arms and legs and feet, and his skin was covered in a strange film.

For the first few hours of the day, the oilman slept and Addison shivered in her corner and remained silent. Shy tried to think of a plan. They couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. The movement of the sun told him which direction was east, but what was he going to do, row them all the way back to California? It would probably take a damn year with his one stupid oar. He’d start them toward the islands everyone kept talking about, but he had no idea which direction they were.

When he grew overwhelmed by the hopelessness of their situation, he started watching Addison, remembering how weird she’d acted on the Honeymoon Deck during the storm.

A few hours later, Addison leaned over the side of the boat and said: “God, why won’t they leave us alone?”

These were the first words she’d spoken on the lifeboat. Shy knew she was talking about the two sharks still hovering around the boat, but he took it as an opening to bring up what was on his mind. “Why’d your old man have a picture of me?”

Addison turned and looked at him.

“ ’Cause that’s what you said, right? When you were out there in the storm with your binoculars.”

No answer.

Shy shook his head. “You wanted to know who I am—shit, who are you? And who’s your dad?”

Addison’s face crinkled up and she covered her face with her hands and started crying.

Seeing this made Shy lose his edge. He always caved when he saw a girl cry. “It’s just a question,” he told her, softening his tone. “Seems messed up to tell me your old man has a picture of me and then—”

“Are you fucking kidding me!” Addison shouted at him through her sobs. “I just watched my best friend die! Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

Shy startled. He hadn’t expected her to get all psychotic on him.

“And I don’t know where my dad is!” Addison screamed. “He could be dead, too! And you want to talk to me about your stupid picture?”

“Jesus, calm down,” Shy said, rubbing his sore ribs. “All I did was ask a simple question, damn.”

Addison buried her face in her hands again and sobbed so loud Shy felt like an asshole. Maybe that’s exactly what he was. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought it up out here because nothing from the real world mattered anymore.

“Give it time,” Mr. Henry said.

Shy turned to look at the oilman, who was staring back at Shy.

“I don’t know what you all are talking about,” he said, “but whatever it is, just give it some time.”

Shy hung his head and inspected the sores on his bare foot, mumbling to himself: “Man, none of us have any time.”

They all hid from the sun once it was directly overhead. Addison sat underneath Shy’s slicker. Mr. Henry was covered by the tarp. Shy had taken off his life jacket and draped his shirt over his head and shoulders. He’d had enough of just sitting around and waiting, though. He needed to do something. Now.

He stood up and announced: “We need food and water. And we need to get to those islands.”

Addison and Mr. Henry watched him pull the fishing kit out of the supply cabinet. He had no idea how they were going to get water—there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, so rain definitely wasn’t in the forecast—but he could at least try and catch a damn fish.

“That’s real smart,” Addison said sarcastically.

“What?” Shy said, turning to face her.

“Not wearing a life jacket.” Addison looked away, shaking her head at him in disgust.

Shy stood there, staring. “What are you trying to say? You care if I drown?”

“No,” Addison scoffed. “Do whatever you want. All I’m saying is it’s stupid. Which isn’t a big surprise, I guess.”

Shy had no idea how to deal with a girl like this. In the normal world he’d probably flip her off and walk away. He’d never even try to interact with some spoiled-ass blond chick. He didn’t want to get into another fight, though, so all he could think to do was shrug and turn his attention back to the fishing gear.

“What islands are you talking about?” Mr. Henry asked from under his tarp.

It was good to hear the oilman’s voice. Anytime he went quiet for a long stretch, Shy was afraid he’d find the guy dead. “Ask her,” Shy answered, motioning toward Addison. “It’s her old man who supposedly works there.”

“That’s right, my dad does,” she said. “Not me. I’ve never even been there.”

“What’s he do, anyways?” Shy said. “What kind of job is way out here in the middle of the ocean?”

“I’m his daughter, God,” Addison said, “not his business consultant.”

“Hold up,” Shy said, unable to help himself, “you don’t even know what your own dad does for work?”

“You probably don’t even have a dad,” Addison fired back. “Doesn’t everyone like you grow up with a single mom?”

Shy just stared at her, amazed at what a bitch she was.

“What?” she said.

He shook his head, told her: “Nah, that shit’s too ignorant to even comment on.” He turned away from her all pissed off now, and broke open the pack of fishing lines and bait. He couldn’t believe he was stranded out here with a damn racist.

It was quiet on the boat for a few minutes, then Addison cleared her throat and said: “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Shy ignored her.

Guys where she was from probably put up with her bitchy attitude because she looked good. But Shy wasn’t playing that game. Anyway, she wasn’t even that hot right now. She was as disheveled-looking as anyone would be who survived a sinking ship and got stuck on a broke-ass boat.

“Fine,” Addison said. “Don’t accept my apology. Like I give a shit.”

Shy just shook his head as he put his life jacket back on. The girl had some serious emotional problems.

It didn’t take him long to bait the line and cast it over the side of the boat. There was a school of colorful fish nearby. He tried to will them to his hook, but they didn’t even seem to notice. So he sat there, waiting, thinking about Carmen and how much cooler she was than other girls. Especially this girl. And then he started thinking about back home.

Occasionally, he would reel in his line and recast it. Hoping it would do something. But it never did.

Shy stared into the water for what seemed like hours, watching fish swim right past his hook, trying to figure out what he was doing wrong. Maybe it was the fake bait he’d found in the supply cabinet. Or maybe he was fishing too shallow. Or maybe the sharks in the area had scared all the fish away or the ones who stayed were too nervous to eat.

At one point he overheard Addison saying something to the oilman about a rescue boat finding them. Or a rescue plane. But Shy no longer held out hope for a rescue anything. Every emergency team that existed would be focused on the earthquake victims. Their tiny lifeboat, drifting in the middle of the Pacific, wasn’t even on the radar.

An orange and white fish swam near his hook to investigate. It was thin and no bigger than the palm of his hand, but he begged it to bite. “Come on, you little bastard,” he told it. “Swallow that hook for me. You know it looks delicious as shit.”

But the fish turned and swam away.

Shy dropped his head in disappointment.

He could sense Addison behind him, judging his failure.

32 Eight Days

By late afternoon Shy felt amazingly weak. His muscles were cramping from hunger and dehydration. He stood at the front of the boat with the fishing line anyway, waiting for something to bite.

To take his mind off his discomfort, he started picturing random things from back home. The taquerias and liquor stores that lined his street. Neddie’s Laundromat, where they took their dirty clothes on Sundays. The cracked pavement of his apartment complex parking lot, where he did all his ball-handling drills. His mom walking into the apartment from work, hanging her keys on the hook by the door and sorting through the mail.

He replayed the last time all four of them were together. Sitting at the kitchen table eating sweet bread from the corner bodega. Drinking orange juice. It was the morning before this second voyage, and they were mostly quiet because they still didn’t know how to act after the death of his grandma.

Before Shy left, he turned to everyone, duffel bag slung over his right shoulder. “Guess I’ll get back with you guys in eight days.” He hugged his mom and sis, then held a fist out to Miguel, who gave it a little-kid bump. Then Shy was out the door, rumbling down the steps, climbing into the idling cab that would take him to the bus station.

Eight days.

Shy pulled his line back into the boat and stood there looking over the massive ocean and thinking about that. The sun burning his face. Empty stomach twisted in knots.

All these things from back home.

His life.

Gone.

It was the first time he’d actually thought about what he’d lost in a conscious way.

He glanced back at Addison and the oilman. Both watching him. Then he returned to the ocean, which stretched out beyond all comprehension. In every direction. The three of them in this tiny boat with no food and barely any water, crawling slowly toward their deaths.

A while later Shy heard Addison sloshing her way over to him. “They smell really bad,” she said, pointing at the bloated bodies lying in the boat.

Shy nodded. At least they agreed on one thing. “Definitely getting a little ripe in here,” he said.

“Well?” she said, her tone changing. “Can’t you do something about it?”

Shy looked at Addison, and then he looked at the bodies. They’d always been a symbol of his hope of being rescued. If he kept them in the boat, the boat was more likely to be found. That’s what was in the back of his head. And the rescue team would commend him for hanging on to the bodies so the families could take them back home and bury them. Shy realized something about himself right then. It was one thing to decide he’d given up hope. It was another to kill the symbol of it.

He went over to the first body and held his hand over it, cringing at the smell. He didn’t want to even touch it. But he had to. He forced himself to lift the slimy, awful-smelling corpse into a sitting position and he looked at it. Bloated features stuck on a strangely crooked face.

He glanced back at Addison, who turned her head as if she couldn’t watch. The oilman, too.

Shy looked back at the woman. “Sorry about this,” he said under his breath. Then he turned his head to take a deep breath and held it as he strained to lift the heavy body up and over the side of the boat. He watched it splash into the ocean and slowly drift off in the life jacket as he stood wiping his hands on his pants.

He took the life jackets off the rest of the bodies before dumping them into the water, too.

When he was done he moved back over to Addison, saying: “Happy now?”

“At least we won’t die of that smell,” she said.

He picked up his fishing line and cast it back into the sea.

“Okay,” she said, “now we have to get to those islands.”

Shy turned to look at her, keeping his line in the water. “Too bad we have no clue which way to go.”

She looked all around the ocean with a concentrated look on her face. “What if we just picked a direction? At least that way we’d be trying.”

Her tone was super condescending, like she was blaming Shy for them being stranded. “Fine,” he said. “Point which way, and I’ll get us going.”

“Why me?”

“Because it’s your idea,” he said.

She gave him an exaggerated frown. “Don’t they train you people for this kind of thing?”

“What, sailing to some island nobody’s ever heard of in a broke-ass boat?” Shy pointed near his feet. “With only one oar?”

“You don’t have to be an asshole about it.”

“Look, Addison,” Shy said, not wanting to spend the last of his energy arguing. “I’m sorry about your friend, okay? And your dad. It sucks. But I lost people, too.”

She looked down at her feet. It seemed like she was going to get upset again, so Shy said: “For real, though. Pick a direction and we’ll give it a shot. Like you said, it’s better than just sitting around doing nothing.”

Addison turned to Mr. Henry and said: “Do you have an opinion about this?”

The man shook his head without looking up. Shy could tell he was coming to the end, and he wished he could do something. Give him painkillers, at least, to ease his suffering. But they had nothing.

“What about you?” Addison asked Shy.

He turned to the ocean. The tide seemed to be moving in one specific direction. Maybe it was being drawn toward one of the islands—though it could just as easily be the opposite. Shy shrugged and mentioned it anyway. “I guess we could go with the tide. We’ll move faster that way.”

“Okay,” she said, looking up at him. “That makes sense.”

Shy showed Addison how to bait the hook and cast the line, then he sloshed his way to the front of the boat with his oar and dug back into the water.

“It’s Addie, by the way,” she called to him from the side of the boat.

He turned to look at her, confused.

“My name,” she said. “Only old people call me Addison.”

Shy nodded. “Addie. Okay.”

He went back to working his oar through the water, wondering if they were being nice to each other now.

33 Otay Mesa Cemetery

When the sun started setting, Addie came to Shy and suggested they trade for a while. He happily agreed and handed her the oar, then stood back to watch. It took her a while to get the hang of it, but once she did, she got them going pretty good. He was surprised a skinny, private-school racist had the strength to pull it off.

She turned around, half smiling, and said: “Is this right?”

“Damn, Addie,” he told her, “you’re not as useless as I thought.”

She flipped him off, and he turned his attention back to fishing. But all he did was fail about a hundred different ways. He tried double-baiting the hook, tried tossing it as far from the boat as he could, tried dropping in two lines at once. Nothing worked. The closest he got was when a small, round fish nosed the bait, then darted away.

When it grew dark and a small shark started passing back and forth underneath his bait, Shy gave up and pulled his line back in and looked around. The night was brighter than usual under a mostly full moon. But there was still nothing to eat and no rain and no land in sight.

Shy sloshed his way over to Mr. Henry, who’d been silent for a while, no longer even whimpering in pain. His pant leg was torn wide open now. Shy pulled the man’s hand from his leg to see how much worse it looked. Pus and blood oozed out of the gruesome wound. The skin around it had turned a purplish-red, and dark streaks ran up and down his leg. When the smell of it hit Shy, he turned away and went to get the jug of water. He held it out to Mr. Henry and said: “Drink some.”

The man shook his head and closed his eyes.

“I’m serious,” Shy said. “You need water.”

No response.

Shy knew the oilman wouldn’t last much longer, and they had less than a third of a gallon left. If he didn’t force it, he and Addie would be able to stretch it that much further.

He turned and watched Addie working the oar. It had been over an hour, easy, and she still hadn’t even taken a break. He was shocked. There was no way she’d ever done this kind of work before, yet she kept on rowing like it was her job.

He turned back to Mr. Henry and shook him by the shoulder. When the man opened his eyes, Shy told him: “You know I’m gonna keep bugging you till you drink some, right?”

The man reached out and took the jug, poured two small sips into his mouth and cringed as he swallowed. He wiped his chin on his shoulder and handed back the jug.

Shy patted the man on the back, wishing he could do more; then he sloshed his way over to Addie and made her drink some, too. “You’re still not tired?” he asked.

“Of course I’m tired,” she said, handing back the water jug. “I’m exhausted. This sucks.”

Shy took a sip, re-capped the jug and then held it up to see how little was left. It was like sand in an hourglass, telling him: Here’s how much time you have left to live.

“Look,” Addie said, letting out a big breath, “I’ll tell you what I know about the Hidden Islands, okay?”

“Yeah,” Shy said, taken off guard. He was surprised she was offering information without even being asked.

“It isn’t much, but whatever.” She looked out over the ocean. “So, according to my dad, they used to be a cluster of four, but three are now underwater. Only Jones Island is still inhabitable, which is where he works.” She shrugged. “Oh, and it’s a private island, so you can’t just go on vacation there. You have to be invited.”

“You’ve never been there, though?” Shy asked.

“Are you kidding? My dad take me to his secretive, private work island?” She rolled her eyes.

“What’s so secret about it?” Shy asked.

Addie grinned and shook her head. “I’m not sure how it looked back on the ship,” she told him, “but I barely even know my dad. All he cares about is working and amassing his fortune.”

“At least he took you on a cruise.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah. The big father-daughter bonding trip. My dad’s attempt at”—she did air quotes—“being more present in my life. I only agreed to go because he said I could bring Cassie.”

Shy nodded. Even though the real world barely mattered right now, he wanted to know more about her dad, especially knowing he had a picture of Shy. “So, why’d he leave if you guys were supposed to be bonding?”

“You just have all the good questions, don’t you?”

Shy shrugged.

“He told me he needed to check on some new research they were doing. But he was going to meet us in Hawaii.” Addie’s face grew serious, like she was thinking about what might have happened to him when the waves hit. She tapped the oar against the bottom of the boat a few times and added: “I guess his company has some arrangement with you guys. They let him get picked up by a private boat.”

She looked like she was getting upset again, so Shy decided to ease up a little. “Anyways,” he told her, “lemme take over for—”

“They make equipment for hospitals,” Addie interrupted. She handed him the oar and stretched out her arms. “And some pharmaceutical stuff. See? I actually do know what my dad does for a living.”

Shy didn’t understand why a company that made hospital equipment needed to be on a remote island. Seemed kind of sketchy.

“For a while,” Addie continued, “I honestly thought he wanted us to go on a vacation together. I mean, he usually takes a private jet to the island, straight from the Santa Monica Airport, which is close to our house. But that last night on the ship, Cassie and I overheard something we weren’t supposed to.”

“What?” Shy asked, more curious now. He sensed that she was moving toward something important.

“I guess like a week ago,” she said, “someone from his company committed suicide on the ship.”

Shy froze. The comb-over man worked for the same company as her dad?

“I’m pretty sure my dad’s real motivation for being on the ship had nothing to do with me. I think he wanted to find out what happened for himself.” Addie looked Shy right in the eyes. “So, were you working that trip? It was going to Mexico.”

Shy pushed off the side of the boat, said: “Hell yeah, I was working. I’m the one who saw the guy jump.”

“Wait, really?” Addie said, but she didn’t look that surprised. He wondered how much she already knew.

“I grabbed him before he fell,” Shy told her. “He died because I wasn’t strong enough to hang on to him. Your old man tell you that, too?”

“He didn’t tell me anything,” Addie said. “I swear. We only found out about the suicide because we overheard one of my dad’s security people questioning the maitre d’. And me and Cassie started talking after we saw you outside the gym. I mean, it seemed really random for him to just invite you to dinner like that.”

“Yeah, what was that about?”

Addie shrugged. “It’s one of the reasons we decided to do a little snooping.”

Right then everything came together for Shy. “Do you know a guy named Bill?” he asked her out of the blue.

“I know a lot of guys named Bill.”

“On the ship, I mean. Curly black hair. Always wears a black suit.” Earlier Shy was unable to picture his own mom’s face, but the suit guy was burned into his memory. “He had a mole on his nose.”

“Oh yeah,” Addie said. “That’s one of my dad’s security people. I didn’t know his name was Bill, though. Why?”

“He asked me all kinds of questions about the suicide. Right after you and your friend left the Honeymoon Deck.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said.

“You’re not?”

“They seemed really paranoid about what happened. The guy who jumped was named David Williamson—”

“Yeah, exactly,” Shy interrupted. “He told me right before he jumped.”

“He was one of the top guys in the company.”

Shy thought back to his brief conversation with the comb-over man, or David Williamson. At the time he thought it was just some drunk rich guy rambling. Little did he know he’d be analyzing every word a week later while stranded at sea.

“Know what’s strange?” Addie said. “He used to come over for dinner when I was little. He and my dad were friends.” She shook her head. “I remember he seemed so normal. Don’t you have to be a little unbalanced to jump off a ship?”

“He was definitely unbalanced when I talked to him on the Honeymoon Deck. He kept saying all this crazy shit about corruption and how he was hiding from people.” It occurred to Shy that this was the most he’d ever shared about that conversation to anyone. Including his own family.

“I wonder what happened to him,” Addie said.

“I wonder why your old man was so paranoid about it.” Shy looked up at the moon, amazed at how everything now seemed to connect. The suit guy stalking him and his room being trashed and Addie’s dad asking him to dinner—all of it went back to the suicide on his first voyage. And now him and this girl in the boat. “Hey, Addie,” he said, wiping a hand down his face, “I still need to ask you about—”

“The picture my dad had,” she said, finishing his sentence. “Right?”

“Uh, yeah, actually.”

Addie reached into her jeans pocket, pulled out a folded photo and held it out to Shy. “You mean this one?”

Shy took it from her and unfolded it, stunned. The picture was wet and creased, but he could clearly see himself sitting alone beside his grandma’s grave back in Otay Mesa.

“I took it from my dad’s room,” she said. “Never got a chance to put it back.”

“How’d you get it?” Shy said, looking up at her.

“He left a key to his cabin with us,” Addie said. “So we could have two showers. When they made us all leave the dining room early because of the storm, me and Cassie ditched my dad’s security people and snuck into his cabin to look around.” She pointed at the picture in his hand. “We found it just lying on top of his safe. You can understand why I was so weirded out when I saw you during the storm, right?”

Shy looked down at the picture again and the memory of that moment came flooding back. It was the night before this second voyage. He’d ridden his bike across town and through the cemetery gates to lean a sunflower against his grandma’s small headstone. Her favorite flower. Then he’d just sat there, thinking about the last few hours of her battle with Romero Disease, and about his family’s future. Not only had a great person been stolen from their lives, his grandma also paid half the bills. He had no idea how they were going to make it without her.

It made Shy sick knowing there was someone watching him that night, spying on his mourning.

He looked up at Addie, remembering what Supervisor Franco had said just before Shy went out into the storm to help clear the Lido Deck. “Does your dad by any chance work for a company called LasoTech?”

“Does my dad work for LasoTech?” she said, repeating the question. She scoffed a little. “More like my dad owns LasoTech.”

34 Mr. Henry’s Strange Request

They talked a while longer—about the company and what they were hoping to find out about Shy’s conversation with the guy who jumped off the boat, David Williamson, and why everyone seemed so concerned about a guy who was already dead—and then Addie said if she didn’t sit down she was going to pass out standing up.

“Go rest,” he said. “We can talk more about it tomorrow.”

She nodded. “Time to go freeze my ass off,” she told him as she started over to her side of the boat. After she sat down she called to him: “Hey, Shy.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really sorry you got mixed up in all this.”

She seemed like she genuinely meant it. “Same with you,” he told her.

Shy moved over to Mr. Henry, who was sound asleep. He put his hand under his nose to make sure he was still breathing, then went to his own spot against the side of the boat. He sat down in the ankle-high water, leaned his head back and thought some more about everything he and Addie had just talked about.

Shy was so cold and hungry he had trouble falling asleep. He stared up into the star-filled night, letting his mind go wherever it wanted.

He pictured the man in the black suit cornering him in the Luxury Lounge. Pointing as Shy made his escape down the stairs. He pictured the look on Addie’s dad’s face when he stepped up to Shy’s pool stand, offered to toss the foul-mouthed Muppet kid off the ship. Maybe that was some kind of vague reference to the comb-over man’s suicide. Maybe he thought Shy was to blame. He pictured his grandma opening her scrapbook in the hall, pointing to the article about sharks. Then Shy found himself picturing something else, the sliver of Carmen undressing he’d seen through her bathroom door.

Shy closed his eyes so he could focus on that last image. He liked thinking about all Carmen-related things, including stuff that had nothing to do with her beautiful naked body. But right now, as he sat shivering against the side of the boat, all he wanted to do was think about her curves and her skin and the tattooed words below her belly button. It probably said something deep, he decided. A quote from some philosopher or a saying that he’d understand on the exact same level.

He missed how it felt to be around her. How his stomach would get butterflies when she even walked into a room. He wondered if she was on another boat right now, in some other part of the ocean, slowly dying by herself, the same as he was. And what if she had her eyes closed, too, and she was thinking about him? Could they be together in their thoughts even when their bodies were apart? He held himself for warmth and drifted off wondering about that.

Carmen showed up in Shy’s dream, too.

She was walking up to his towel stand. Smiling. “Come with me,” she said.

“Now?” he asked. “I can’t just leave work.”

“What are you talking about, Shy? It’s your dream, isn’t it? People can do anything they want inside their own dreams.”

The sky suddenly shifted from morning to night. Supervisor Franco was there now, too. He was telling Shy his shift was over, to take a break, go get himself some dinner.

That was when Shy understood. He was somewhere between consciousness and sleep, where you can partly steer the story of your dreams.

He followed Carmen down the stairs, into the Southside Lounge. The butterflies in his stomach flapping like crazy. Because maybe she was bringing him here to confess her love. To explain how she was leaving her lawyer. The guy didn’t understand her. Not the way Shy did. She’d finally realized how empty it was being with someone who never asked how she felt about things, who would never understand how bad it hurt to lose someone to Romero Disease.

But as they sat down at a table, he knew the look on Carmen’s face wasn’t the love-professing kind.

“I’ve been doing some thinking,” she said. “About me and you, Shy.”

“Me too,” he said, though it was obvious their thinking wasn’t the same.

“I believe the reason it’s so complicated between us is ’cause I’m the only one in a relationship. If we were both committed to other people, we could be way closer as friends. Don’t you think?”

The butterflies in his stomach stopped flapping.

They keeled over and died.

“Look,” Carmen said, “you know I care about you, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Well,” she said, “over the past couple days I’ve gotten to know someone a little better. And I think she’d be perfect for you.”

“A girl?”

“Yes, Shy. A girl.” Carmen turned around and called out: “You can come join us now, Addie.”

Shy looked up, shocked to see Addie approaching their table. She sat down, smiling, and gave him a little wave.

“You don’t even like her,” Shy said to Carmen.

“That’s not true,” she said. “Once you get past that bitchy front she puts up, and you ignore all her snobby tendencies, you’ll discover that Addie’s a pretty decent girl.” Carmen then turned to Addie, said: “And I’m gonna be honest about Shy, too. He can be a little selfish and girl crazy. And he’s into corny shit like hand-holding tests. But he means well.”

“Corny can be cute,” Addie said.

“Mmm, in Shy’s case it’s really not,” Carmen said. “Trust me. But it’s better than him being an asshole, right?”

Shy was starting to get frustrated. This was his dream. Why was he letting other people tell him what to do?

“Look at you two,” Carmen said. “You’re both shivering. You need each other right now.”

Shy looked down at his own arms. Carmen was right. His teeth were even chattering. It was the same for Addie.

“So, what do you guys think?” Carmen said. “Are you brave enough to give it a try?”

Shy rubbed the hell out of his eyes, trying to wake himself up. When he dropped his hands, he found himself sitting across the table from Mr. Henry, who was turning on a power hacksaw. Carmen and Addie had vanished.

“Hold up, man!” Shy shouted over the roar of the saw. “What’re you doing with that thing? And where’d the girls go?”

The oilman ignored his question and started lowering the blade toward his wounded leg, shouting: “I won’t be needing this anymore!”

Blood sprayed everywhere. “Jesus, man!” Shy shouted, shielding his face with his hands, cringing at the awful sound.

After a few seconds the oilman turned off the saw and set it on the table, then he tore off the rest of his leg. “It was just getting in the way,” he said, tossing it onto the floor of the Southside Lounge, where it made a surprising splashing sound.

Mr. Henry hopped around to Shy’s side of the table and sat down, saying: “I came over here to thank you.”

“To thank me?” Shy said. “For what?” His dream was so confusing now he just wanted it to be over. He clenched his eyes closed and rubbed them with his fists again, harder this time. Then he opened them as wide as he could, demanding himself to wake up.

It was still him and the oilman, but they were no longer in the Southside Lounge. They were inside the broken boat, leaning against the side next to each other. Addie across from them, asleep.

“For listening,” the oilman said. “I needed to admit to someone that Angela didn’t want me. It’s like a weight has been lifted.”

Shy’s mind was foggy and slow, but he knew he was no longer dreaming. This was real. He could tell because the oilman’s leg was back on his body, giving off a foul odor.

“You know, I’ve always had a certain belief about women,” Mr. Henry continued, his face filled with pain. “They love to own expensive jewelry. But now I’m starting to believe there’s a second part to that. Something I’d never thought about until I got out here on this boat. Women love expensive jewelry even more when it comes from the right person.”

Shy watched Mr. Henry stare out at the dark ocean, wondering why he was talking about jewelry when he was in such bad shape. Sweat streamed down the guy’s forehead. His teeth were clenched in pain. Shy would be focusing all his attention on staying alive.

“It hurts me to admit this,” Mr. Henry said, turning back to Shy, “but even though I can afford any piece of jewelry, from any store, I’ve never been the right person to give it.”

Shy opened his mouth to argue, but Mr. Henry raised a hand and said: “Now I have an odd sort of request.”

Shy closed his mouth and listened.

“I’d like to hug you, Shy.”

“Hug me?” This was the last thing Shy expected. “What are you even talking about?”

“I’m coming to the end of the line.”

Shy was shaking his head now, saying: “Look, man, I’m sorry about everything that’s happened. But I’m not trying to hug somebody out here—”

The oilman was already leaning over and wrapping his arms around Shy’s shoulders. “I don’t mean anything strange by this,” he mumbled in Shy’s ear. “It’s just a hug. Nothing more.”

“Get off me,” Shy said, trying to push away. But he felt so weak. And Mr. Henry had a tight hold around his back. And it wasn’t like the guy was trying to molest him. He was just doing a stupid hug, like Rodney might. And Shy felt so bad for the man.

The whole thing lasted maybe eight seconds. Then the oilman let go and pushed away from Shy. “Be the right person,” he said. “Gifts are more meaningful when they come from the right person.”

Mr. Henry scooted his way back across the busted-up boat and leaned against his part of the jagged side, massaging his mangled leg.

Shy rubbed his eyes again, trying to make sense of what had just happened. But he was too cold and hungry to think straight.

He sat there for a long while before he realized something important. He was going to die, too. Sure, he’d last longer than Mr. Henry, but how much longer? Would he and Addie survive long enough to find the islands? To be rescued? Would they live long enough to see home again? And what if they no longer had a home to go to? What then?

He glanced across the boat at Addie. Her arms wrapped around her legs, eyes closed. Her whole body shivering in the cold. The oilman’s eyes were closed now, too.

Shy was alone.

He stared up at the glowing moon again, and he listened to the whispering ocean. His thoughts were more staticky than before, but for the first time since the summer started, he felt like he understood the ocean’s whispering. It all came down to this. The darkness. The loneliness. The mystery. The fact that everyone’s days were numbered, and it didn’t matter if you were in premier class or worked in housekeeping. Those were only costumes people wore. And once you stripped them away you saw the truth. This giant ocean and this dark pressing sky. We only have a few minutes, but the unexplainable world is constant and forever marching forward.

Shy felt nauseous from the realization, like he’d been shown something humans weren’t equipped to see.

He pushed off the side and quietly moved across the boat to Addie and sat down next to her, slid his arm around her shoulders so they could share body heat.

She opened her eyes and looked at him.

Her chest moving in and out with each breath. But she didn’t say anything. Neither did he. And eventually she leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes and fell back to sleep.