Matt de la Peña - The Living

The look on her face killed him, and he leaned over and patted her shoulder, awkwardly. “Listen…,” he said, but then he trailed off. He wanted to say something important, something reassuring, but nothing like that came to him because it wasn’t true.

“All I know is this,” he finally said. “We’re gonna spend the day paddling. Same direction as yesterday. And I’m gonna catch us a damn fish this time. You hear me, Addie? Even if I have to dive my ass in there and choke one out with my bare hands.”

He thought she might smile at that last part, but she only nodded and looked to where Mr. Henry used to sit, wiping more tears from her face.

The sun climbed slowly into the cloudless sky, warming the air around them. Shy’s hands were blistered, and his back and shoulders ached. He had so little strength now, he could only make the boat creep forward a little at a time with the oar. But he kept working. And he kept thinking about Mr. Henry and Addie’s dad, and he kept remembering the man in the black suit, Bill, asking all those questions in the Luxury Lounge and then hurrying away from Carmen’s cabin after the ship alarm went off. There was something he wasn’t understanding, something bigger than just a man jumping overboard. But his mind was too slow to put it all together.

After a few hours, they switched places. Addie took the oar without a word, and Shy moved to the back of the boat, and when he bent down to rebait the hook, he felt something scratch his upper thigh. He glanced down, expecting to find some kind of ocean bug biting him. Instead he found a small bulge in the pocket of his jeans and reached his fingers in for it. He was shocked at what he pulled out.

The oilman’s seven-carat diamond ring.

He stared down at the massive diamond, then glanced at Addie, who was already busy working the oar.

The guy must’ve slipped the ring into Shy’s pocket during that weird hug. It was probably the reason he hugged Shy in the first place. Shy dropped the fishing line and moved toward the edge of the boat. He held the ring over the side, thinking he should drop it in, let it float down after Mr. Henry. He didn’t want someone else’s ring. Didn’t matter how big the diamond was. That kind of shit didn’t matter out here. Plus, what if someone discovered them in the boat, long after he and Addie died. They’d probably think he was a thief.

But he couldn’t drop it.

Couldn’t let go.

“It’s been two days,” Addie called out, startling Shy so bad he almost dropped the ring by accident. “And we still haven’t seen anything. ”

He slipped the ring back in his pocket and turned around, saying: “We will.”

“No, we won’t,” she said, throwing the oar at the floor of the boat. “This is a waste of time. We’re probably going the exact opposite way.”

Shy scooped up the baited hook and sloshed his way to the front of the boat. “What do you wanna do, Addie? Give up?”

“I want to go home!” she shouted.

“So do I,” Shy told her. “What do you think we’re trying to do?”

Addie sat down in the boat and covered her face with her hands, but she didn’t cry. She just stared at the water inside the boat.

Shy reached down for the jug of water, uncapped it, held it out to her. “Feeling sorry for yourself isn’t gonna help you survive.”

“You think I don’t know that?” she said, snatching the jug out of his hands. “God, you’re like the worst person to be stuck with.” She took two baby sips of water and handed it to Shy, who did the same. After re-capping it, he held the jug up to see how much was left. About an inch high at the bottom.

Addie was looking at the same thing.

Their eyes met for a second, but she quickly cut away and reached down for the oar, then she stood up and turned away from him and dug back into the ocean.

Shy moved to the opposite end. He cast his line back into the ocean, wondering why he didn’t want to tell Addie about the ring.

He’d only been standing there ten minutes, max, when he felt a sudden tug on the line. He grabbed it with both hands and stood up straight to look over the edge of the boat. There it was, deep below the surface, a thin yellow fish caught on his hook, jerking to get away. He got a rush of energy and started pulling in the line, fast as he could.

Shy heard Addie splashing down the boat, toward him. “What is it?” she said.

“Told you I’d catch a fish,” he said.

Addie leaned over the side of the boat, said: “Oh my God.”

When it was close to the surface, he reached down, pinched the line between his thumb and forefinger, only inches from the fighting fish, yanked it out of the water and flung it into the boat.

He and Addie watched the thing thrash around in the ankle-high water at their feet, still connected to his line.

“You actually did it!” Addie shouted.

“You doubted me, didn’t you?” he said.

“Never again,” she said, on the verge of laughter. “You’re the fish master.”

He wanted to tell her it was because of the oilman’s ring. It was their new good-luck charm. But on the other hand, maybe it was only good luck if he kept it a secret.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

He looked down at the flopping fish, shaking his head. He hadn’t thought it through this far. They couldn’t eat the thing when it was still alive. He looked around, then went and got the oar, raised it up over his head, and brought it down on the fish.

It went still.

“Jesus,” Shy said, staring at the gash he’d opened up on the thing.

“Here,” Addie said, picking up the dry pack Mr. Henry had carried with him from the raft. “Put it on this.”

Shy lifted the wet, scaly fish and tossed it on the pack. Wiped his hands on his jeans. They both stared at it.

The fish was a dull yellow and thin, but sort of long. Its eyes were seemingly fixed on Shy.

Addie surprised him when she reached down suddenly, removed the fish from the hook and then used the hook and her bare hands to split it down the middle, blood dripping through her fingers. She held out the bigger half to Shy, who looked at her like she was crazy. “What?” she said.

“I didn’t know I was out here with a damn cannibal,” he said, looking down at his mangled portion.

“I knew you weren’t going to do it.”

“I was getting around to it,” he said.

“Yeah, right.” She looked at the half a fish in her hand and said: “We just have to imagine we’re eating sushi.”

When Shy didn’t answer right away, she looked up at him and said: “Oh, my bad. You’ve probably never had sushi in your life, have you?”

“I’ve had sushi,” Shy lied.

They both cringed as they ate, sometimes pulling bones out of their mouths, chucking them into the ocean. It didn’t taste like anything more than warm, fleshy iron, but the thought of it made Shy nauseous. He had to force himself not to throw it right back up. What felt good, though, was having something in his stomach, and soon he was skipping the chewing part and just swallowing his bites whole.

Half the fish worked out to be very little meat, but his stomach had shrunk up so small it was still satisfying.

Addie tossed the scaly skin overboard and rinsed her hands in the water by their feet. Then she looked up at him with a full-on smile—the first he’d seen from her since the ship went down.

He smiled back and picked up the oar. As he started toward the front of the boat to get them going again, he fingered the ring in his pocket, wanting to believe it was good luck for more than just catching fish. Maybe it could keep them alive, too.

As soon as the sun started dropping below the horizon, Shy and Addie staggered to Addie’s section of the boat, completely exhausted, and sat beside each other against the side. It wasn’t cold enough to need each other’s body heat yet, so Shy didn’t put his arm around her.