Endless Waters
By Sarah Pulliam
Though the wind was rattling in my ears, I could still make out the shrill sirens. Sailors were scurrying around on the freighter like chickens with their heads cut off.
"Dad!" I yelled through the storm, squinting due to the seawater burning my eyes.
"Lara!" my father hollered. He sounded frightened, and that scared me. Dad was supposed to be the professional, the captain, and even now he was freaking out. For the first time, he seemed genuinely nervous about a thunderstorm. I sprinted toward him, slipping several times on the slick upper deck. Once I had dodged the dozens of crew members running to and fro, performing their emergency duties, I put my arms around his waist in a watery hug.
"Lara! Come with me!" he spoke over the sudden crack of thunder in the calmest voice he could muster. We both edged towards the stern, holding on to one another. Dad stopped us and looked deeply into my eyes, then peered down at the escape rafts.
"Lara! You need to get out of here!"
"I'm not leaving without you!" I screamed at him in protest.
"I love you!" As soon as those last three words left his lips, the entire ship tilted, causing me to let out a yelp and fall into the nearest lifeboat. The last thing I remember seeing was the anguished expression on my father's face before my head cracked against the bench of the small boat. I blacked out.
I had the most pleasant dream while I was unconscious; Dad, Mom, and I were all back in Colorado, where we truly belonged. We danced in the prairie and celebrated the fact that Mom was alive again, that everything was okay again. Unfortunately, it was only a dream.
When I finally awakened after a number of hours that only God knows, the light was blinding and I could feel that my nose was clogged with dried saltwater. I tried to move, but everything, especially the right side of my head, ached as if I'd lost a boxing match. I reached up for the injury on my forehead and found that a cloth of some sort had been tied around my head. My eyes finally began to adjust to the sunlight. The lifeboat was about thirty by seven feet and had an orange plastic interior with a long bench every other eighteen inches or so.
"Ah, finally awake, are we?" a thick, Hawaiian voice mocked. I sat up straighter, causing every bone in my back to pop. It was hard not to wince. A boy who looked about my age, sixteen, was sitting at the front of the lifeboat I'd been forced into. His shaggy hair was dark brown like mine, but he had a glow in his chocolate eyes as if nothing bad had happened. Nothing like a boat with my father on it had suddenly-
"Dad? Oh my god! Where's the ship? Where's-" I broke out into hysterics. The boy's face turned grim. He jumped over to the bench across from me and placed his hand on my knee like a toddler that would soon need comforting.
"The freighter went down. It must've hit a reef or something. I don't know. I didn't see any other lifeboats leaving," the boy muttered, staring at his shoes. My eyes watered. I refused to believe what he was saying, yet here I was on a lifeboat in the middle of nowhere. I got up from my seat, my muscles aching in protest.
"Eh! Eh!" He rose up, directing me back down, "That bump on your head isn't going to get better if you're moving. Rest." It was hard to not follow his directions; I was so exhausted. Automatically, I passed out into a deep slumber.
I didn't know how long I'd been out, but when I blinked open my eyes, the stars were shining above. I couldn't help but marvel at their radiance, completely forgetting about the sinking ship.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" the boy from before asked me. I nearly jumped at the sudden noise.
"Yeah. It is," I said absentmindedly, looking back up.
"My name's Kin," he smiled as he waited for me to respond. It took a minute or two before I could say anything.
"I'm Lara." I realized that my voice was incredibly hoarse, so I tried coughing, only to discover a stabbing pain in the back of my throat. The saltwater that probably almost drowned me had caused my whole body to burn.
Kin leaned against the side of the raft, twiddling his thumbs. He looked like something an artist would fancy painting. His tanned body was covered by nothing but a pair of ratty jeans, and the way Kin had positioned himself made him seem like he didn't have a care in the world.
That was when my stomach growled loudly. I realized that I hadn't eaten since the breakfast of bacon and eggs the ship's cook had prepared.
"I'm starved," Kin announced, reading my mind. I nodded in agreement, and then our search for food began. Kin eyed the fish that swam next to our boat as if he intended to reach and pluck one out. I, on the other hand, rummaged around the lifeboat for some sort of emergency rations. Wasn't that what all escape rafts had?
After about a half hour of bellies complaining and unsuccessfully looking for the food we desired, I stood on top of one of the benches, staring down at Kin, who was nearly asleep. His eyes were closed as the sun began to appear over the horizon. Sighing, I jumped down from the bench and landed on the floor with a hollow thump. I paused.
"Kin! I think I found something!" I exclaimed in excitement. He lazily lifted his head from the edge of the boat. How had I been so stupid as to not notice this beforehand? Masqueraded by the orange flooring, a small handle was attached to a panel about the size of a microwave.
I yanked on the handle, pulling open a door. Kin, now fully awake, poked his head around me and into the opening.
"Food!" he laughed happily. I watched as he pulled out a couple cans of water, making me realize how thirsty I was, and offered one to me. I eagerly took it, popped open the tab, and polished it off quickly, desperate for another. I knew better though; we would need some later. Kin, also finished with his water, dove back into the hatch for something to eat. I watched over his shoulder as he reached down for a silver package. The label read "Emergency Food Rations."
We sat on the lifeboat eating the cardboard-tasting calorie bars that were way past expired. Everything was silent except the occasional wave hitting the side of the raft and the munching of two satisfied stomachs.
"Do you ever think we'll get home?" he asked me. I shrugged.
"I guess we'll have to survive and see what happens." I looked out into the horizon thoughtfully; there was nothing but endless waters.
Kin and I spent several weeks on the boat, eating our rations, drinking the canned water, and having many conversations until the days began to blend together. I told him about my family, or at least what used to be my family. Over the time we were together, I think I might have given him my entire life story, and me his. My skin had gotten tanner, finally letting me not suffer the nights with nasty sunburns. Though we had tried to keep our clothes in the best condition possible, my tank and jean shorts were in shreds, revealing more of my thighs than I'd wanted. Kin's hair was getting shaggier and a small beard was growing all over his face. He always kidded about how the first thing he'd do when he got back on land was shave.
Sometimes, late at night, I would shed quiet tears of grief for my most likely dead father. Kin would always hear me and crawl over to hold me in his strong arms. I guess you could say I made a new best friend on that lifeboat. That all changed when a peculiar topic came up that one would have thought to have come when I had first woken up on the watercraft.
I had lost count of days, but if I had to guess, it was day forty two on the raft. We were both sitting next to each other towards the stern, sipping from our water cans. The thought just popped into my head randomly, as most ideas do.
"I never saw you on the ship before the…" I didn't want to discuss it, yet my curiosity overrode the discomfort, "Sinking. What were you doing? Cook's assistant? Coal-boy? Navigator?"
Kin looked at me in surprise like he never expected me to ask such a thing. His eyes then went to the floor of the boat and his fingers trailed around the rim of his aluminum can that shone in the sunlight.
"Um… I was the… janitor. Yeah… I-I cleaned up all the messes," he stuttered. I tilted my head in confusion.
"That's impossible. Bobby Boy was in charge of cleaning." Kin was a horrible liar. His hand rubbed the back of his head while his face held a sheepish expression.
"I…. um….," he muttered.
I grew impatient with his nonsense. "Yes?" I eyed him for a truthful answer. He sighed in defeat.
"I was a stowaway. I've been jumping ships for years now," his vision fell to the floor as he pulled himself onto a bench away from me. My jaw dropped. Kin had seemed like such a kind, honest guy, but a lousy, stealing stowaway? No way.
"And… there's something else I should tell you, Lara," he muttered to the ocean below us, "I saw the cooling system leak. That's why i-it sank." My eyes watered in a mixture of anger and grief as I tried to absorb this.
"So… you're saying you just let the ship sink? You didn't tell anyone? Just to save your own skin? My dad is dead because of you! I'm stuck on a boat with a stowaway asshole!" I screamed at him, standing up in fury. My knees threatened to give out under the waves rocking our small raft. Tears were running down my cheeks.
"I trusted you! I really did! God, why didn't you tell me before, you-" I didn't have time to finish my sentence before Kin did something that probably surprised him more than me. Standing up to meet my level, he pulled me into his chest, angling his mouth so that it met mine. We stood like that for a few seconds, him kissing me. Once I realized what I was doing, I pulled away and smacked him across the face. Hard.
"What the hell was that for?" I yelled at him, completely enraged. Kin fell between a couple of the benches, rubbing the side of his head where I'd hit him. He only stared back up at me like some sort of dumbfounded idiot. Fed up, I stormed to the opposite side of the lifeboat. I just wanted to get away from him, from the boat, from the hurt.
For endless hours I stared blankly into the sea that stretched out forever, thinking about everything except being stranded on a lifeboat or the fact that the freighter now existed deep beneath the water's surface. I thought of the prairie again; my true happy place. The place where the sun shimmers down on everything to make the world seem like it was made of gold. The place where you could just sit and watch a herd of buffalo roam about on the plains. The place where I felt safe and at home.
A cool breeze interrupted my daydreaming. I shivered and looked to the skies where the stars of the night had replaced the daytime. The stars, they shone beautifully just like the first night I'd been aboard the lifeboat with Kin. I hadn't seen such a wondrous, star-filled sky since then.
"Lara?" a familiar voice called my name from behind. I turned gently to see Kin, my anger for him mysteriously disappearing. His expression matched that of a guilty criminal as he offered me a can of water and one of that bars that tasted of cardboard. I accepted them slowly as if I didn't trust that this was real food and water. Once I had opened the water and took a sip gingerly, he finally decided to speak.
"Lara, I'm sorry. For not telling anybody, for keeping the stowaway thing a secret, and for… kissing you." We gazed deeply into one another's eyes, waiting for me to say something. I reached over to give him a hug, and he enveloped me into his warm arms like he had always done when we'd needed comforting.
"I forgive you," I whispered into his neck. Both of us were silent as we held on to one another for everlasting, perfect minutes.
"I remember when I got on this boat. I jumped on right before it was released from the freighter. At first, I thought I was alone and I nearly went insane thinking I'd be lonely for the rest of my life on this raft. But then I saw a head of hair poking out from over there," Kin pointed to the back of the lifecraft, " I'm so glad that head was yours, even though it was a bit beat up." I giggled a bit, feeling for the mostly healed bump on my forehead, until the both of us were laughing loudly. By the time we'd finished chuckling, I was exhausted, so I leaned against Kin and softly fell asleep as the stars kept an eye on us from the heavens.
A foghorn blew through the morning air, waking me up. I sleepily raised my head from Kin's shoulder to find its source while he blinked his eyes open. We were surrounded by a thick fog, but I could make out a light in the distance.
"Kin!" I exclaimed in excitement, "Kin! Wake up! Look!" He lazily got to his feet to see what the ruckus was all about.
"Over here!" I screamed several times, trying to get whatever was out there's attention. The light was getting closer, and soon, a silhouette of a small fishing boat came to view, its foglight discovering our lifeboat instantaneously. The driver gave out another honk of the foghorn to let us know we'd been found. I turned to face Kin to discover he was already looking at me. Letting my emotions take over, I put my arms around his neck, tugged him closer to me, and pressed my lips to his. At first he seemed confused, not sure what to do, but I within a couple of moments I could feel him smiling. We were going home.