Did I?

I gazed up at the night sky’s night robe of stars being displayed, I guess, just for me.

Whatever I am.

I lay on my back against my makeshift cot of axed logs as well as big and medium branches cut from the palm trees surrounding this uninterestingly big island. I dig my bare feet into the warm, comforting sand, making little ditches with my tan heels. But I don’t want to make my own ditches. I want to make them with my older brother. Steven is my best friend. But he’s not here.

The cruise had sliced—literally—883 passengers’ trip short with an insertion below the starboard, stranding them on some other island—I think. Getting help has left me adrift, washing up on this island. Not a soul to breathe next to me or a cot to smash the sand, hole it down a few inches and spread my smile across a face like peanut butter on almost burnt toast.  

I tear from this truth, twisting my sandy head so my crusted cheek hits some of my wildly spread out, sand-coated, itchy hair. I scratch low on my neck but then jerk my nails away—it only makes me almost tear up with desperation to let some real water and shampoo relieve it from its sandpapery sensation. I thought of de-sanding in the crashing waves throwing themselves against the shore and then retreating. Like it couldn’t quite reach its destination but was forever trying to. I shake my head, glaring right at it. Nope. I want to get off this island. Away from my past.

I blink, tears born behind my eyes striving to wiggle their way through to my eyelids and then slide fearlessly, carelessly down my freckled cheeks. But I blink again and suck in a huge breath, striving not to cry about that fateful night.

I mean, I was just sitting there with Steven, staring up at the stars exactly as I am—or was a minute ago. I sniff, wishing this nightmare was a dream. Steven could shake my shoulder, remind me we’re on a cruise when I ask him like I always do on a boat this big—whether I’m alone on an island or I’m on a ship taking us to the Caribbean. But since I didn’t listen to him when he told me to stay where I was, I’m here. I was just trying to protect myself. I had jumped overboard, dove right for the water while his screams pierced the darkness above me and then became gargles—he might have been talking while gargling with saltwater. I didn’t hear him correctly until I inhaled in what felt like a world of air upon emerging above the frigid waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. I heard him fire heated words of terror and rage at me I deserved. But when my perseverant breaststrokes brought me up to one of the co-captains who boarded me, Steven yanked my soaked, shivering self against him in a bear hug, scolding me never to do that again. When I jerked some nods, he stared around with eyes dancing with horror as the Caribbean started approaching the shore. “It’s going to crash!”    

But that’s the second to last sentence he ever uttered, because I told him to go with me to alert the captain. When he commanded me to stay and wrap myself in some warm clothing and blankets, I cried out that I was fine and followed him. He shook his head and yanked my arm. When the beast of a ship rammed right into a sharp object—the captain didn’t quite say—I managed to scream the obvious, “The ship—it’s going down!” Chaos ensued. The captain barked orders and the co-captain struggled to calm a whole fleet of terrified passengers slicing the air with eardrum-killing shrieks. Still, I whipped my drenched brunette hair towards Steven, but he had disappeared. I had no idea where he went, and when I found out, he was ballistic, panicking in the water. Soon, a co-captain rescued him, but I was too distraught by the fact I didn’t listen to Steven that I dashed off. Throwing myself off the colossal cruise, I headed for who knows where. I found myself awash the next morning on this island. I don’t know how I got here, but I know I was alive. But not without Steven.

No one’s come for me. What’s worse is that I may have basically forsaken Steven and he was looking for me. I had escaped once, but what about that next time? Was he losing sleep over me? If only I had stayed. But I also got the jitters and was shocked I didn’t screech my throat out when the cruise started splitting in half way down on the bottom near the front of the ship. I usually panic when I’m forced by something to make a move, but I subconsciously thought that maybe Steven—

No, I couldn’t blame my brother. It was too villainous. I needed to forgive myself for not staying beside my brother. Who knew better. Who understood ships better. Who was better prepared. We were together, but now we’re not. Go! My body desired. End this nightmare completely by bolting off this island and swimming in whatever direction you force yourself towards. Then a poisonous thought entered: was Steven doing as he was told? Did he? Did he care, and I hadn’t? The thoughts snaked through my mind, slithering around my brain, whispering it seemed. But I shook my head violently.

I needed to forget and forgive. Myself. I couldn’t embrace the guilt if I’d never embrace my brother again. I survived this morning and tonight by wrapping the thought of whether he was alive and even looking for me around me by wrapping my arms around myself. I curled myself into a ball, knees almost touching my chin as I lay there, damp mostly but with only my clothes still there to remind me of the night only worth being in a dramatic movie. I drew a finger in the sand, etching Day 1 below me. Then I lined Day 2. Tomorrow would be Day 3. And so on.  

Until, I told myself, I did something about getting off this island. We were heading towards Tortola. So…

I decided to shut my eyes for the night and then continue tomorrow.

Seagulls gawked and flapped their wings intimidatingly. I tried shooing them away with a lame punch to the air, but they just turned away with a curved smile that seemed to mock me. Some landed right beside me. One dropped some breakfast—great green slimy globs—up on the left side of my bed. I slowly adjusted my head and squinted at the disgusting bird doo. Immediately, I whipped over and wretched my guts out. Or at least it felt like it. After breathing and coughing, I looked at it and told myself that seagull could eat this for its breakfast along with its doo.

I squinted in the searing sunlight and got to work making a boat out of my bed. After lining up all my sticks in a row for the bottom, I hacked away with an axe I found half buried under some crashed equipment. Five blows into cutting down some of the tree I chose left me heaving huge gasps of air, feeling absolutely spent. Watching my father hack trees down for fires and to finish building our log cabin was a different story—as different as I was far away from civilization. But I steadied myself and continued giving it my all.  

A little later, my seagull companions had landed near my makeshift bed turned boat bottom and were crying. Others arrived, squawking to each other. I stopped wasting time trying to perform like my father, and swung that axe like I was skipping rocks. That unfortunate bird dropped to its side after the axe cracked against its head, and I dashed down the puny hill, celebrating loudly that I had breakfast! But I swung my arm in a windmill fashion again with another seagull farther down the beach and scored another meal. The smack caused my cringe, but I figured I had to eat immediately or some sandy critter would beat me. So I whizzed over and cut this seagull open. Instantly, the blood, smell of intestines and other disgustingly putrid innards caused a hand to plug my nose, my head to reel and my mouth to be covered from vomiting the nastiness rising from my twisting stomach. But I quickly went back and grabbed the axe again, raising it and then splitting the animal in half. Throwing it next to me, I took my hands and grabbed some of the bloody fat inside, downing it. Ripping it with my teeth, I nearly threw up on the taste of rubbery fat and metallic-tasting meat. Done with this bird, I scampered over to the next one and consumed it as well. Finally running over to the water, I washed the blood and strings of fat off my hands. The water graciously took the redness, its waves splashing cold and somewhat relief to my stomach. I returned to my axe and wanted to make a meal out of another seagull but dropped it—I didn’t want to chance more insides bleeding disease or worms. Digesting my two birds for the day, I continued building my boat. I saw nothing but huge trees towering over me like my past on that cruise. I now wished Steven would shake me, slap me—something to wake me up from this despicable reality. But I blinked my salty tears away, grabbed the weapon and swung it like a professional rodeo.  

The axe’s head was buried up to its wooden handle. I did this again and again and again, smiling at the wider, deeper cuts. Soon the tree fell, snapping and crackling as it made its way down towards the pebbly sand, creepy critters soon to be helplessly smashed. I watched in almost impatient anticipation, but as soon as tree hit ground I scampered over and start hacking away at it like I did my seagull. Before I knew it, I had cut my boat down to size, attaching the logs with palm branches and sap. Then, I tacked on more palm tree branches with slits of wood to make the two front and back bars like on a kayak. Now my own boat, I pushed out onto the water, testing it. It floated, but would it hold me?        

A foot touched the bottom, but I instantly drew it away like it had burnt my skin because I feared it didn’t hold my weight. So I hacked another tree down and added its bark underneath my boat. Fashioning more palm trees the only way I knew how, I slathered more sap to glue them together. I nodded and grinned wide to myself as I hopped aboard and then sat a minute. It felt firmly secure. But I needed something with which to row. Ever so carefully climbing out, I skipped through the water and then grabbed a stick and my axe, returning with a whittled paddle of some sort. I wasn’t sure whether I should be using one without Steven because such a tool reminded me dearly of him. But I had to be strong. I had to suck up all the courage from my days with him aboard our little kayak back when I was five and he was six and a half. Back twenty three years ago.      

Back when I was too oblivious to listen to him.

I almost chucked the stupid paddle away but then decided to also take my axe in case any sharks or jellyfish fought me in the great human-sea animal war between eat or be eaten. Laying the slightly heavy object on its side near the front end, I went around to the center. Still grasping my paddle, I managed to seat myself in the makeshift kayak, and paddled off towards wherever the ocean would take me. I wasn’t the best at navigation—something Steven brought up whenever we kayaked—because I mainly squealed “Fishies!” while my dad and he mapped our destination. He’d remind me later what Dad taught him but I was more concerned about the stupid sea animals I felt apologetic towards for scaring every time I splashed my tiny hand or fluttered it underwater.    

This time, I would have to say sorry to both Dad and Steven. Mainly Steve. I never wanted to learn, and now I might never. I kept this thought up, turning it into something to ponder as I rowed and rowed—just staring out at the vastness of blue saltwater I knew would be full of things I desperately wished were true but obviously weren’t due to hallucinations from dehydration. I was determined never to succumb to such torture. I paddled and paddled, rowed and rowed.

I soon began to feel tired, and relaxed, leaning against my boat’s side after scooting myself in front of the left side. But I instantly jerked up as the sun practically scorched my face. I wanted to scream at this huge shiny star in the arrogantly vast sky. That it was killing my flesh. But I had to keep going. I busied myself with contemplating the cruise’s direction. But the sun’s heatedness was baking my sensitively soft head and shoulders, so I killed attention on direction. Suddenly, I saw a fin. Its boring, ugly greyness stared back at me until— 

I panicked. I threatened with my paddle, or at least tried to, but the capsizing kayak bumped, split and then the shark’s vivaciously sharp teeth emerged. I struggled to thrust my legs out and felt something yank my right. Pain-causing screams shrieking from me, I whirred around to locate my axe. No—it was gone. I wasn’t worth risking my own life over a weapon if I was getting eaten by a shark. One piece of me at a time.

Suddenly, something smacked my head. It felt wooden. I sputtered and flailed, grabbing ferociously. Blood watered the ocean, exciting the shark which was already thrashing and stretching for my thigh. I then squeezed my eyes shut and clung to the thing that had hit me. I felt as light as air and then a huge loss of feeling and sensation in my right leg. I dared to peer down and almost fainted as a huge gash in my right foot was dotting the disappearing shark with blood and oozing probably disease and other disturbingly yucky filth inside. I whipped my head away and held on tighter to the thing carrying me away from the forgettable animal.

I faintly heard a deep noise and felt flesh grabbing my own. I dropped my head and then blinked up at a drab ceiling and the face that was so familiar that I squeaked his name but was too exhausted to even look at anymore. I sunk into sleep, but as weeks passed by and I learned to walk again with a prosthetic foot, I couldn’t live outside my bed for four dreadful weeks. Drenching my pillow with tears of remorse for that night on the cruise, I just couldn’t listen to Steven’s pleas to forgive and forget the past.

“I just can’t take it! I just can’t take it.” I wailed over and over as he cradled me, his hugs shockingly being as far from reassuring someone who’s been shipwrecked, lost a foot and now might as well be back on the island. Being hugged by what felt like a stranger was more torturous than even that cruise night.

“It’s going to be okay.” My mother’s words flickered in and out of my hearing, but I wanted to cut away from her, from my bed, from Steven and his incomprehensive mumbles. No comfort came from the sibling I always dreamt of riding bikes, kayaking and swimming against in pool races forever as a kid. He was speaking a language I felt I didn’t know anymore.

Pushing him back and ripping my sheets away, I landed hard onto my prosthetic foot, ignoring the jolting feeling tingling up my right leg. I hobbled away, Steven’s words seeming to echo off of my bedroom walls. But I kept going, kept moving away from my best friend like I paddled away from the island. Swimming away from the crashed cruise.

Running away from this realistically horrendous ordeal. From everything I’ve ever known. From everyone—especially Steven—I’ve ever met, bonded with, adored and couldn’t wait to be doing all kinds of activities with. But I had this sense that if I kept running, I’ll have to look back and regret every step I’ve ever cared to take. That I’ve replaced Steven with running.

So I whirled around, arms out for a bear-hug. And he soon gave me one, his hairy chin resting on the back of my blue T-shirt, his tan arms engulfing me in a squeeze so hard my mother scolded him for forgetting my prosthetic leg.

“But, Mom,” he retorted, “Jaime’s back with me. isn’t that enough?”

Mom tore away, her eyes shining with the hatred of admittance. But Steven and I looked right in each other’s eyes, me telling him I’d always listen to him, never chancing another so-called adventure again.

He cocked his head, eyebrows furrowed.

“What?” I demanded.

“Forgive yourself and forget.” He commanded, crossing his strong, thick arms.

I hesitated, and then nodded, biting my lip.

“Good.” He slapped my back, jerking a nod. A confident one. I still bit my lip, blinking and wringing my hands softly. I looked up at him, but he had turned away. I looked down. Yeah. Maybe I should forgive myself. Maybe I should listen to Steven. Forever.