Not Without Hope by Nick Schuyler & Jeré Longman

Author:Nick Schuyler & Jeré Longman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

WILL WENT BACK under a couple times. He was a man on a mission, but he wasn’t able to pull anything up. He was physically drained now—he had nothing left. Getting back on the boat was like trying to climb a fence. If you didn’t give it everything, you weren’t going to do it. Will floated in the water for a while and said, “I’m so tired. My heart is beating so fast.”

Sometimes he stayed in the water five minutes or more, hanging on to a trim tab. I had to help him back on the boat. He sat behind me, holding on. It was quiet. We worked together as best we could, leaning into the waves. Sometimes, we still got thrown into the water. Will was now falling in a lot more than I did. We were both tired, but he had the added toll of diving under the boat so many times. We both put up with the same repetitive thing, hour after hour. Sit. Fall. Climb on. Sit. Fall. Climb on. Sometimes, for nine or ten minutes, I’d sit there in the water, too, holding on to the swim platform or a trim tab, and I’d just float.

Please God, I prayed. I’ll do anything.

I thought similar thoughts that I had the day before. It was probably after three or four in the afternoon. We were physically exhausted. All we could do was wait and wait. And hope. I just wanted to let my mother know that I was still alive, that I was okay. I didn’t want her to worry, or at least I wanted her to worry less. I wanted the Coast Guard to continue to look for us and for her to know I was alive.

I knew how my mom got. I knew how me and my sister had always come first and how my mom went out of her way to make our day better even if it made her day worse. I knew everyone was worried and scared. We were scared, too, but I wanted them to know that we were fighting, and as long as they were looking, we would keep fighting.

Will and I said the Lord’s Prayer again as I held the cross on my necklace.

“Please, God, I’ll start going to church every Sunday,” I said.

We hadn’t seen a plane or a helicopter in a while.

“I can’t believe they can’t find us,” Will said a few times.

When the choppers had come and gone, Will had cried out in sheer frustration, rage, and disappointment. We felt helpless and discouraged. We were busting our asses, working so hard to survive.

Once, Will was in the water and he peed, and he said, “Oh my God.” It felt so good. I wondered how he could pee when he was so dehydrated. I said, “Why didn’t you wait until I was in the water so I could feel the warmth?”

I had no idea where we were. We could have been close to the Bahamas or to Cuba.

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