Paddling was all I’d ever done.

My friend, Vanessa—if I could call her that—sat balancing for life on a sinking kayak in an island mangrove off the coast of Honduras, and I was trying to save her.

Earlier today, we’d rented bicycles, and mine broke along the journey.

I ran behind the others, waving the broken crank over my head.

“Wait!”

Nobody turned around.

I ran harder.

“Hey!”

They kept riding.

Eventually I stopped and walked back to town alone. By the time I returned, nobody seemed to have noticed I’d been gone.

Now Vanessa was in the water.

I grabbed a paddle.

~

We’d rented kayaks that afternoon—two boats for four people—and paddled into the swampy interior of the island.

Emily and Rachel didn’t notice that their boat had cracks running along its sides, filling it with water and pulling it slowly down until we paddled a mile into the mangrove, and their boat capsized.

All four of us clambered into the surviving kayak.

It too began sinking under our combined weight.

Vanessa looked at the kayak.

Water sloshed over the sides.

“I weigh the least. If somebody has to stay in this thing, it should probably be me.”

Nobody argued.

I threw her the life jacket.

“Put this on.”

She pulled it over her head while I steadied the kayak.

“Go,” she said.

I paddled for shore.

Emily and Rachel were already running toward the owner.

“Your boat is sinking. Our friend is still out there.”

He stared toward the mangroves.

“A motorboat. You have one, right?”

He shook his head.

Then he called for his daughter.

She came running from the house.

Fifteen years old. Maybe ninety pounds.

The owner pointed toward the water.

She climbed into another kayak.

I looked back toward Vanessa.

Then at the girl.

I hopped in with her.

~

When we arrived, Vanessa’s boat had filled with water, it disappeared beneath the surface but gave enough buoyancy for her to kneel on. She looked resolved but peaceful as she used her double-paddled oar to help balance her against the turbulent rocking of the wind and waves. I could see the relief on her face as she climbed into the rescue boat. I couldn’t summon the energy or the Spanish needed to protest when the daughter tied the sunken kayak to the back of ours with a length of rope. We turned and again headed for shore. Vanessa gave paddling her best shot, but her ordeals over the last hour left her too tired to help.

The daughter, whose job was to rescue my friend, seemed not to have the slightest clue how to steer the boat—surprising given her father’s occupation. She’d spun us in circles the entire way across the mangrove to Vanessa. Now, she sunned herself like a princess and refused to paddle.

In hindsight, she was probably more capable than I’d given her credit for—and I was the one paddling wrong. I’d probably been more stubborn than she was in my blind effort, and she’d simply given up.

Still, I paddled, and all the harder for it. If I could form rational thoughts, I would cut the rope to the dead weight of the sunken boat we dragged behind us and force the girl to help row. One last mile against fifteen-mile-per-hour headwinds and across choppy waters, and now with this burden.

My rowing slowed at times, and I lost ground against the constant wind and merciless waves. My body felt numb, and my eyes felt dead and hollow. Time and consciousness blurred until my life consisted of a single second at a time; it felt like I paddled all my life, and I would paddle until I died.

A seeming eternity later, muscles shaking and eyes blind with exhaustion, I dragged myself to the shore and collapsed.

~

They talked about it later on the ferry to the mainland—three in one row, me in another. Vanessa laughed about balancing on the sinking kayak while Emily retold the rescue and Rachel corrected details.

I stared out the window.

The mainland was getting closer.