CHAPTER 3: Stuck.

Right now I am sitting above-deck staring out the back of the boat. After the party last night, Taylor came out to comfort me. I had run down to our room crying.
"Anna, she's just doing what she thinks is best for us!" she had said.
But I ignored her and didn't start thinking about that until now. What if mom was just marrying Dave for us. What if she just wanted us to have a father figure again? Couldn't she have just asked us if we wanted that figure to be Dave? Maybe things just aren't that simple anymore. I pick myself up and head over for some breakfast at the all-you-can-eat counter. I stuff my face with hash browns and bananas, I can feel myself getting chubbier and chubbier. Mom walks up beind me and rests her hands on my shoulders.
"Sweetie, I'm sorry. I thought--"
"I know what you thought, mom. But you thought wrong!" I start to yell, but something stops me.
All of a sudden, the boat comes to a halt. The captain orders Dave to anchor the boat and people swarm out like fruit flies at a garbage dump. Mom grabs a hold of my arm and tugs me over to the side of the boat. She points out at a beautiful little island forest surrounded my sparkling water. The water looks cleaner than the rest of the ocean. It's shallow too. Women begin pulling up there dresses a little bit and trudging through the water, which reaches up to their ankles.
"Anna! Down here!" Dave's sons yell at me--I don't even call them by their names anymore --and I follow the little metal ramp down to the water. I shove my shoes off and kick them onto the boat. Then I start to tippy-toe through the water as I get used to the icey temperature. Once every one has safely gotten onto the island, we all look around a bit and start to go back to the boat for our stuff. But as we move the water towards the boat with our feet, the boat begins to drift away, slower, and slower. Dave's on it to, he's trying to anchor it. But, since he was a first-time sailor, and his dad had done all the work on the way over here, he drifts away with the boat and can't get it back to us. We all watch the boat float away slowly, I am in shock. A couple of men attemp to swim after the boat, but even if they're aable to get to it, what will they do, there is nothing to climb onto or hold onto, and they are not strong enough to pull it. Mom comes up and squeezes me tight, she begins crying, and so does everyone else, as we face the truth: We're stuck.