Jennie was standing next to the life raft. I handed her the fish I caught and stored my pole in the lean-to. “Is there anything in the water collector?”

“No.”
 

“Maybe it’ll rain later.”
 

She looked anxiously at the sky and began cleaning the fish. “I hope so.”
 

It was November, and we’d been on the island for six months. Jennie said the rainy season wouldn’t return until May. It still rained, about every other day, but not for very long. We had coconut water, but we were still thirsty a lot.
 

“At least we know never to drink from the pond,” Jennie said, shuddering. “That was awful.”
 

“God, I know. I thought I was gonna crap out my spleen.”
 

We couldn’t control the rain, but the Maldives had plenty of marine life. The coconut and breadfruit barely took the edge off our hunger, but the brightly colored fish I pulled out of the lagoon kept us from starving.
 

I stood in waist-deep water and caught them one after the other. None measured longer than six inches – an earring and a guitar string wouldn’t hold much – and I worried about hooking something bigger and snapping the line. It was a good thing Jennie packed a lot of earrings because I’d already lost one.

Even though we had enough to eat, Jennie said our diet didn’t have a bunch of important stuff.
 

“I’m worried about you, Jiho You still have some growing to do.”

“I’m growing just fine.” Our diet couldn’t have been that bad, because my shorts were down to my knees when we crashed, and now they were at least an inch higher.
 
“The breadfruit must have Vitamin C, otherwise we’d probably have scurvy by now,” she muttered under her breath.

“What the hell is scurvy?” I asked. “That sounds gross.”

“It’s a disease caused by not getting enough Vitamin C,” she said. “Pirates and sailors came down with it on long voyages. It’s not pleasant.”

Jennie should have worried more about herself. Her swimsuit bagged in the , and her s didn’t fill out her top like before. Her collarbone stuck out and her ribcage showed. I tried to get her to eat more, and she made an effort, but half the time I ended up finishing her food. Unlike her, eating the same thing every day didn’t bother me, and I ate whenever I got hungry.

One morning, a few weeks later, Jennie said, “Today is Chuseok.” 

“It is?” I didn’t pay much attention to the date, but Jennie kept track every day.
 

“Yes.” She closed her datebook and put it down on the ground beside her. “I don’t think I’ve ever eaten fish on Chuseok before.”

“Or coconut and breadfruit,” I added.

“It doesn’t matter what we eat. Chuseok is about being thankful for what we have.”

She tried to be cheerful when she said it, but then she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and put on her sunglasses.

Neither of us mentioned the holiday for the rest of the day. I hadn’t thought about Chuseok; I’d assumed someone would find us before then. Jennie and I hardly ever talked about rescue anymore though – it depressed us both. All we could do was wait and hope someone flew overhead. That was the hardest thing, not having any control over our situation unless we decided to leave on the life raft, and Jennie would never agree to that. She was right. It probably would be suicide.

That night in bed she whispered, “I’m thankful we have each other, Jiho.”

“So am I.”
 

If Jennie had died after the plane crash, and I’d been alone all this time, I wondered if I would have made it.


***
 

We spent Christmas Day chasing a chicken.

Early that morning, when I bent down to gather some sticks for the woodpile, I screamed like a girl when a chicken shot out of a nearby bush and scared the out of me.

I took off after it, but it disappeared into another bush.