The Shallows (2016) The New Stories

I Was Stranded 200 Yards From Shore. What I Found There Saved My Life.

I went to Mexico to get lost, but really, I was running away. Running from the memory of my mother, from the sterile hospital hallways that smelled of antiseptic and failure, and from a future I no longer believed in. I was looking for a place that only existed in her stories—a secret beach, a paradise with no name. A place where, for a moment, I could forget that she was gone.

When Carlos, the kind local who drove me, finally pulled over, I saw it. It was her beach. The water was a perfect, impossible blue, and the waves were a surfer's dream. For a few hours, it worked. I was just a girl on a board, one with the current, feeling the sun on my skin. I felt her there with me, in the shape of the island that looked like a pregnant woman at rest and in the sheer, wild beauty of it all. I was disconnected, free, and completely, foolishly at peace.

The shift from paradise to hell was brutally swift. One moment, I was paddling out for a final wave, and the next, a violent, unseen force slammed into my board. It wasn’t a wave. It was a living thing. I saw the colossal carcass of a whale nearby, its flesh torn, and I understood with chilling clarity: I had stumbled into a shark’s private feeding ground. Then came the searing pain as its teeth tore through my leg, and the cold shock of my own blood blooming in the turquoise water.

I found myself stranded on a tiny rock, a temporary island that would vanish with the tide. It became my prison and my world. The first wave of despair was overwhelming. I screamed for the other surfers, but they were too far away, disappearing over the horizon. Later, a drunk man on the beach saw me. Hope surged, but he just stole my phone and wallet from my backpack on the sand and left. I was utterly, terrifyingly alone.

Well, not entirely. There was a seagull, also stranded, with a dislocated wing. I named him Steven Seagull. In my delirium, stitching my own leg together with the earrings from my ears and a neoprene wetsuit, he became my only companion. I remembered my father’s words on the phone just hours before: “She was a fighter”. But I had retorted that it didn't matter; she fought and fought, and it all ended the same. What was the point of fighting? Looking at that injured bird, I saw a reflection of my own brokenness. In a moment of clarity, using the medical knowledge I had tried so desperately to abandon, I set his wing. In saving a small piece of him, I think I saved a small piece of myself.

The rock was shrinking. The shark circled relentlessly. This wasn’t just a fish; it was a force of nature, patient and territorial. I realized I couldn't wait for rescue. I had to fight. Pulling my friend’s GoPro from the water, I recorded a message for my father and sister. It started as a goodbye, a final, tearful apology. But as I spoke, something shifted. "I want you to know I'm gonna fight," I heard myself say, the words catching in my throat. "I am. Just like she taught us". In that moment, my mother’s memory transformed from a source of pain into a source of strength. Her fight wasn't for nothing; it was the blueprint for mine.

My plan was insane, born of desperation and a medical student’s grasp of physics. I timed the shark's patrol patterns: 32 seconds from the whale carcass to my rock. I would swim not to the shore, which was too far, but to a rusted metal buoy bobbing in the distance. To give myself a head start, I pushed through a maze of jellyfish, letting their fiery stings create a temporary barrier in the water to distract the beast.

The swim was a sprint against death itself. The shark was faster, more powerful, but I was fueled by a resolve I didn’t know I had. I reached the buoy, a rusted, precarious sanctuary, and hauled myself aboard, the shark snapping at my heels. From there, the final battle was primal. It wasn’t about escape anymore; it was about ending it. Using the buoy's anchor chain and my own weight, I lured it into one final, desperate charge. As it lunged, its own momentum drove it onto the rebar foundation of the buoy, impaling it.

When I washed ashore, found by the son of the man who had given me a ride, I was barely conscious. But I was alive.

Months later, back in Texas, I stood on a different beach with my father and my little sister, now a confident surfer herself. My father told me my mom would be proud. I had finally understood. She didn't lose her fight; she had simply finished it. My journey to that remote beach wasn't about running from her death. It was about finding my own will to live. I had to go to the edge of the world to realize that survival isn’t just about breathing. It's about fighting, with every last scrap of strength, for the life you have right in front of you.