“
To the wreck hunters," Orion said, raising his water bottle, "And to whale songs."
"To truthing," said Liv.
"To tea leaves," said Felix.
We kept toasting: To Fidelia and Ransome. To the rest of the Lyric passengers whose bones has been picked clean by fish. To adventures. Our voices overlapped and were indistinguishable. To baseball caps, to Patsy Cline. To whiskey and blow jobs and cunnilingus, birth control, treasure, no treasure, sleeping bags, bug spray, headphones, and crosswords.
"To family," I called.
"Surviving," said Sam.
"Please can you keep it down!" yelled a voice from inside the kayakers' tent.
"To angry, reluctant chaperones," Mariah stage-whispered.
We all collapsed into stifled giggles, then put out the fire and trekked down to the beach to stage an impromtu, perfectly imperfect reading of Cousteau! by cell-phone light. Same had brought the latest printout of the script with him.
That night, it didn't matter what had come before and what was going to come after. In that moment, we were the last true poets of the sea, and what mattered more than anything else was our quest.
”
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