It is freezing. Nobody is talking. We are all just staring at the sinking ship, watching every man who boarded this ship when it was docked at Southampton face the fact that they are all about to die, leaving their families with nothing.
    But we can do nothing.
    We just have to wait.
    “Do you think there’s going to be another boat?” An Irish girl asks me.
    I wait a second, then slowly shake my head.
    “When is daddy and Thomas coming?” Frances whimpers while hugging my arm tight.
    I look at her, trying not to cry. “Soon,” I respond as I hold her head in my hands. “Soon.”
   
    Four days earlier, my family and I started our journey to America by going on the Titanic. I held the hand of my little sister Frances as we walked across the ship’s dock and into our cabin near the bottom of the boat.
    I helped Frances onto one of the beds in our cabin (which was hardly big enough for one person, let alone four).
“Daddy,” Frances broke the silence we had while dad was searching for the cabin. “Can we play on the boat?”
    He thought for a minute. “I hear there’s a game room somewhere. Maybe you girls could play cards or checkers.”
    “Is it on the top or bottom floor?” I asked before Frances went somewhere she didn’t belong.
    “I don’t know, Lily, maybe you should go up to the deck after you get settled and find out.”
    Later that day, I took Frances up to the deck. By the time we got up there, all we could see was the blue of the sky and the blue of the ocean. I was just trying to find someone to ask about the game room, but instead, I bumped into Alexander Emerson.
    “Sorry,” I mumbled, with my head down.
    But instead of saying nothing, which was what I expected, he said, “No, I’m sorry. It was my fault.”
    I stopped. Maybe I had seen him wrong, maybe he was dressed like my brother Thomas or my dad. No. He was dressed in a suit and his hair was slicked back like Arturo Pirovano.
    “Alexander Emerson,” he said while holding out his hand for me to shake.
    “Uhhh,” I hesitated. Nobody like him had ever talked to me before without acting disgusted, which was perfectly fine by me. I didn’t need those snobs. “Lillian Evans. Nice to meet you, Alexander.”
    “And this is your sister, I presume?” He pointed at Frances.
    “Yes, this is Frances. She’s four. I also have a brother, Thomas.”
    “And how old are you? I am thirteen.”
    “Also thirteen.” I grabbed Frances’ hand and began to step away. “We should probably be going now…”
     “Game room? That place sure is popular among people your sister’s age.” Frances’ eyes lit up.
     “Uh, yeah. Is it really?”
     “Yes. I can show you if you want.” Alexander said.
     I looked behind me. My dad wasn’t coming. “Alright.”

     After we left the game room, Alexander walked to our cabin with us. Frances ran inside, and he and I were waiting by the door.
    “Lillian, this might be weird to ask, but would you care to join my family for dinner at Ventre Hereux? The food, I hear, is delightful.”
    And for some strange reason, the words that came out of my mouth were “Thank you, I’d love to!” I immediately regretted that; what would his family think when they saw me? Would I just pretend to be something I’m not?
    “Marvelous! I’ll meet you right here at half past five.”
    What I should’ve said was, “Sorry, Alexander, but I don’t think I should come with you,” but instead I smiled and said, “Splendid!” and ran into the cabin.
    “Lilly, where’ve you been? You need to get ready for dinner!” Dad exclaimed. I forgot about dinner with my family. Oh no. I had to think of a lie, and quick so I they wouldn’t find out about my newfound friendship with Alexander.
    “I was...I was on deck throwing up over the side of the ship. I better stay here and rest.”
    Dad ran towards me and led me towards my bed. “Oh, Lily, you must lie down! I’m not going to dinner either.”
    “Dad, no!” I cried before I could think to say anything else. “You really don’t need to stay here. I am thirteen years old, and I can take care of myself, and I’ll probably just be asleep the whole time, and I really don’t need someone to take care of me if I won’t even be awake.”
    “Are you sure, Lily?”
    “Yes, I’m sure. You all should go now before you get sick like me.” That got them trampling over each other to get out of the room.
   
“So, Lillian, what brings you to America, dear?”
    “Uh, the boat?” Alexander’s family all burst into laughter.
    “You are so humorous, Lillian.  What suite are you staying in?” Alexander’s father asked me.
    “Room 002,” I mumbled, forgetting that my room was on the third class floor. I had put on my nicest dress, so they believed I was in second class, not third. However, my last comment made them skeptical.
    “You mean room 200, I would think.” Mister Emerson questioned me. “Room 002 is near the bottom of the ship.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry!” I quickly tried to save myself. “Did I say 002? I meant to say 202!”
    The Emerson family had a silent look of relief as the food came to our table.
    “Now,” Mr. Emerson said, raising his glass of champagne. “We shall toast our journey.” We all clinked glasses and began eating our food.
    For a few minutes, I tried to eat as daintily as possible until Mrs. Emerson held in a belch because that was proper table manners. She put her hands on her stomach and grimaced like she was struggling to hold down her meal. She tapped her husband on the shoulder, her stomach growling.
    “Lillian, I apologise, but we must go.  I hope to see you here again tomorrow if your family is feeling well enough to come with you,” Mrs. Emerson made reference to my earlier lie.
    “I doubt it, but I hope so!”
Before he left, Alexander told me to meet him on the deck at noon the next day.

     Two first class girls walked by me on the deck and stared. When they passed me they started whispering to each other.
     I think it was about one o’clock when I saw Alexander come running across the ship. I stood up and straightened out my skirt, thinking about what to say about his tardiness. Should I be mad, or upset? Or neither? He interrupted my train of thought by running up to me and  apologizing.
     “Lily!” He yelled, out of breath. “I’m so sorry, but I have to go. My whole family is sick.”
     “Oh, no! I’m so sorry. My condolences.”
     “Thank you, Lily, but I have to go now.”
     “Do you want me to help? Because I would be happy to--”
     “NO!” He shouted, drawing the attention of some bystanders. “I mean, no thank you, but I can handle this.”
     “Why don’t you want me to help you?” I knew the answer. I just wanted to hear it from him.
    “No reason. It doesn’t matter. I should go now…”
    “Alexander! You have to tell me!”
    “Fine!” He cried. “I don’t want them to find out about…”
    I looked at my clothes: a thick brown skirt and a dark green blouse instead of a long lacy dress. The soles on my work boots were worn out, and my hair was tied in two braids hanging down instead of a complex updo like the girls who walked past me a while ago.
    I wanted to scream and cry at the same time. I thought he was different. I thought he could look past the social barrier. All I wanted was for Alexander and everyone like him and his family to understand how I felt when I looked at all their nice clothes and fancy hair, knowing I could never have anything like that because that's just the way it is. But with Alexander, I felt like that was me, like I was just another one of his rich friends. I wanted to tell him all of that, but all that made its way out of my head was the word “fine” and I just stormed off.
    And that was the last I saw of Alexander Emerson for a while.

    It was April 14th and I was lying in my bed staring at the ceiling. Thomas was playing cards with Frances, and dad was reading a book about ships.
    “Go fish, Franc--” Thomas was cut off by a horrible sound. It sounded like someone took a sharp rock and scraped it against a brick wall, but ten times worse and a million times louder. The boat started to rumble, and I jumped off my bed and held on to the wall.
    “Daddy, what was that?”
    “I don’t know, Lily,” he said, closing his book.
    I followed my dad out into the hall. Thomas and Frances were watching from inside the cabin. Dad kept asking around to try to find someone who knew what was going on. Finally, we bumped into a maid.
    “Excuse me, madam, do you know what that was?” Dad demanded.
    She was petrified, looking as if she had seen a ghost. “What was what? I have no idea what you are talking about! Please go back to your rooms.”
    “With all due respect, madam, but I’m not going back to my room, so tell us what’s going on!”
    “Bu--but…” she swallowed her pride and mumbled, “just put on your life jackets,” and ran off. Dad’s eyes widened like an owl.
    “Dad, what’s going on?” Thomas called.
    “Son, get your life jacket on. And run.”

    “Just let us out!” an Irish woman screamed.
    “There are children here!” a French woman near me grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me towards the gate. “Please!”
    When the woman let go of me I fell to my knees. As I picked myself up and started yelling again, trying to work up some sympathy tears, I saw the person I least expected to on the other side of the gate: Alexander.
    “Lily!” he called.
    “Alexander? What are you doing here? What about your family?”
    “Uh, nevermind about them. We have to get you and your family out of there!”
    “I know that, but how?”
    He leaned into the gate and whispered, “There’s another way out. Stairwell G. Bring your family.”
    He signaled me to go before I could say anything. I crawled through the crowd and at the back, I found my dad and told him to follow me. We ran through the hallways until we got to the stairs. Alexander was already there, distracting the gate operator. There were only about three other people on our side of the door.
    “--And I can’t find my mother or my father,” Alexander fake cried while inching his way to the key to the gate. “And I don’t know how to find them!”
    The worker tried to be as delicate as possible. “What would you like me to do for you?”
    “I-I just have one question for you, sir,” he cried as his hand reached the key.
    “What is it?”
    Alexander stopped fake-crying. “Why are you so easy to fool?” He turned the key and opened up the gate before the man could stop him. He laughed and ran off with the key.
    “GATE IS OPEN IN STAIRWELL G!” Dad bellowed through the hall and watched the people run towards us. Just as the first person turned the corner leading to the gate, the pipes finally gave in.
    Water burst out of broken pipes and came crashing through open doors cracks in the walls, knocking people down. It sounded the way it sounds when a storm was coming in the middle of the ocean, except the waves outside the ship were calm. The ship was clearly no longer horizontal; it was almost as if people were getting eaten by the water. We had to get out.
    The strong splashes of the water made it hard to hear the shrieks of people being pulled downwards by the water and the cries of lonely children who lost their parents in this maze. The sound of people trenching through the sloshing water made my heart pound faster. I could feel myself fighting the pull of the salty ocean water.
    There was no time to stop and stare; Dad pulled me away by my collar. We raced up the three flights of stairs leading to the crowded deck. Alexander led us to a lifeboat and we made our way towards the side of the Titanic. Thomas put Frances into my arms as Alexander and I stepped onto the lifeboat, which was already almost filled to its maximum capacity. We sat down and I beckoned for Thomas and dad to join us, but they stepped away towards the crowd of people hoping get on a boat before the ship becomes a permanent part of the ocean floor.
    They started to lower the boat. “NO!” I screamed. “Thomas, come on! My brother and father need to come on the ship!”
    “Bye, Lily. Frances,” dad called out. Tears filled my eyes as I screamed more. “I love you both. We’ll see you in America.” For him, there was no America. Only for me and Frances. I knew that we’d have to say goodbye to them, but I didn’t think it would be so hard. I thought I’d be used to loss after Mum passed, but still I wanted to jump back on the ship and hug my family one last time.
    “Goodbye, Lily,” Thomas yelled. “Take good care of Frances until we meet again. Goodbye, Frances.”
    “NO!” I shouted. “DADDY, THOMAS, DON’T LEAVE, PLEASE!” The boat dropped in the ocean. My family was gone forever. I wiped away my tears, knowing there was nothing that could be done, and that Frances couldn’t see me like this.
    “Is daddy and Tommy going on another boat?” Frances asked.
    “Sure,” I muttered, not wanting to break her fragile heart again.
    It was that moment when I remembered how many people were on the ship, and for another moment I was a bit embarrassed, but I realized they were all bawling and yelling back and forth with their fathers and husbands. The farther we got from the ship, the quieter we got. Eventually, we reached the point where we stopped talking altogether.
    After a little while, an Irish girl asked me, “Do you think there’s gonna be another boat?”
    I shook my head.
    “When is daddy and Thomas coming?”
    “Soon,” I looked at Frances’s big blue eyes. “Soon.”

    I hear a single sigh. The only voice I hear is the one in my head. The only thing that comforts me is knowing that Alexander’s family will be waiting for us when we get off of this lifeboat. Frances has fallen asleep in my lap, and Alexander is sitting across from me with a solemn look on his face.
    I lean my head back onto the side of the boat and stare off into the distance, watching for another ship. I think about how my Dad and Thomas are doing. It’s been a couple of hours since we saw the ship disappear into the ocean, and I pray that they didn’t go down with it.
    Two plump ladies are rowing the boat, but we’re just going in circles. I can barely hear the waves over the sound of the creaking lifeboat. I press my head against the wall and shut my eyes. It’s easier not to look at all these sad widows and orphans. I hear Frances mumble something and open her eyes, looking around.
    “Tell her.” My eyes dart over to Alexander who just speaks up out of nowhere. He looks at Frances and then back at me.
    Frances doesn’t even notice he is talking to me. She’s standing up on the wooden planks, watching the waves carry us around the sea. She is silently singing something to herself, singing something to the waves.
    I lean in close, trying to make out what she is saying. I only hear some muffled phrases: Daddy, Tommy, know, sad, cry, miss them, Mummy, and goodbye. Tears fall from her eyes into the water as she leans further over the side. And out of nowhere, Frances falls into the ocean. Almost.
    She clutches to a rope on the side of the boat, but her small, fragile hands can’t hold herself up for much longer. Her piercing scream makes everyone jump up and look over the side of the boat.
    “She can’t swim!” I cry, my heart pounding faster than ever before.
    I try to reach her, but my arms aren’t long enough and I fear that they won’t be strong enough either. “LILY!” Frances screams and I nearly jump off the boat to rescue her. I can see the fear in her puppy-dog eyes.
    A strong man near the back of the boat pushes forward, and as he leans down, Frances slips away. She screams as the boat is carried away by the current and the water is pulling her down into the depths of the ocean. But before she drowns to death, her head slams backwards into an iceberg. Instantly, her once lively eyes turned cold and dead as she sinks into the ocean. A red blood stain is left from where she hit her head and the remaining color spreads out in the ocean like dye.
    It takes me a minute to realize that Frances is gone. When I do, I start sobbing.
    “It was supposed to get BETTER on the lifeboat!” I cry.
    “It’s okay, Lily,” Alexander tries to comfort me.
    “She was the only family I had left.” The other people on the boat look at me, not knowing whether to comfort me or ignore me. “The only thing comforting me is that I know your family is going to be waiting for us when we get to that other ship.”
    Alexander doesn’t say anything, he stares at me with a glum look on his face. “Lily, there’s something I need to tell you.”
    I gulped.
    “My parents and my brother died two days ago from Plague X,” he whispers in my ear. “And I have it now, too.”
    I jump up out of my seat, not realizing the consequences Alexander will face if other people find out about this. Just when I think he is going to keep this a secret, he stands up and pushes up his sleeves, revealing his swollen red arms. Everybody gasps. Those red boils are a definite sign of the very infectious Plague X.
    “Do something, he’ll kill us all!” A woman shouts, leaning away from Alexander.
    “Are you crazy, woman? He’s just a kid!” Another man yells.
    “But he’s infected! You’ve seen the people dying on the ship.”
    “If we don’t do anything, we’ll all drop like flies!”
    “Just push him already!”
    “STOP!” Alexander screams and everyone pays attention. “I apologise for keeping this to myself, and possibly killing all of you. But I couldn’t leave my dear friend Lillian behind. She lost her mother about a year ago, she lost her father and brother on the ship, and now her sister is no longer with us.” My lip trembles and my eyes fill with tears as he continues.
    “I wanted to stay by her side and comfort her until we made it to safety, but I can feel the sickness rushing up inside of me and I know that Lily is strong enough to make it on her own now that she knows that I’ll cost all of your lives if I stay on the boat.
    “But then her sister died, and it didn’t seem like the right time. But now, as I speak, I feel weak and ill. I cannot carry on. So now I shall join my family and Lily’s family. And my final request is that you toast my journey.”
    Tears come pouring out of my eyes, and I follow his request. “To Alexander Emerson’s journey,” I blurt out, tears pouring out of my eyes. “May he--and the rest of us--never drown in sorrow on our way back home.” We all clink imaginary glasses.
    I say my final goodbye to Alexander, and so does he, and he jumps off the boat. A part of me is upset that he is gone, but another part of me is thankful that he tried to put me before anyone else.
    I don’t think about what will happen when I get there, or what happened in the past. I just look off into the distance, hoping to see a rescue ship. After a while, I close my eyes, remembering the Titanic.
   
    And I won’t open them until I hear the sound of a fog horn and see lights in the distance coming towards us. That’s when I will climb aboard the ship quietly and finish my journey to America, making my way through the crowds of people. But this time, I’ll be alone.