“Jeanine?” Alex said as my friends turned to me in silent deference.

The questionable decision was all mine.

I pursed my lips in worry as I looked down at the sand-covered bar floor between my sun-browned toes.

Then my face broke into my own mischievous grin as I rolled my eyes. “Uh… definitely!” I said.

All around the bar, people turned as my friends whooped and high-fived and pounded playfully on the sandy table.

“Shot, shots, shots,” Mike and Alex started to chant as our waitress quickly turned to get them.

As a responsible 3.9 GPA English major and student athlete, I was well aware that vodka and gelatin was a highly hazardous afternoon snack. But then again, I had an excuse. Actually four of them.

I was a college kid. I was in Key West. And not only was spring break ’92 quickly coming to a close, but it was three days after my twenty-first birthday.

Yet as I sat smiling, looking through the happy, crowded bar out over the endless Tiffany blue Gulf, I still had the slightest moment’s doubt, the slightest moment’s wonder if maybe I was pushing my luck.

The feeling was gone by the time Maggie returned with our drinks.

Then we proceeded to do what we always did. We raised our paper cups, tapped them together, and screamed, “Party till you drop, man!” as loud as we could.

Chapter 2

I SAW a video once of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. It was recorded at some beachfront resort in Sri Lanka, and in it, as the ocean bizarrely recedes, a group of curious tourists wander down to the beach to see what’s going on.

Staring at the screen, knowing that the receding water is actually already on its way back to kill them, what disturbs you the most is their complete innocence. The fact that they still think they’re safe instead of living out the very last moments of their lives right in front of you.