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conference. He noted that it could take weeks before specialized recovery vehicles can reach the site and begin bringing the wreckage to the surface.
    The flight crashed in a thunderstorm while traveling from New York to Paris. All 228 passengers and crew members were killed.
    My chest tightened. I felt dizzy and began to sweat.
    I had known they were starting the search again, but I figured it would be just like the other searches— like a needle in a haystack , someone had written on the message board. We shouldn’t get our hopes up , other people had said.
    Try to breathe.
    Was I dying? I wasn’t dying. I’d felt this before. A panic attack. I’d felt exactly like this two years ago, when I had my first panic attack, before they identified his remains, when I was sure he was still alive. I was supposed to give an oral presentation about dolphins for school that day. Long-beaked, short-beaked, white-beaked, bottlenose, Indo-Pacific humpbacked. I’d researched almost every dolphin in existence. All the parents stood in the back of the room—my mom couldn’t make it, of course, since she taught a class at the same time—and I kept watching the door. I knew he was going to come.He’d never missed a presentation, school play, or anything. I went last—I’d asked the teacher if I could go last—I got up to speak and my dad still wasn’t there, and everyone stared at me with this weird look. My chest froze; it felt like it was slowly filling up with cement. I woke up in the nurse’s office.
    I kept reading the message board.
    Even if they find the data and voice recorders, the data might not be intact. As much as I want to finally put an end to the questions and misery and uncertainty, we have to accept that we still might not get any answers.
    Tim (wife Beth, 3B)
    I don’t want to know what the recorders say. I’m at peace now and I don’t want to know any more about it. I wish things had been left alone and this had not happened. I’m not sure why it was important to everyone to lobby for the search to continue all this time.
    Jill (Jacques Bluelake, 14A)
    I couldn’t absorb it. I couldn’t move or think or do anything but read message after message.
    I didn’t even notice when someone sat down beside me until I felt a squeeze on my shoulder.
    â€œHey—I’m sorry I’m late, I’ve been—” He saw my face. “What happened?”
    I couldn’t speak. I didn’t cry—I was too stunned—I felt numb.
    â€œWhat happened?” he asked again. When I didn’t answer, he said, “Let’s get out of here.” He took my hand and picked up my bag, and we walked out of the auditorium.
    He led me toward an empty, quiet stairwell. We sat down. I was shaking.
    â€œAre you okay?” He held my hand. “Should I call someone? Or—”
    â€œIt wasn’t a heart attack.” I spoke quickly, and somehow, saying it aloud, telling him I lied, cracked the numbness and made the tears slide out for the first time.
    I took out my phone and showed him the article.
    He read it and held me for a long time, until I caught my breath and calmed down, and then I told him everything. I told him how there had been different theories—from the small amount of wreckage they’d recovered two years ago, at first some people thought the plane had broken up in midair. Then they decided it had hit the water intact. My eyes focused on a piece of old gum that had turned into a black spot on the stairs. “I always thought—I decided—that he didn’t know it was coming. That he was sleeping and they fell into the ocean, and he was never scared or terrified or felt anything. That’s what I’ve always thought. Hoped. That he didn’t suffer.”
    â€œI don’t think he was scared,” Will said. “I know he wasn’t scared. He didn’t suffer.”
    I loved