Page 23 of Crushed By Love

No. This will not be how I go. I refuse to let this take me. Kicking my legs harder than ever, I push the panic aside and refocus. All I have to do is float on top of the waves and swim with them back to shore. How hard can it really be?

The answer: very hard.

Before long I’m even farther out because the waves going to shore are nothing compared to the strong current pulling me to sea. I don’t know enough about the ocean to understand what is happening, but I do know enough to realize that I’ve made a huge mistake. I completely underestimated the level that my recklessness could take me. This isn’t the Nantucket Sound, this is the East side of the island. The Atlantic Ocean may appear friendly, but it’s a gargantuan monster and it’s going to eat me alive.

I begin to scream for help, but I’m alone out here.

There’s nobody.

My limbs are getting too tired to keep fighting and the water is too much. No matter how hard I try to stay above the swells, I can’t seem to do it. And forget about swimming in the direction of the shore, I don’t have what it takes. I’m going to drown and my body will become shark food. Or maybe it will wash up somewhere, naked and bloated and barely recognizable.

And it’s all my fault, all because I wanted to be reckless.

My vision pinpricks, black nothingness edging in. I close my eyes and keep fighting. I keep screaming. Keep moving. But with every passing second, I’m losing the fight. My death is simultaneously taking forever and not taking any time at all. These are the longest and shortest minutes of my life––and they’re about to be my last.

Something slams into the back of the head. I try to scream but I’m too tired and waterlogged to get a breath out, let alone a functioning scream. This must be what drowning feels like. It’s death’s final blow, hitting me upside the head and I can’t even scream about it.

And then I’m underwater again. I’m sinking. Fighting. Ending.

I open my eyes despite the burning salt. I need to see this as it happens, need to know it’s real, to accept the truth. To let go.

I should be panicking but I’m not.

The world is beautiful down here too. Beautiful and violent and terrible. I can’t see the ocean’s bottom, there’s nothing but darkness below me. It’s reaching up to consume me, dark shadows that offer nothing but death. Above me, the surface is rising away in a parting goodbye. It sparkles, bright and cheery, as if to mock me.

And then someone is there, a body swimming toward me.

Strong arms wrap around my middle. Legs kick. Feet hit against mine.

I’m being pulled back up.

We break through the surface and all I can see is Ethan. Ethan is holding me. Ethan is saving me. Ethan is dragging me onto a surfboard. The plastic edge bites into my hip and then my ribs, irritating enough to bruise. So it wasn’t death that hit me upside the head, it was Ethan’s board.

I’m alive. I’m alive and coughing up water and crying.

“Are you okay?” he’s asking me, his voice sounding far away to my waterlogged ears.

I nod but it’s not true and I can’t stop crying. I’m not okay. After that, how can I ever be okay? I’ll dream of that darkness. It will come for me in nightmares. Surely the monster won’t give up on me so easily. I’ve been claimed.

Ethan is cussing and then he’s laying down next to me on the board, practically crushing me with his body. My breast scrapes against the plastic and I want to cry even more but how can I? I’m already crying. Waves splash over us again and again, more water spraying up into my face as he paddles us to shore. The crying turns to coughing and it’s all I can do to keep from passing out.

“Just hang on, baby,” he’s saying, sounding angry. At me? At the ocean?

Probably me.

Maybe both.

Did he just call me baby?

It feels like ages before we’re back to shore. There’s so much water and then there’s none and he’s dragging me from the surf. I’m suddenly very much aware of how naked I am as I stumble along beside him, one of his arms wrapped around my waist. I should be embarrassed at my nudity, and I’m sure those feelings will consume me soon, but right now I’m just grateful to be alive. I gulp in air between coughing fits.

Cooper runs across the beach, sand spraying up behind him, my towel flapping in his hands. He wraps me up in the warm fabric and lays me gently on the beach. They kneel over me and I still cough.

“What the hell happened?” Cooper demands.

“I was surfing and found her out there half-drowned.” Ethan’s tone is as dark as the bottom of that ocean.

They turn to me, expecting an answer, but I can hardly form coherent thoughts right now, let alone string together words. My entire body shakes and I still can’t get enough air. Every time I breathe, I cough.

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