Page 30 of The Version You Hide

“Okay.” I paddle to the boat while Jade collects the rest of the snorkellers.

By the time I’ve reached the boat ladder, all of the scuba divers have already climbed back aboard. Except Dylan. He hovers at the side of the boat. “How’d you go today, Jade?”

“Yeah, good. Heaps of turtles out to play,” she answers as she hoists herself up the ladder.

“Awesome,” he replies. Then he turns to me, his eyes warm like coffee flecked with gold. “What about you? Did you have fun?”

“Yeah, I did,” I tell him.

I reach for the ladder, but his hand comes up to stop me. I pause, glancing down to where his golden skin meets my own.

“Wait,” he says. He smiles, exposing a brilliant flash of bright white teeth. “Come with me. I want to show you something.” He slides the oxygen tank off his back and thrusts it up into the boat where Cameron collects it, then he begins to move toward the bow. “Over here.”

I paddle over as quickly as I can. “What is it?”

“Something really special. Just come with me. You’ll see,” he says, sliding his mask back down over his eyes with the biggest grin I’ve ever seen. “Put your mask on. We’re gonna dive down a few metres. Hold your breath, okay?”

I pull the mask back down over my eyes as instructed, then his palm is in mine, firm and reassuring. We glide downwards, tiny blue and yellow fish flying past, the underwater world breathtaking in its beauty. I feel freer than I ever have before, so grateful to be alongside Dylan for this adventure.

Then my heart slams against my ribs when I see a large grey mass a few metres below us. I panic at the sight of a dorsal fin, several rows of jagged teeth and the beady eyes that watch me from their peripheral.

I pull my hand frantically from Dylan’s. He turns. Seeing the fear in my eyes, he realises I’m freaking out. Then grasping my hips with strong hands, he propels us both to the surface. He doesn’t let go of me until I’m gripping the boat’s ladder.

“Kenz, are you okay?”

His question maddens me. I clench my jaw, my body still trembling with fear.

“Am I okay?” I shout. “What the hell, Dylan? I need on this boat now!”

I try to hoist myself up, but the fins I’m still wearing keep getting caught in the rungs of the ladder, making me slip and slide all over the place. I cry out in frustration, slamming my fist into the side of the boat in anger. “These fucking things!”

Dylan watches me patiently from the water with an amused glint in his eye. After a moment, he sighs. “Can I help?”

I turn myself around stubbornly, managing to seat myself on the bottom rung of the ladder, awkwardly holding my feet above the surface. With the patience of a saint, he gently slips my fins off one at a time. I give him a defiant look, my nostrils flaring, chin jutting out, before I turn and climb aboard. He follows closely behind me with way more grace than I’d been capable of.

“I’m sorry, Mackenzie,” he offers. “I thought you’d like it.”

“Like what?” I cry. “Being lured to the depths of hell straight into the jaws of… Jaws!”

He raises an eyebrow, rolling his lips together. I can tell this is him attempting not to laugh, which only infuriates me more. “It was just a grey nurse shark, Kenz. They’re actually really peaceful. And they’re endangered.”

“Endangered? I was just endangered!” I shout, not caring that we now have the attention of the rest of the boat.

“No, you weren’t. I’d never put you in harm’s way.” Another sigh escapes him as he swipes a hand through his wet hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t peg you as someone who’d be scared of…”

“You didn’t think I’d be afraid of a shark?” I cut him off. “Most people on this planet are afraid of sharks, Dylan!”

“Sharks are actually really misunderstood creatures,” he says calmly and matter-of-factly.

“I was just a misunderstood creature! As in, you misunderstood that I would want to be fed to a shark.”

At this point I realise I may be overdoing it with the dramatics, but adrenaline is coursing through my veins after our close encounter with The Meg and I’m not in the mood.

He clamps his lips together, his eyes crinkling at the corners as the laugh he tries to contain bursts free in the form of a snort.

“I would never feed you to a shark, Kenz.”

“It’s Mackenzie,” I tell him, for the four hundredth time as I thump a fist into his chest.

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