Page 1 of Watercolor Skulls

Chapter One

Lily

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Staring out across the blue water, I recognize the beauty of the scene before me. I wonder how everyone else sees it. My gaze falls to the people around me. Most are looking at the world through a lens.

The sun is shining brightly over us. I reach up with cold, shaking hands to feel the top of my head. I smile, remembering my aunt and warm summer days spent here in the bay. My hands drop back to the cold railing. The noise from the traffic behind me seems fitting. The soundtrack to my life. Shuffled here, shooed there, always going wherever I was told. The force of my father’s life paving the way for me.

A man in uniform spots me, tilting his head in concern. I quickly climb over, clinging to the side of the bridge, my feet perched on a pipe beneath me. The wind whips my hair around my cheeks, the air salty and wet. All I have to do is let go and fall backwards.

“Hey, sweetheart,” a man’s voice says calmly above me. “Let me help you back over and we can talk. Whatever is bothering you, it can be fixed. I promise.” I glance up at him briefly. It’s the officer I saw staring at me. His hand is extended over the railing, reaching out to me. A second man is standing by his side nervously.

I’m way past the point of fixing anything. Nothing can be fixed. Nothing. If I let him pull me up he will find out who I am. My father will be angry. Benjamin will be angry. There is no going back.

I turn my head to admire the beauty of the bridge one last time. A dragonfly lands on a steel bar beside me, a sign it’s time to go. The man continues to plead with me.

I close my eyes, lean back and... let go.

My body falls at a speed I was not prepared for.

What have I done?

What have I done?

I don’t want to die.

I want to live.

I want to live.

And then a pain like I’ve never felt before explodes through my body.

Darkness swallows me whole as the current pulls against my battered frame. Water fills my lungs as I struggle to rise to the surface.

And then I see it…

The bright light. It shines above me. The beautiful amber glow pulls me closer and closer. The dragonfly darts back and forth between me and the light. It’s like I’m stuck beneath a piece of glass. Nothing unusual there. I’m always on the other side looking out. But this time I break through.

My hands rise to the surface first and then I feel the air on my face as I gasp for breath, choking. A man in the water pulls me to him. “She’s alive,” he yells.

The pain I feel tells me he is correct.

I lived.

I lived.

As the coast guard loads me onto their boat I stare at the clouds. The dragonfly makes one final appearance before darting away. My eyes follow him until he blends into the scenery.

“Do you know how lucky you are?”

I blink at the young man hovering above me.

“You’re the first one I’ve pulled out alive,” he pants from exhaustion, his wet hair dripping over my face.

I close my eyes, knowing I’m now part of the one percent. The one percent who survive.

Everything after that becomes a blur. Doctors, nurses, beeping machines…it all runs into one endless sentence.

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