Page 80 of Releasing 10
Oh no, no, no…
“Gerard!” Claire screamed, sounding more frightened than I’d ever heard her. “Just hold on, okay? I’m here, Gerard! Don’t go to sleep!”
“Are they okay?” Sadhbh continued to scream over and over, as she collapsed in a heap on the bed of the boat. “Are they breathing?”
“I’m coming, Gibs,” Dad called out, breathing hard, as he frantically swam out toward his best friend. “I’ve got ya, buddy.”
“Pete,” Joe called back, struggling to keep all three of them afloat from the relentless assault of wave after wave.
We shouldn’t have come out today, I thought to myself.
The water was too choppy. The conditions were all wrong. I’d heard my dad say as much to my mother this morning.
Still, I clung to the hope that everything would be okay.
Hope was quick to dwindle when, a moment later, a huge wave crashed over the four of them, causing Joe to lose his hold on Gibsie.
“Gerard!” Claire screamed, trying to climb over the side of the boat to get to him. Thankfully, Mam had a firm hold on her. “Daddy, you gots to find him! Please! Please! Gerard! Over there, Daddy.” Claire screamed in a feral tone, pointing to where our friend had been swallowed up by the merciless waters. “It sucked him down there, Daddy!”
“I’ll find him, Gibs,” Dad vowed, clearly the fresher of the two of them, as Joe was fading fast. “I promise I’ll find your son.” Dad glanced over to where my sister was screaming and pointing at and nodded. “I’ll bring him back.”
“Don’t let him die, Pete.”
“I won’t,” Dad promised. “Take Beth back in. I’ll get the boy.”
Another wave crashed over them then, and just like that, Bethany sank under the water like her brother had, followed by her father.
Swallowed up by the waves like a lifeless, floating doll.
The image of her pink dress was the last that I saw of her.
She wouldn’t come back up that day.
Neither would Joe.
“He gots him!” Claire screamed then, rekindling the dying flame of hope inside of me. “Daddy gots Gerard!”
I couldn’t look because I knew it would be bad.
I was too fucking scared to see himnotalive.
My oldest friend in the world.
“Hugh, I need you to listen to me.” Turning me in her arms, my mother held my shoulders as she spoke. “I need you to be brave, okay?”
Blinking the tears away, I nodded. “I will.”
“I need you to do everything I tell you. No matter what, son.”
Sniffling, I offered her another nod. “I will.”
“I need to help your father now, and I needyouto look after your sister, okay?”
I choked out a sob and nodded in understanding.
“Good boy.” Leaning in close, Mam pressed a hard kiss to my forehead and then climbed over the side of the boat and lowered herself into the choppy water.
“Mammy, no!” Claire screamed frantically when our mother went into the water. “Come back!”
