Page 62 of Pierce Me

thirteen

We hit the water seconds apart. I see her head break the surface as I dive in feet first.

I resurface immediately and reach her in two wide strokes. She’s already looking around for the dog, but I’m having trouble breathing. The cold pierces me like an electric current. I try to catch my breath against the wall of icy water that surrounds me and my chest constricts. I peer over the water and I see Eden trying to float in place, so I know she has trouble breathing too. I reach her in an instant and wrap my legs around hers, lifting her so that she can keep her head above water.

Eden turns around to face me Her hair it saturated by water and plastered to her forehead. It looks darker, almost black. Like before. Her lips part, pink and purple, and her eyes go huge, looking me up and down.

“Are you ok?” I ask her, gasping against the cold. I know that in some cases the cold can hit you so hard that it completely steals your breath and you drown. My pulse thunders in my ears.Please don’t let this be one of these cases.“Hey, turn around.”

She does.

Everything stills. Even the birds’ music pauses; there’s utter silence as we fight for breath next to each other, face to face, bobbing on the water’s calm surface. Finally, I see her.

Peach skin, yellow-brown eyes. Freckles—way more than there used to be. Red lips turning blue from the cold. Drops of lake water drying on her lashes. Braid coming loose on her neck. Her cheeks are more defined, her chin is fuller. Her skin is sun-kissed, a stark contrast to her paleness from four years ago. I used to call her ‘a little elf’. She used to say that was ‘such a Victorian thing to say’. Now she looks… She looks like the sun in Greece right before it dips over the horizon. She looks like a summer’s day, as the poet says.

She looks like a dream I once had, a dream that dissolved as soon as morning came.

“Yeah, fine,” she gasps, water hovering in and out of her lips. She spits it out.

“Good.” I tread water with my arms and concentrate on lifting her higher with my hips. Her mouth is inches away from my cheek.

“It’s you,” she spits water. “It’s you, right?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” I gasp, fighting to keep us both afloat and to keep breathing against the numbing cold. “It’s me, Eden. What did you think?”

“Was it you in the concert as well?” she is shaking so hard she can barely speak.

“What?” I ask, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“New York. Was it you singing?”

“Yeah, of course it was me.”

She tries to smile, but her lips are frozen. She kicks the water weakly, and I wrap my legs around her hips more strongly to keep her afloat.

“And you? Was it you? Was that you in the pit?” I ask.

She winces and water gets into her mouth. I gasp, lifting her with both my arms.

“You looked at me,” she says quietly.

I stop gasping for breath for a second.

“I did look at you. I didn’t realize it was you,” I reply. “I wasn’t sure, not even after looking and looking.”

“You…” she has a hard time forming words. “You looked and looked?”

“I did,” I say, staring straight into her eyes.

I’ve missed you, I think. Instead, I say:

“I looked and looked and it was not enough.”

“Well, it was me,” she repeats.

“It wasn’t obvious.”

“Doesn’t almost dying on national TV sound like me?” she says, shaking even harder.

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