I thought I felt thick, solid strands of seaweed twine around my waist, but it wasn’t seaweed. It was Noah. His arms were looped around my waist. I was so relieved to see him. He brought his lips to mine, as though to kiss me, but then my lungs came alive as he blew oxygen into my mouth.
I felt him pull me back to the surface, and the sweet relief of having my head above water was like nothing I’d ever felt. “Swim to shore. I need to get Vee,” he ordered.
I wanted to argue with him, but he was already gone. Weakly, I swam back to the beach, walking the rest of the way once the water became shallow enough. I fell onto the sand, soaked to the bone, and swiftly passed out from exhaustion. When consciousness returned, Vee was next to me. She stared up at the sky, shivering in her wet dress. I sat up and looked around.
“Where’s Noah?” I asked, my throat constricting in fear.
Vee glanced at me, sad and cold and wet. “Noah?”
“He went to get you,” I said, panic rising.
Vee looked confused. “No, he didn’t. I came out here to … to,” her voice broke, and I reached out, placing my hand on hers. “I know. It’s okay. Just tell me what happened.”
Vee swallowed thickly. “It was only when the current pulled me under that I realised I didn’t want to die. Then I had this sudden burst of energy, and I managed to swim back to the surface”
At her explanation, I stood abruptly on wobbly legs and ran back to the water. “Noah!” I called out. “Noah!” But there was no answer, only a vast, black sea and endless waves. Vee was behind me then, gripping my shoulder. I turned to her. “I saw you from Noah’s bedroom window. I ran out to stop you, but I almost drowned, then Noah was there. He pulled me to the surface before going back for you.”
Horror filled Vee’s eyes as an unsettling fact sank in. “He didn’t find me.”
24.
“We have to call search and rescue. He could still be out there,” I said, even though a sinking feeling in my gut told me it was hopeless. This was always going to happen. It was my curse. I thought it was going to come for me, but it was far cleverer than that.
Instead, it took the man I loved.
I ran to the house and dialled 999. It wasn’t long before a rescue team arrived. Vee and I stood side by side on the beach wrapped in blankets. A heavy silence hung in the air.
“If he drowned, it’s my fault,” she said sorrowfully.
I didn’t reply, because I was still too agitated to speak. I refused to accept he was gone. He was alive and vivid and vital in my arms just a short while ago. He couldn’t be gone just like that.
He just couldn’t.
Hours went by, but there was no trace of Noah. I spoke with a member of the rescue team. She said they’d keep searching through the night, and I should try and get some sleep. There was no hope of me sleeping, not when it seemed like they were no longer looking for a live person, but for a body.
In a daze, I walked to the house. I sat at the kitchen table for what felt like an eternity. Finally, morning came. Irene arrived in a flurry of panic, having heard what happened to Noah. I knew she was speaking to me, but I was too out of it to absorb a word she said.
I climbed the stairs to my room, lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I had yet to cry, but suddenly big, wet, messy tears streamed down my face as I curled up on my side, holding my knees to my chest as I sobbed and sobbed.
This wasn’t real.
It was a dream.
Yes, only a dream.
But it wasn’t a dream, and the stark reality of a life without Noah made me wish I’d drowned out there with him. What we had was so new and fragile, and it now it was gone, drifting away on the waves.
At some point, I fell asleep from exhaustion, only waking when chills seized my body. I was still in my dress from last night. The wet fabric had since dried, but now it clung tight to my skin. I peeled it off and ran a bath. I sank into the too hot water; letting it scorch my skin, hoping it might make me numb. I didn’t want to feel anything. None of it.
I sat in the tub so long the water went cold. I finally climbed out, wrapped myself in a towel and walked back to my room like a zombie. I heard voices downstairs as I dressed. I went down and found Vee sitting at the kitchen table, pale as a ghost as she spoke with the woman from last night. I couldn’t remember her name, but I knew she was the head of the search and rescue team. Both of their attentions came to me, but they didn’t have to say anything. I knew from their sad faces that Noah hadn’t been found. I wanted to cry again, but after last night I had no tears left. I was an empty shell, unfeeling. It was better than confronting the stark reality that Noah had died. His body swept away by the sea, never to be found again.