They said that drowning was peaceful, but how did they know? Wasn’t as though you could ask anyone. Maybe they didn’t know; maybe it was just a lie that people told, so little kids didn’t think of their dad caught under the waves, thrashing and struggling in terror as he died. So they didn’t wake up screaming from nightmares of watching it happen night after night after night. They’d told me drowning was peaceful, and I’d tried to believe it for years, but now that it was going to happen to me, my heart was trying to burst out of my chest while it could still beat, and my lungs ached like they were already full of water.
In front of me, Dominic had the torch wedged in his armpit. It lit his face like a kid trying to tell a ghost story in the middle of the night, and a strange, disconnected part of me wanted to laugh at how ridiculous he looked—the light and shadows doing weird things to his face. But I was too cold, too scared, and too aware that every single wave was pushing the tide higher and higher.
I didn’t want to die like this. I didn’t want to drown. It wasn’t peaceful. How could it be, when every cell in my body was screaming at me to stay alive? For Mum, for Button John, for Dominic, and for a life I hadn’t even lived yet.
Tears blinded me, and Dominic’s hands settled on either side of my face. He was so warm, and that couldn’t be right, since he was soaking wet too, but I’d been here in the water for so long that it felt as cold as winter.
“We’re getting you out of here, Natty,” he said, and he sounded so sure that I wanted to believe him. For a second I almost wished he wasn’t here with me, because it was bad enough my heart was going to break. I didn’t want to see his do the same. But I was selfish, and I was scared, and I was so glad that I didn’t have to do this alone.
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I’m really fucking sorry. I wish I’d stayed at your place.”
“Yeah?” He gave me one of those crooked grins I loved. I wanted to have years of those grins. “I wish you had too. I’d much prefer to be in bed right now, but we’re getting you out of here, remember?”
I nodded. I didn’t say anything out loud because I was a terrible liar.
“Hey.” Maybe he heard it anyway, because he leaned in and pressed his mouth to mine. His lips were warm too. “We’re getting you out of here. Can you move your foot at all? Can you wiggle your toes?”
I tried to wiggle my toes. “I can’t tell. It’s all numb.”
“Yeah, I think your ankle’s a bit swollen. You were wrenching on it for a while, huh?”
“Yeah.” A shiver ran through me, and Dominic moved his hands from my face to my back, rubbing it briskly. I closed my eyes and hid my face in the crook of his neck. I was so glad he was here, but I wanted so much longer with him.
He pulled back before I was ready. “I’m gonna try again,” he said. “When you feel me pulling, you do the same, okay?”
“Okay.” A faint, dangerous thread of hope unspooled in my gut. Maybe, between the two of us, we could shift the rock enough for me to pull my foot free?
Dominic ducked under the water. A moment later I felt his fingers close around my ankle, and he tugged. Hard. A white flash of pain flared in front of my vision as I pulled too. My ankle bone ground hard against rock, but nothing else shifted. Dominic tugged again, but this time I couldn’t. It hurt so much that all I could do was keep one hand braced on the wall so that I didn’t fall backwards.
He came up for breath. “Okay?”
I nodded.
“We’ll try again.”
I grit my teeth and braced for the pain. It would have been worth it if it had worked, but it didn’t.
“Stop,” I said, and caught him by the wrist when he stood up again. I was crying again. “I’m stuck, alright? I’m stuck! Just... can you just hug me for a bit?”
“Natty, we don’t have time.”
“I know. That’s why I want a hug!”
Water slapped between us as he flung his arms around me and squeezed me as tight as that fucking rock. His body lurched with shuddering breaths. He was shaking now too. “Thirty seconds.”
“What?”
“This is a thirty second hug,” he said, his voice ragged. “And then we’re trying again, because I’m not just going to stand here and let you fucking drown!”
My throat hurt, and it was from more than the saltwater. “But what if you don’t have a choice?”
His face twisted as he released me from the hug. “Fuck that. It’s not gonna happen, Natty.”
He stepped back and then ducked under the water again, as though just by wanting it enough he could free me. As though I hadn’t felt those same moments of burning determination when I’d be here alone, moments when I’d thought of Mum, or Button John, or him, and drawn on all my rage and frustration—I am not going to die like this!— thinking that it would give me enough strength to pull myself free. I hadn’t just stood here for hours doing nothing, even though the end result would have been exactly the same.
He wrenched my leg, and I yelled at the sudden sharp pain in my ankle, the sound echoing through the cave even above the constant low roar of the waves. My eyes stung, and I stared down into the water. I couldn’t see anything except torchlight, weirdly distorted, flashing like the greenish glow of the clusterwink snails that lived in the rocky shallows around the bay.
“Stop,” I said, before he’d even come up for air. I got a hand on his shoulder and pushed. “Stop, please.”
