Before My Eyes by Caroline Bock

Author:Caroline Bock
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Max

Saturday, 12:20 P.M.

I am accidently alive.

I drag myself out of the sea. Saltwater streams off my arms and legs. My vision is fogged. I had Claire in my sight, and then I didn’t. I had her fingertips clasping my own, then I didn’t. I had nothing. Swirling water dragged me down. It was as if I was thrown back to shore. On the beach, I hang my head between my knees. I drop to the sand—next to arms, legs, Claire.

Her eyes are closed, her lips blue. Her hair is wound around her face, wreaths of seaweed brown. She coughs instead of speaking. Brackish gray-black seawater trickles from the side of her lips. She spits up more and lays her face in the sand as if wanting to taste the beach. I touch her back. Her skin is cool. My hand burns. I don’t know what to do with my fingers now so I pat her back between her shoulder blades. She raises slightly, gathering in a breath. I breathe, too, and her eyes flutter open. These amazing eyes, almost bigger than the rest of her face, almond-shaped, maybe “exotic” is the best word, but it’s not a word I usually use. I can’t stop staring at her or patting her back. I got a beat going—one long pat, then two short ones. Across her mouth, across her lips, are nibbles of sand. My hand imprints on her back. Long pat. Two short ones.

Her hair strings around her hips like a mermaid’s. She’s shivering. I want to put my whole arm around her. I want to brush away the sand—from her lips—and more—but those lips are vulnerable and since this is working, this stroking her back, I keep doing it. Long pat. Two short ones. And she leans into me. Her long legs etched with seaweed and sand and scratches wrap around mine. I breathe in her scent of saltwater and small fish and lose my breath as if drowning again. I concentrate: one long pat. Two short.

“Did you save me?” she asks.

“No.”

“I think you did. Is everything okay? You know you’re hitting me hard. I’m breathing. Can’t you tell I’m breathing?”

Through her mermaid lips, she blows air toward me. Sand speckles her teeth and tongue. I want to catch her breath in mine but I keep on stroking in the cavern between her shoulder blades. The roar of the sea pulses in our ears, the pull of the tide slides underneath our backs, and the rhythm reminds me: we are alive.

All of a sudden, she shakes her head, unwinds her legs from me as if caught in a trap. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Izzy? My little sister? Did you see her?”

She doesn’t let me answer.

“Izzy!” Claire attempts to stand, though her legs are even wobblier than mine and she must use my shoulders for balance.

The ocean is edged with people, jumping, diving, snaking along the shoreline. The sailboat, a rattle and flap of sails, is still skirting the edge of the horizon.

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