The Dive by Sara Ochs

Author:Sara Ochs [Ochs, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529905526
Publisher: Penguin Random House UK
Published: 2023-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

19

Brooke

Back in my room, I collapse on the firm hotel mattress, the touch of Neil’s lips still fresh on mine. A giddiness flutters in my stomach that I haven’t experienced since those few, short-lived days of excitement in college.

His comments from earlier come back to me, and the memory deepens the smile that’s been plastered on my face since I left the Monkey Bungalow. But my mind flicks to what else he said, the warning wrapped in affection. You need to stop looking into this … If you got hurt – or, God forbid, worse – I’m not sure what I would do.

Can I do that?

For the first time since I’ve arrived, I’m questioning my reason for being here. For once, the anger I’ve been holding in my stomach is faint, drowned out by this new wave of excitement. Could I move on? Let it all go? Drop the story and make a life here with Neil? After everything that I’ve been through, don’t I deserve to be happy?

Before I can deliberate any further, I feel my phone vibrate in my back pocket. I’ve been so distracted that I haven’t even bothered to check Instagram since yesterday. I can only imagine how many messages and comments await my response. With a sigh, I flick on the fan by my bed, pull out my phone and roll over on to my stomach.

I’m met with thirty-seven new direct message requests and fifteen hundred notifications about various likes and comments on my posts. I hover my finger over the message icon, reluctant to see what awaits me. The chill of Lucy’s unbearably innocent message yesterday – Hi. Can you help me? Please? – hasn’t yet worn off, that last, desperate ‘please’ sitting hauntingly in my chest. And on top of that, I’m certain that the usual onslaught of overtly sexual advances and cruel attacks that fill my inbox will dull the thrill of this morning.

Still, I force myself to check. I scroll past the litany of insults and pick-up lines that I’ve grown accustomed to and breathe a huge sigh of relief when I reach the end. It’s short-lived, though, as my phone flashes with another message notification just as I finish the task.

I scroll back up to the one new message request and click on it.

A small icon identifies the sender, a woman with eyes so dark they’re almost black against her ivory skin and straight brown hair. The name next to the photo is limited to one word. Alice.

Her name scratches at my brain. Since Instagram labelled the message as a ‘request’, that means I don’t follow her, and I don’t otherwise recall interacting with her on this app before.

With a growing sense of dread, I click on the message, which is only a photo, no text. As I enlarge it, my phone screen fills with a group seated at a long table, a familiar-looking sunset looming behind them.

I recognize the setting immediately. The Sunset Restaurant, perched atop the summit of one of the highest mountains on Koh Sang.

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