The ocean doesn’t answer. It keeps rushing in and out, like nothing is happening.
Like it didn’t swallow him.
Swallow my drunk boyfriend.
I knew we should have never been in here in the first place. Why didn’t I stop him? Put up a scene?
I’m sobbing now, frantically rushing through the water, looking for his body. Leonidas and Levi powerfully move, their panicked energy radiating through the air.
I fall to the sand, and waves lap at my body as I grip my chest. “Please,” I plead at the sky, my teeth chattering so hard that Imight chip a tooth. “Please don’t take him from me too. I need him!”
Two sets of arms envelop me, and Amelia and Trinity’s sobs rack my body.
“Do you see my brother?!” Leonidas screams, voice hoarse, breaking. Terrified, he scans the water, turning in circles.
I can’t look at his fear because it makes everything real.
Until I see it.
Floating, lifeless.
“NO!” A roar rips through my throat as I run to his still body.
It’s too still.
Leonidas spots him, and his breath hitches. Behind me, I hear Amelia’s scream, raw and heartbroken.
Leonidas gets to him before me, yanking and cradling him to his body. I don’t need him to tell me with words if he’s okay. I see it on his face.
I know what he’s about to tell me.
And I can’t breathe.
FIFTY-THREE
LILY
PAST
We’re sitting on the curb outside my house, scraping chalk on the pavement with hands that look redder than our normal skin tone.
“Why are you drawing a butterfly?” I ask Elijah, whose tongue sticks out between his lips, brow furrowed, as he’s deep in concentration.
“Because they’re beautiful,” he says too simply, dragging the two chalks in a zigzag, creating a pretty design on its wing. “I like how they fly through the air so pretty without caring about all the dangers around them.”
“Like you,” I point out, starting to make my own butterfly. Hoping he doesn’t yell at me for copying him.
He looks up, curious. “Why do you say that?”
I look toward his house. “Your dad is always yelling. I can hear him sometimes, you know?”
Today, he knocked on my door and simply stated his dad was acting up again. I grabbed my favorite bucket of chalk and pulled him along to the sidewalk.
“But you act like nothing is wrong, like it’s not happening. If I were you, I would be crying every day.”
“I need to stay strong for my mom and my brother and sister.” He glances back down and aggressively continues his art piece.
“But who’s going to stay strong for you?” I whisper, forgetting about my chalk.
