“Miss Molly,” he said, his voice soft and smooth.
“Yes?” my voice croaked.
“Everything that you have just shared with me, you don’t need to feel any embarrassment or shame, not at all. If anything, I think you’re incredibly brave. There’s no one way to this life. All the things we are told that we should aim for, the things we do that are supposed to make us good enough, it’s all a hoax, it’s all a lie. I’ve achieved so much, I have so much to the point where money doesn’t even mean a thing to me anymore. But I can tell you, that up until recently… up until I laid my eyes on you, up until I got to know you, it was this connection that I had really been waiting for.”
I don’t think that I had a pulse anymore. My heart had stopped, and I had just completely melted into the seat.
He continued, “I guess what I’m trying to say is, business, the creativity, building something that you feel like was meant to you, all of that is fun, but all of it is nothing more than the journey. Every single person’s journey to realizing that thing, it’s different… and it’s not the only fulfilling thing in life, in fact, I’ve come to realize that it is far from it. You’ll find your thing, Molly, whatever it is, and it’s like when you find your person, when you know you just know. And when you do know, I want to be the person that you come to. I want to be the person that can really help you bring that dream to life. Don’t question it, don’t overthink it. I just want you to know that I want that. As far as I’m aware, we’re in this game of life together now, and I’ve got your back through anything, just as I am sure that you have mine,” he said.
Tears began running down my face. At first, I brushed them away, but my heart panged, and as I tried to breathe deep, to blink, to make them stop, I was already too far gone. Henry smiled as he pulled a tissue from his back pocket, patting them away. “You don’t need to cry, it’s a beautiful thing. We should be happy. We are so lucky that we have each other.”
I sniffled, nodding my head. “I agree, I do, I’m not crying out of sadness, they’re happy tears, I swear. We’ve both waited a long time to find something like this and I do just feel so incredibly lucky, as lucky as you saythat you feel too. And I want you to know that I have your back no matter what, Henry. We’re in this together,” I said.
His thumb brushed my cheek again. “Promise?”
I nodded, “Promise.”
He wrapped his arms around me squeezing me tight to his chest as the yacht came to a stop. “Now let’s go snorkeling,” he said as he whispered in my ear.
Chapter Nineteen
“This place is my favorite. Just follow me when we get into the water, and just a little to the right out here, are the sunken statues. You’ll love it.”
“Sunken statues? What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve only owned this property for a couple of years. But this very island has had a long history. It is said that it was home to some natives originally, and it may have even been attached to the Hamptons themselves a long time ago.”
“Before climate change, right” I said.
“Yeah, something like that, before the sea levels started rising many, many years ago anyway. But because of that there are many sunken statues around the island, oh some of them are so damn beautiful, Molly, but you have to scuba dive down to a lot of them. These ones are in easy reach snorkeling.”
“Scuba dive? Can we go scuba diving another day?” I asked with excitement. I’d never been scuba diving, but for some reason it was on my bucket list. I just had never been in a situation to try it. And I also didn’t know whether I would like it.Something about learning to breathe so peacefully underwater seemed beautiful but at the same time the gear that you had to wear made me worry it would feel a little claustrophobic. I had never been good with small spaces after my parents’ car accident, being stuck in the back of that car for so long. But I knew if there was ever the right chance for me to try scuba diving, it was with Henry.
“Are you ready?” said Henry standing up off the side of the yacht looking back at me with the biggest smile on his face.
“I’m right behind you,” I called back as he spun around and jumped off the back of the yacht with the most flawless dive into the water. I watched the top of his snorkel reappear at the top of the water in the distance. Thank God he dived in first because I did not want him to see my lame pin drop into the ocean.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes shut and jumped in, feeling my body hit the water, sinking just underneath the surface, only to open my eyes as soon as I felt myself float back up to the surface. I remembered my mouth breathing pattern that Henry had just reminded me of. I hadn’t been snorkeling since I was a teenager, and it was just vague memories of one time with my auntie and my sister on what was probably our only family holiday to Miami. But from what I could remember, it was nowhere near as beautiful as this.
I stopped myself from gasping at the brightly colored fish swimming underneath me, some bright orange, others blue and yellow and a large school of translucent fish sped fastunderneath me, weaving through the green and pink coral. It was like a whole other world underneath here. My eyes caught on the lime green flicker of Henry’s flipper ahead of me, and as I looked up, I watched him dive deeper into the water, waving his hand for me to come and join him. He looked like a dolphin in the water, gliding down with such ease as I slowly followed him. I wasn’t the worst swimmer, but I also wouldn’t call myself great. Not as good as Henry at least. But I held my breath, following his trail and pushing myself underneath the water. Diving deep, swimming amongst the fish with my boyfriend, my handsome incredible boyfriend. The man who technically owned these waters. I wasn’t entirely sure if when you bought a private island if the seas around it were yours or not. Either way, they felt like his, it was just me and him and the fish and the reef, and I can’t remember a more freeing feeling than now.
The deeper I swam into the water, the more confident I got. I kept following Henry’s lead, until I stopped, floating deep in the water looking down at the very statues that Henry was telling me about moments before. I was floating about a circle of carved women, all facing each other, each of them so intricately carved, as some coral began growing around the grey stone.
Henry swam around the top of them, circling the statue from above but I wanted to get a closer look. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold my breath. I let my body float to the surface. Releasing the snorkel from my mouth, as I tookin a deep breath of air and then swam right back own as deep as I could. Soon, I was floating inside the faces of the many stone women who were facing each other. Henry swam up the surface, just as I dived back down. The faces of the stone were so intricate, each of the statues looked so real, and for how long they may have been living underneath the surface for, other than a bit of coral growing around their feet there was no erosion. I floated down in front of one of the women to my right, her face still, eyes wide, and a pixie cut made of stone. She was naked, no, all of them were naked, standing tall, facing each other, each with very different expression on their faces. No doubt it was a strong representation of some tribal times, or when women were seen to be witches I wondered if Henry really had done enough research into finding out why exactly they were here?
As I floated around to the next girl, my stomach churned. She looked so familiar, staring back at me, with her wide eyes and long hair draped over her shoulders, the familiar smile that I now felt like I had gotten to know so well. I reached out to her, kicking my flippers down on the surface beneath me. I touched the side of her slimy stone face. It was so much softer than I expected, as though it wasn’t stone, but maybe clay. I wasn’t too sure. All I knew was my heart was beating a million miles per hour as I stared back at the exact image of someone, I thought I knew, but in reality, didn’t.
“Ruth?” I said, lost in the figure’s eyes. I completely forgot that I was underwater, saying the name out loud as I gulpedin a whole lot of water, grabbing onto the side of her face harder. The clay? Stone? Whatever the hell it was crumbled underneath my touch, as cracks revealed in the side of her face. My body shook as I choked, panicked and needed to pull myself back up to the surface.
But just as I went to pull myself away, that was when I caught sight of the long red dangling hair behind the stone girl. I reached for it, I felt the softness of the strands in my hands, just as I felt like my body was about to fall weak. This was real, this was in my hands I could feel it. The stone statue had hair, hair that I was holding. Real human hair.
I went to pull it, I tugged as hard as I could, and I looked down to see a few strands of long red hair dangling in my fingers. It was the same time that I felt his arms around me. My body fell into a tight embrace as I screamed under the water as I felt myself being pulled up to the surface, my lungs filling with even more water.
It must have been Henry that was holding me, that was bringing up to the surface, but I knew what I just saw, I didn’t just see it, I felt it. I touched it. Her, Ruth… I screamed again, trying to wriggle myself free as I swore, I saw another stone figure, splashing through the water in front of me, falling to the surface. I screamed, I wriggled, but then the world went black.
Chapter Twenty
“What happened?” I said, opening my eyes, as I found myself laying down on a surface with Henry looking down over me. He gently caressed the side of my face. My body tensed as all the images came flooding back. I went to sit up, I went to look at my hand, but it was empty. The hair I’d been holding was no longer there.
