Lucy does not pop up with a head of drenched red curls looking like my little soaked, sad lion. She doesn’t break the surface of the water laughing or crying or yelling.
Instead, she rests at the bottom of the pool.
Face up.
Eyes closed.
Chapter 8
Lucy
When I was five years old, Grandpa Neil brought me out to a lake to help him catch brim. The day was sweltering; I wore my swimsuit though I hadn’t learned how to swim. Grandpa let me sit in the water on the bank so I could stay cool under the high July sun. He said if I caught a brim then I could also try holding a sparkler during Fourth of July celebrations that night. Determined, I cast out to the lake more times than I could count. On my last cast before we stopped for lunch, my hook got stuck on a mossy stump under the water right off the bank. Grandpa was busy transferring the fish he had caught from a line in the water to a bucket of water to transport back up the hill to his house. I didn’t want to bother him, so I thought I would untangle the hook myself. I had done it before with his supervision, and the hook was stuck just paces away. I would still be able to stand.
I set my pole down and began my journey out. The warm water caressed my skin as I took one step, two steps, three…
Suddenly, the mushy ground was no longer beneath me. Before I could even let out a shout, I was submerged under the brown, stinky water. It rushed into my nose, and I gulped in the lake as I attempted to call for help. I flailed my arms and kicked my feet, all to no avail. At one point I broke the surface and screamed, but I sank back under. My head became foggy and I could no longer breathe. My throat screamed for air but it never came. My world shifted from the dark brown of the water to black, and when I woke up, I was in a white, bright hospital room.
My throat burns as I cough up salty water, my head foggy with little recollection as to why I’m in so much pain. I try to sit up to get the water out of me, but I end up flat on my back with jutted pebbles or stones sticking into my back.
Is this a nightmare?
Will someone wake me up?
“Lucy! Oh, thank God. She’s breathing again,” a voice shouts near my ear. I want to shush the loud man; his booming voice worsens the pain in my head.
I cough again and feel water dribble down my chin. I’m turned onto my side as someone pats my back. They aren’t attempting to be gentle about it.
Can’t they see I’m in pain? My chest feels like it’s been crushed in.
“Open your eyes, Lucy May.” Stone. His familiar voice. The only one outside my online sphere who uses my author name. I’m placed onto my back once more.
I swallow, or at least I try to. It’s like sandpaper actively filing down the lining of my throat. Focusing all of my thoughts to my eyes, I command them silently to open as Stone asked me to. My lids begin to open as blazing bright light assaults my vision. Immediately, I revolt against his verbal command and my internal one.
If the sun seeks to ruin my sight if I open my eyes, I refuse.
The sun…
Stone.
The smell of a salty pool.
Water in my lungs…
I flutter my eyes open, and this time, I’m greeted with the silhouette of a human hovering over me, mercifully blocking out the intense rays.
Dripping wet dirty blond hair falls in front of anxious baby blue eyes as Stone’s face forms in my line of sight. His sharp jawline is clenched as he focuses every ounce of attention he has to offer onto me.
If I were writing this moment into a novel, I might note how he shines brighter than the sun…
But I think I almost drowned, and that’s why I’m coughing up salty pool water while lying on concrete, soaking wet at a wedding reception in Dasher Valley, Mississippi. The scene plays out before me: Stone was walking towards me, I was walking towards him, both of us wearing coy expressions. He shifted his eyes away fromme for a millisecond, and when he looked back, he tried to tell me something as he held up an arm.
And then I was tumbling into the deep end of the saltwater pool, anxiety clenching me like a straightjacket, making it to where I could do nothing but succumb to the water filling my lungs.
Death almost felt like salvation, though. It was horridly easy to welcome it as a beloved friend to my lonely front doorstep.
“There you are,” he says in a whispered sigh as his head falls back and eyes close. His shoulders relax as he exhales; he looks as if he will crumble on top of me from his position on his knees at any given moment.
I try to reply with “here I am” but it comes out as if I’m speaking through a mouthful of gravel. Feels like it, too.
