Maybe that was a failure of her imagination, or perhaps another symptom of what Greg called her “boring brain”. She wasn’tfun.She didn’t like taking risks and couldn't see why others did. She didn’t want to try new things when a perfectly good, familiar choice sat right in front of her.
Louisa thought her risk aversion made her a good, stable partner. Greg didn’t agree.
That was how she’d ended up at the Aquatic Park, the only land-dweller safe water access after sundown, on the final night of the holiday.
They’d gone to a party at one of his work friend’s house. She’d noticed he was acting a little strange beforehand, but Greg was prone to moods, especially when it came to impressing his work buddies. It never occurred to her that he was planning to break up with her, let alone that he’d do it on the ride home.
Louisa sniffled as she took another sip of her expensive hot chocolate. It was way too sweet and piping hot, which was exactly what she needed. She’d thought to grab her purse when she demanded he pull over near the wharf, but she hadn’t taken her coat. That left her in little more than a satin slip on the dark beach.
Even though San Francisco’s winters were relatively mild, it wasn’t exactly comfortable.
The hot chocolate burned as it slid down her throat, viciously sweet and thick as syrup. Not wanting to go back to her apartment to wallow just yet, she’d bought it from a cheerful vendor on the wharf who kindly ignored her smudged mascara and trembling chin. To the vendor, she was just one of many holiday tourists there to buy trinkets and ogle the twinkling lights strung up on moored boats. If anything, the lack of coat helped her. Only tourists walked around San Francisco unprepared for cool weather.
The atmosphere of the wharf was one of celebration — and absolutely intolerable to her.
Despite the fact that the Aquatic Park was only a few blocks away from the wharf, there was no else on the beach. She was entirely alone.
Staring at the yellow and orange light reflecting on the rippling surface of the water, she thought,I can be fun.
Maybe she didn’t have the same interests as Greg’s wealthy, globe-trotting friends, but that didn’t mean she wasboring.The people he aspired to be like used risk-taking and surface-level relationships with women who liked those things as status symbols. She didn’t need to like rock climbing or motorcycles or skydiving to be interesting.
“I am interesting,” she hissed, tears cooling on her cheeks. Swiping at her eyes, she shoved her paper cup into the sand. “I can be spontaneous. I can— I can do new things. Fuck Greg!”
Louisa stood up. Cool air slithered through the thin material of her green satin gown as she hurriedly slipped out of her stilettos. The sand was smooth and cool beneath her toes. It gave way as she hiked up her dress and began to march toward the waves.
She eyed the signs stuck into the sand that warned swimmers to stay within the borders of the park, helpfully illustrated with a picture of a merperson below waves. “Never done an ocean swim before,” she muttered. “Never done a night swim either. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
She knew it probably wasn’t smart to get in the water when the temperature was so low, but she didn’t intend to be in it for more than a moment. A few strokes and she’d wheel back around toward the shore, assured that she was brave and interesting and everything Greg said she wasn’t.
Jaw firming, forced herself into the water.
“Oh, goodgods,”she yelped, horrified by the sting of cold on her feet and ankles. San Francisco Bay wasn’t exactly warm during the summer months, but during the winter it was downright frigid.
She danced back out reach of the waves almost as soon as she made contact. Hopping around in an attempt to bring some circulation back to her feet, she chanted, “No, no, no. Holy shit, no.”
Louisa hugged her arms to her chest and turned back toward the shore. The sight of the lonely, steaming cup and abandoned stilettos in the sand stopped her in her tracks.
This wasn’t about proving herself to Greg. He wasn’t there, and she had no intention of speaking to him again.
This was about proving something to herself.
Louisa turned back around. Breathing fast, she grabbed two fistfuls of her dress and charged at the water with a fearless cry. That cry turned into something like a squeal when she crashed into the water. Millions of shards of ice penetrated her skin as she waded deeper and deeper into the sucking waves.
When it hit her chest, the cold squeezed the wind out of her lungs like a massive watery fist. She choked, gasping for air, but forced herself deeper. The soft sand slid between her toes as her dress dragged behind her, saturated with salty water.
Teeth chattering and nearly blinded by the pain of so much cold, Louisa slipped beneath a rolling wave.
It was absolutely the worst and stupidest thing she’d ever done. But she didn’t turn back. She didn’t want to.
When she came up for air the first time, pain gave way to numbness. Then numbness transmuted into a kind of bliss she’d never experienced before. A burst of euphoric laughter escaped her as she let the waves pull her closer to the blinking buoys that marked the border of the park.
The current was an invisible partner reeling her in for a dance. Louisa hadn’t felt so alive in… maybe ever. The cold shocked her so much that she couldn’t feel anythingexceptalive.
She ducked under the waves again and again, splashing and kicking as her dress billowed around her in a dark green swirl. The closer she drew to the barrier, the more she could hear it under the water — the low hum of the underwater fence’s defense system. There was another noise too, but she couldn’tquite place it. A melody perhaps, but an alien one she’d never heard before.
She didn’t dare touch the fence, and she knew that she ought to get back to the shore soon if she didn’t want to end up with a nasty case of hypothermia, but since she was there, Louisa wanted to see what it looked like. That was what a daring, curious person would do.
Sucking in a deep breath, she ducked under a rolling wave and rolled her arms upward, pushing against the water to force herself down. Below the roar of the waves in her ears, the electrical hum grew louder and louder the closer she swam toward the fence.
