He laughs too, though when he speaks, it’s with a note of caution. ‘Be careful. I thought you said you couldn’t swim?’
But she can’t be careful, not today. She grabs his hand, tries to pull him to his feet alongside her. He holds her wrist firmly, anchoring her in place. He murmurs a name – her name, but one she doesn’t recognise.
‘Come on,’ he says in that lilting Scottish accent. ‘I’ll row us back to shore.’
She’s still trying to pull him to her, to get him to join in her celebration – because that’s what this should be, a celebration. His grip loosens slightly on her wrist as she pulls again, and she stumbles. It’s barely anything, no more than half a step. But the tiny boat rocks, and she knows, in the split second before it happens, that she will fall.
Icy water surrounds her as she plummets, and though she reaches for the edge of the boat, she can’t find it. She tries to scream, but there is water flooding into her, choking her. She kicks out, but there is something around her ankle, pulling her down, and the sunlight above the surface of the lake looks so very far away.
Her name again – he is screaming her name. She hears it distantly, the splash of water, feels the ripple around her, then an arm trying to tug her away from the weeds and to safety, even as her muscles seize with the cold.
It’s not just her who will drown now. She doesn’t know how she knows that, not with everything turning dark, not when the memory becomes even more out of focus. But she feels with a certainty like a lead weight in her stomach that neither of them will make it out of the lake today.
She’s coughing, spluttering, warm salty water coating her tongue.
‘Lissa!’ Someone is shouting her name – not a deep male voice but a high-pitched female one. ‘Lissa, stop it, you’re okay!’
She is thrashing, she realises. She is thrashing in the pool, kicking her legs, even as her feet make contact with the stone bottom. She is sobbing. There is the sound of someone nearby, slipping on wet tiles.
‘What’s happening?’ A young, petrified-sounding voice.
‘She’s scared of water.’ A voice she recognises this time.
‘What! Why is she in here then? I’m going to get my manager.’
‘She’s scared of water?’ A murmured question, accompanied by pressure on her arm.
‘Yes. Because of what happened to Chloe.’
‘Chloe? Who’s Chloe?’
‘Breathe, Lissa, you’re okay. Look, we’re nearly out now, okay?’
Lissa heaves in a breath, tries to calm down as she blinks her surroundings into focus. The pool. Darcy and Mia looking at her, each holding one of her arms, like they’re trying to drag her from the water. She is at the edge, a few feet away from the steps. Everyone else is out of the pool, some hovering, staring at her.
‘It’s okay, Bissa,’ Mia says again, voice soft, soothing.
A wave of embarrassment floods her as she looks down at the pool steps, grasping the edge to ground herself. ‘I’m okay,’ she repeats back to them, and sees the worried look they give one another. She doesn’t know why she keeps telling everyone this – clearly she is not okay. Clearly she is a fucking headcase.
But she wonders for the first time, as she leaves the pool on shaky legs, Darcy rushing to get her a towel, whether she’s had it right all these years. If the reason she is scared of water, the reason for the drowning nightmares, is not because of what happened to Chloe, but because of what happened toher.
Chapter Fifteen
Lissa leans against the shop counter, checking her email on her phone for the millionth time. There have been barely any customers today – she supposes the start of January marks the beginning of work for most people. She’s waiting on an update on her most recent job application – a receptionist at a law firm, because maybe she needs to go more mainstream – but so far, nothing. She only applied a few days ago, she reasons. Part of the whole new-year-new-you philosophy – though Mia made a face when she told her about the job, saying a law firm didn’t sound veryher. But how is she supposed to know if it’s her or not if she doesn’t give it a go, right?
She glances around, looking for something to do, but there are no new items to sort through, and everything is where it should be on the racks. Emily, the woman who oversees the running of the shop, is super organised, and though she’s promised that there will be an influx of new donations in the first few weeks of the year – people giving away unwanted Christmas presents – for now, everything is quiet. Which is probably for the best – Lissa has been left alone in the shop for the first time, and she’s not sure what she’d do if there was a massive queue of people wanting to buy things or ask questions. But she is starting to get a bit bored. She spent the first hour cleaning – wiping down the counter and working her way to the corners that might have been missed in the morning, trying to get rid of that slightly musty smell that seems to linger no matter what they do about it.
She checks her email again. Nothing. There is, however, a WhatsApp from Ash.
My head is still sore from NYE and I think I might never recover. Send help.
She feels her lips pull into a smile, her stomach doing that light little flutter it’s started to do whenever she sees his name pop up. He’d headed out of town for New Year, spending it in Edinburgh with some friends, while she was curled up on the sofa with Mia and fell asleep before midnight. She then had to lie about that when he asked what she’d done, because it seemed so incredibly lame in comparison to his story of being pulled up onto a Celtic salsa stage at one of the street parties in Edinburgh, followed by a wild night of antics with people he’d only just met. He’s staying on in Scotland for a few days, checking out some castle as a possible filming location.
She scrolls through the GIFs on her phone, finds one of a cat batting someone’s face and sends it.
Thanks, he replies.I feel much better now. Also I want a cat. Please don’t let me buy one – I don’t trust my decision-making right now.
No promises. Time for some New Year’s resolutions then?!
