We stood there in the Magic, holding each other in the moonlight. We held each other until the waves lapped at my feet and the moon dimmed in the sky, and at last when I opened my eyes, I knew I was alone.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
10 Minutes Until Sunset
Amillion things went through my head. A million memories, a million echoes, like my life was passing before my eyes.
Kick, Cella!
Come on, kick to the surface.
Breathe.
Live.
Kick.
Standing on that windy beach that lived in a perpetual state of twilight, my objects fluttered around me. The cup from my brother, spinning in the air, holly jolly spinning so fast I could only make out the first two letters.
The leather strap twisting and turning in the air, and the jar of water from the lake Aaron and I had swam in as children. Back when things were simpler, when my life consisted of summer camp and family trips to the lake, playing tag and sleepovers with friends, and, encased in all this, home. The idea of home, which I seemed to have lost over the years. Wasn’t Seinford and Brown its own kind of home? After all, it was where my colleagues and friends were—Perez and Vern and Robetresse and Luce and Max and Maritza and the rest of the council. My family just down the road. All these people, and the love of my life, all here, waiting for me to return.
Every memory with Max fluttered to the surface. Every time he’d been there for me, as strong and secure and safe as an object. And yeah, we hadn’t been perfect. But love wasn’t perfect. Life wasn’t perfect. It was messy and complicated and sometimes sad, but it was soalive. It was filled to the brim with new beginnings and, sometimes, old beginnings, too.
My objects floated in front of me, clear and crystalline as glass.
Kick, Cella!
Come on, kick to the surface.
Breathe.
Live.
Kick.
I didn’t want to stay here. This wasn’t the place where I belonged. I belonged in Marble County, New Mexico. I belonged at home. Whatever that word meant, whether it was in his arms or my mother’s, or with my friends, or with any number of the people who’d believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.
I reached out for my objects.
I opened my eyes.
And I kicked for the surface.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
“Cella thank God!” Max was in front of me, his hair drenched with sweat. Behind him, Vern and Luce leaned in to get a better look. Even my mother was there. She broke down in tears when she saw I was okay and wrapped me in a sweater that smelled like her.
“Alright now, let’s give her some space,” Robetresse said.
I sat up from the ground, still dazed. We were still in Maritza’s cottage. My boots scraped the ground. “How—how did you …?”
Vern’s wife, Sonia, screamed and hurried over. “Cella’s awake!” She hugged my shoulders, while Vern chuckled, removing his glasses and wiping his eyes.
“Vern!” I hugged him tight. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“I could say the same about you,” he said with a chuckle. “We thought we’d lost you there.”
The room was filled with staff and students, all in various states of exhaustion. Some people sagged against the cots. Many were sitting on the ground or on the doorstep, drinking bottles of water and breathing hard. One student looked like he might have passed out at one point. Maritza kneeled over him, dabbing a wet washcloth over his forehead. He sat up, coughing.
