“No.”
She smiled. “Jump anyway.”
I looked back at Edge. He stood awkwardly in fins and sunglasses, the birthday bodyguard sash still across his chest because he had apparently accepted defeat. Tarak was beside him, pretending not to be amused. Amber was already shrieking about fish from the swim step.
For one second, I thought about Dylan.
I wondered where he was. If he knew I was out here. If he was staying away because he wanted to or because he was better than the want.
Then I made myself stop.
This was my birthday.
My jump.
My life.
I stepped off the catamaran.
The water swallowed me whole.
Cold. Bright. Shocking. Perfect.
For a heartbeat, there was no sound except the rush of bubbles and my own breath inside the mask. Fish flashed beneath me, yellow and blue and silver, darting around the rocks like sparks from a fire that didn’t burn. Sunlight poured through the water in long golden ribbons.
I kicked once.
Then again.
And for the first time in days, my body didn’t feel like evidence.
It felt like mine.
When I surfaced, I was laughing.
Not a polite laugh. Not a broken almost-laugh. A real one, loud enough that Edge turned toward me immediately, alarmed.
“What?” he barked.
“I’m fine,” I gasped.
His face changed. Softened before he could stop it.
Regan jumped in next, smooth and graceful, because of course she even entered the ocean like she had rehearsed. Tarak followed with a splash big enough to soak one of the crew members. Amber shrieked, then declared war. Within minutes, the snorkeling trip had turned into something between a birthday party and a water fight with fish as witnesses.
Edge swam close to me, grumbling about saltwater and fins, but he stayed close.
Not hovering.
Close.
There was a difference.
At one point, a school of fish moved beneath us, hundreds of tiny bodies turning together, flashing silver in the sunlit water. I held my breath and watched them move like one living thing.
Edge floated beside me.
After a minute, he said, “You okay?”
