That’s when I notice the brown paper bag next to Tilly’s belongings. With shaky hands, I open it, and my heart shatters when I pull out a love spoon with our names engraved on the back. She bought this for us. As a keepsake?
No. As a goodbye.
Realisation kicks in with a wave of terror so consuming I keel over and retch all over the boardwalk.
Pull yourself together. Tilly needs you.
Heaving myself up, my spinning head protesting the movement, I lean over the railing and scan the water for any sign of Tilly. There’s nothing. The sea is eerily calm, and the sound of the world carrying on around me suddenly mutes. The silence is crushing. All I can hear is the sound of my own heartbeat thundering in my ears.
Having scanned the entire sea, I turn towards the beach, and my blood runs cold. My eyes land on a figure near the shoreline – bare feet, arms limp at her sides, wind tugging at her wet hair – Tilly.
For a moment all I can do is stare, my brain refusing to connect the dots. Then my chest caves in at a single, crushing truth:She’s not okay.
Suddenly, I’m moving, racing through the swarm of people, not caring who I shove along the way. I trip over the boards of the pier, nearly falling, my legs not working fast enough. I shout her name once, twice – my voice raw and broken – but the wind steals the sound, and Tilly doesn’t turn.
She just can’t hear you from here.The lie doesn’t ease my dread.
When I finally make it down to the beach, my biggest fear is confirmed.
“Tilly?” I’m frozen in place, unable to move closer.
This can’t be real.
Tilly’s drenched, motionless body lies on the sand. Her pale skin is verging on grey, her lips a shocking shade of frostbitten blue. A woman – the mother of the two young children watching from a distance with their father, I assume – thrusts her overlapping hands into Tilly’s delicate chest. The woman turns to the others who have crowded around.
“Where’s that ambulance?” she pants, never letting up her pace.
Her call pulls me out of my own head and back into reality. “Get out of the way! I need to get to her!”
I race towards Tilly, drawn to her like a magnet, and land on my knees next to her. The woman performing CPR ignores me, focused instead on keeping Tilly alive.
“Tilly?” I repeat a little louder, hoping to see some sign of life.
I stroke the hair from her face and flinch – her skin is ice, even under the sun. I take her hand in mine, rubbing it to warm her up, and I notice something’s different. I realise immediately she’s taken her wedding rings off. She truly meant this to be the end. The full stop on our short chapter together.
But that can’t happen. This isn’t the end of our story.
I lean down and whisper in her ear, “The ambulance will be here soon, you just have to hold on. Just hold on, baby.”
Stay with me, Tilly.Please.
Chapter 36
Is it me?
Bright light shines through my closed eyelids, and a soft breeze cools my skin.Where am I? Am I dead?
“Phone an ambulance!” someone roars from beside me.
No. Not dead.
I want to scream in frustration but my lungs sear with each shallow breath, and I’m too weak to utter a sound or even open my eyes. Devastated, I welcome the darkness that consumes me again.
“Tilly?”
Connor?
“Get out of the way! I need to get to her!”
