When I break the surface again I’m in the clear. The water is calm around me and I watch as the wave curls back toward the beach, lazily furling forward. I glance around, wondering if Lawson is still out here or if he took the wave. I’m surprised to find him paddling furiously toward me.
“Rachel!” he shouts, his voice barely audible over the distance between us. Over the rush of the wind and water. “Swim toward me!”
I frown. “What?!”
“Swim toward me! Now! Go!”
I shake my head, completely confused.
Lawson has spoken to me all of four times in my life. Once in elementary school to tell me I had a booger hanging out of my nose, once in middle school to say I looked good with boobs, once in high school to tell me he door dinged my car, and now out in the open ocean he’s screaming at me to swim to him. His handsome face is pinched with anxiety and exertion as his arms dig hard into the water, propelling his body laid flat on his surfboard.
“What are you talking—“
Something brushes my leg roughly. I spin around, looking at the water to see what it was, but it’s getting too dark. The glare of the setting sun is blinding me, making the surface like a mirror I can’t look beyond. My heart races in my chest but I will it to calm.
It’s probably one of his stupid friends, I tell myself. They’re probably playing a prank to scare you.
Another touch. This time it hurts, like sandpaper dragging across my sensitive skin.
“Rachel!” Katy cries faintly from the shore.
I look back to find her standing knee deep in the water. Baker is holding onto her, holding her back from coming any farther in, and the look of sheer panic on her face tells me instantly that this is no prank. This is real.
I’m in trouble.
I turn toward Lawson and start swimming as hard as I can. I dig deep, pull hard, but he’s so far. I wonder if I shouldn’t have gone for the shore instead. It’s too late now, though. All I can do is swim as fast as I can, hope he’s doing the same, and maybe I can make it up onto his board with him before—
I go under. Something takes hold of my leg and yanks me down. The horizon disappears from my view in one sharp snap that brings my world to cool darkness.
Just as quickly as it takes hold of me it lets me go. I scream under the water, bubbles bursting from my mouth up over my face and into my hair as I struggle to get to the surface. I’m kicking hard and suddenly I ache in my right leg as my vision goes white around the edges.
My hands find air, leaving the water, but then I’m going under again. I’m going down and it’s colder and darker than before, and even though my blood is screaming through my veins and in my ears, it’s eerily silent.
Something takes hold of me under my arms. It pulls me in tight, pinning me to a mass behind me and I thrash and fight until I realize it’s an arm. My hands find the hard corded muscle of a forearm across my breasts and I hold onto it tightly, desperately, as it pulls me upward. We find the surface and I gasp for air, pulling in water and oxygen and hope in big, heaving gasps that make my lungs ache in my chest.
My vision comes back to me in strange shades. The light is too bright, the shadows too dark. Everything is washed out and somehow too vivid at the same time. The sky is blood red, the water pitch black. The white surfboard phosphorescent bone.
“Grab hold of it,” Lawson says breathlessly in my ear. “Can you lift yourself up?”
I reach for the board and I’m grateful when my body complies. I take hold of the opposite side and with the force of Lawson’s hand on my hip shoving me upward I’m able to pull myself up until I can roll my body onto the board.
“Grip the front tight. Hold on.”
I nod in agreement, my fingers hesitantly dipping back into the water just enough to wrap them around the gentle roll of the front of the board. Lawson’s head disappears from my peripheral. It sends a jolt of panic through my body and I’m just about to sit up to look for him under the water when the board lurches forward. He’s behind me, holding on to the tail end and kicking us back to shore.
I don’t breathe the entire way. I’m watching for that iconic, telltale triangle to appear on the top of the water. I’m waiting for Lawson’s strength to disappear below the surface. I’m waiting for the agonizing crush of mouth and teeth and nature to take hold of both the board and me, and drag us under again.