WHEN I GET TO THE HARBOR THE FOLLOWING DAY, I immediately sense something is wrong. Even though it’s boiling, Danny stands on the jetty with his arms folded tight across his white T-shirt as if he is freezing. Joey and Rex are climbing aboard the Half Way, swaying, waving their arms about. The tide is low, and the boats nearer to this end of the harbor are already grounded in mud. I’m only a few minutes late. I overslept but still wanted to make time for breathing practice. Three minutes and twenty seconds.
“Hurry up,” Danny snaps. “Or we won’t get out of the harbor.”
“What’s wrong?”
Even if the boat was stuck in the mud, Danny would have us dig it out before we gave up on a dive.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
He grabs my arm and pulls me toward him. Rex hands us both a beer as we climb on. Danny refuses to take one.
“They’re meant to be for after,” Danny says.
I put mine aside. The last thing I want is to be drunk right now. I need to be on the ball. Danny starts the motor before I’ve even sat down, and my neck jolts.
As the boat speeds up, I close my eyes and pretend I’m flying. For a few minutes I am alone, the wind caressing my face.
I feel a hand on my leg, and when I open my eyes, Rex is grinning at me.
“Are you ready for your surprise?”
“Where are we going?” I ask, leaning away from Rex. We’re heading around the Point, but too far out to be aiming for the cave.
Danny speaks slowly. “We’re going to the drop-off.”
“Fuck, yeah!” shouts Joey.
“Really?” I try not to show my nerves. This is not how it was supposed to be.
It’s then that I realize I’ve forgotten my mask.
Danny cuts the engine. We drift.
“I’m not ready,” I blurt out. “I forgot my mask.”
Danny cracks a small smile. “We’re not going to the bottom,” he says, almost sneering. “Not anywhere near it.”
I’m relieved but still feel uneasy. Why are we here if we’re not going to the bottom? Joey and Rex are already clumsily pulling their fins on. Danny chucks me a mask from the bag of spares. I know it won’t feel the same.
“There’s a line,” Danny says. He’s in instructor mode now. “We’re going down twenty meters. It’s cold, dark, and miserable down there. You won’t want to go any deeper.”
I wait for more instructions, but he doesn’t say anything else. There’s a slight breeze out here, and it skips across the water, making the ripples travel in a steady line farther out to sea.
Rex and Joey jump off the boat on the opposite side to where the buoy is. Usually I see which direction they travel in, but today I can’t see anything. The water is too dark. I’m guessing they swam under the boat to find the wire.
“Where did they go?” I ask Danny, breaking the silence. He is fiddling with a weight belt. Sliding the weights on, tightening it, sliding the weights off again.
“Over there.” He points a little way back toward the harbor.
“They didn’t go down the wire?”
“Told you—there’s nothing to see down there.”
“Then why are we here? We don’t have to go down today,” I say. “We could go another day.”
The weight belt clangs onto the floor of the boat.
“I thought this was what you wanted. To go deeper. It’s good prep for the wreck dive.”
It is what I want, I remind myself silently. But now I’m here, it doesn’t feel right. I’m not ready to see it. I’m not ready to do this without Tay. My eyes prick, and I wipe them quickly before the tears come.
The boys surface a few meters away and swim back, whooping and swearing about how damn good the water is. They seem more alert than when they went down, and this reassures me.
“Ready?” Danny asks. He puts his weight belt on and sits on the side of the boat with his fins in his hand. I start to fasten my weight belt, the one he was fiddling with, but my fingers are shaking too much. He reaches over and fastens it for me. His hands around my waist make my breath quicken.
“Ready?” he asks again.
My brain is still hesitating, wondering how quickly I can pull the motor cord and drive us back to the harbor, but once again I find my body doing the opposite of what my brain is thinking. My body moves closer to the edge of the boat, my hands adjusting my mask and pulling on my fins. Then I sit on the side next to Danny.
“I’m ready.” I’m ready to go to the bottom, and you can’t stop me.