There is more yelling. Splashing in the water. An empty boat drifting just off to the side of where the car is sinking.
The camera zooms in on the splashing, and I can make out a person swimming—no, two people. They make it to the boat, and one pushes the other one up the side, dumping him onto the deck. Now the camera gets even closer, and I can see that the person lying on the deck of the boat is Matt. He lies still on his back for a moment, but then sits up and coughs and retches seawater. Still coughing, he grabs the side of the boat and pulls himself to his feet, then leans over and points frantically, trying to yell to the person who’s still in the water.
The wind drowns out his words, but the camera swings back to where he’s pointing, back to the sinking car, where the other person is already swimming.
“Holy shit,” the voice behind the camera says. “I think there’s someone else in the car. There’s someone still down there.”
I watch as the swimmer dives back down under the water. For a moment, I can see a blurry silhouette in the eerie green light, but then it disappears completely. Seconds tick by, and I wait, along with the person filming, for him to come back up. It seems like he’s under the water for an impossibly long time, when all of a sudden he breaks the surface.
I strain to see if he’s come up with the other person, but it’s just him.
He takes a big breath and dives back under. Time slows down. One . . . two . . . who knows how many seconds go by. I’m holding my breath, suffocating right here in my bedroom, waiting for him to come back up, and it makes me wonder if I tried to hold my breath at all, or if I even knew what happened. If I was even conscious when we hit the water.
After what seems like forever, two heads break the surface. One of them scrapes his way to the boat, dragging his heavy load to where Matt stands helpless, hands on top of his head, raking through his wet hair over and over.
I inhale sharply. Wince both at the pain, and the image on the screen.
The girl Walker James pulls from the water is dead. That’s what anyone would say, looking at her.
The camera zooms in, shaking a little, and she comes into focus. Even in the golden lights shining down from the bridge, her skin is an unnatural shade of blue. Her top hangs loose and heavy with water from one shoulder, revealing a black bra strap. Long, dark hair streaks down her face in waves, covering her eyes, nose, mouth, and I want one of them to brush it away so she can breathe easier, but the blue of her skin says it doesn’t matter. She isn’t breathing. She can’t feel the hair covering her face, or the water that moves in her lungs instead of air.
She can’t feel anything.
Not his arms that drag her dead weight from the dark water, or the crack of her skull against the boat as they lift her into it. Not his hands that lay her down roughly on the deck, then search her neck, her wrists, anywhere, for a pulse. She doesn’t feel the bite of the night air against her bare skin when they rip her shirt open, straight down the center, without hesitating.
I watch, relieved that she can’t feel the force of those hands as they come together, one on top of the other, in the middle of her chest, and thrust downward. Deep enough to produce a contraction in her motionless heart. Hard enough to send a rush of blood and oxygen through her body, to her brain. Strong enough to crack her ribs.
I wince at this, and at those hands, that come down again and again, the full weight of the person behind them compressing her chest, her lifeless body convulsing under the force of them each time. Over and over.
I think I might be sick.
But then, like a reprieve, the hands stop, brush the hair from her face, almost gently, and tilt her chin to the sky. The camera zooms in on her face just as he pinches her nose and brings his mouth to her blue lips. He breathes his own air into her lungs before his hands move back to the center of her chest to start the cycle again.
This time they come down harder. His movements are less controlled. The compressions more powerful.
Matt paces frantically, hands still running through his hair.
Then something stops him still.
He yells something at Walker, then takes a few steps toward him.
Walker doesn’t even look up. Just keeps at the compressions. Doesn’t see Matt coming.
Matt yells something again, then goes at Walker with the full force of his body. The impact knocks them both to the deck of the boat, and they tumble, away from my body. Walker comes out on top, cocks a fist back, and swings hard and fast. One punch, and then he’s back to his feet, and then down on his knees, next to where I lie, motionless.
And then, in stark contrast to what he just did to Matt, he brings his mouth back to mine and breathes air into my lungs before he starts again with the compressions.
Matt lies in a crumpled pile a few feet away.
Sirens whine in the distance. Voices off camera murmur urgent words that are lost in the wind. Someone is crying.
“My God,” the voice from behind the camera says. “There’s no way she’s going to live.”
Another off-camera voice weighs in. “She was down there way too long. That girl’s too far gone.”
It cuts off, just as abruptly as it started.
I sit there, staring at the blurry black screen and catching my breath.
And then I get up, check that my door is closed all the way, turn my light out, the volume down, and restart the video. I watch it all again.
And again.
I watch it over and over, each time trying to feel something, anything. I watch it until I have it memorized, second by second, frame by frame. Walker getting Matt onto his boat. Walker diving down and coming back up with my limp body in his arms. Walker bringing his lips to mine, trying to breathe life back into me.
This. This makes me feel something.
It’s intimate. And he’s just as much a stranger to me as Matt is, but after seeing these things, I don’t want him to be. I want to know him. Or thank him, at the very least, regardless of what my parents say. I owe him that much.
I search his name next.