I tremble, and Beck’s arms tighten around me. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t attempt to console me. We both know there’s nothing he can do to lessen the steady ache beneath my ribcage.
The sun climbs higher in the sky, but even the harshest midday beams are hard-pressed to find us in this secret, shady place. Looking around, it’s easy to believe the world outside this ring of trees does not exist.
The mud on my cheek itches as it dries. When I scratch at it, chunks of dirt fall like snowflakes onto Beck’s arm. Moving slowly, he shifts to dunk one cupped hand into the water. Half-sprawled in his arms, I crane my head back to watch as he brings it close to my face. His eyes are startlingly green as he lets the handful trickle across my cheek. The water droplets pour down my neck, pool in the hollow of my throat, curve across my chest.
Handful after handful, he removes the dirt from my skin in slow degrees, washing away the grime of the past two weeks and with it, some of the lingering ghosts of this morning. He is so cautiously tender, so tenuously sweet, I can hardly stand it. I sigh and close my eyes, a cat stroked into compliance with careful hands.
Eventually I fall asleep, propped half-upright against him. I’m too tired even for dreams. When I wake, I can tell by the sun’s position overhead that several hours have passed. We’re horizontal on the bank, tangled together in a single form, our sandy limbs totally intertwined. Beck’s chest moves rhythmically at my back, his heart as steady as a drum beating in my ear. I do my best not to wake him as I untangle my body from his and drag myself to the edge.
I feel marginally better after a few swallows of cool, crisp water.
Chasing the sensation, I wade into the shallows on my knees, until my dress floats up around me. I keep going until the surface covers my breasts. My neck. My mouth. Until it closes overhead completely.
My hair drifts around me as I sink, numb, toward the silt bottom.
There’s comfort in the darkness. It calls to me with a siren song. In that broken moment, I don’t care whether I ever breathe air again. I don’t care about anything, except escape.
My chest tightens, lungs beginning to scream for air. I ignore them, fascinated by the black spots that have begun to dance in my visual field.
Fireworks.
Two hands close over my forearms and heave me bodily from the depths. Spluttering, I’m dragged ashore and practically thrown down against the earth. Beck towers over me, hands curled into fists, jaw clenched tighter than I’ve ever seen it. He’s seething with rage. The violence brewing inside him is boiling over.
“What the fuck, Violet!”
I stare at the ground. It’s too hard to look at him.
“What the hell were you doing in the water?” he growls, voice shaking with such fury I think he might spontaneously combust.
“Nothing,” I murmur.
“Nothing?” he explodes, hands flinging out. Water droplets fly in all directions. “You call trying to drown yourself nothing?”
My eyes jerk up. “I wasn’t trying to drown myself. I’m not suicidal.”
“From where I was sitting, sure as shit looked like you were. If I hadn’t woken up when I did…” He runs his hands through his hair. The rage fades and a shattered look creeps into his eyes. Seeing his pain, knowing I’m the cause, sends a lance straight through me.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Honestly I just…” My voice is small. “I needed it to stop for a while.”
“God, Violet. I know today feels dark, but that’s not the answer. That’s never the answer.”
“I know.”
He falls to his knees, head bowed, breathing hard. His shoulders are shaking. Before I can stop it, my hand lifts from my side and lands on his skin. With sandy fingertips I stroke the strong tendons at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He goes stiller than stone.
“You can’t leave me,” he whispers, anguished. “I need you here.”
I suck in a sharp breath. My fingers press harder into his skin.
Beck’s eyes find mine. “He’s gone. But you’re still alive. We’re still alive.” His hand reaches up and drags mine from his shoulder down to rest over his heart. “Feel that?”
I nod at the steady thump-thump-thump against my palm.
He bends my elbow, forcing my hand flat against my own chest.
“Feel that?”
I nod again.
“That’s a gift, Violet. You can’t punish yourself for what happened to Ian. You have to let him go.” He shakes his head. “You know how pissed he would be at you for throwing away your life after you just worked so damn hard, trying to save his?”
“Tried,” I say bitterly. “And failed.”
“You did your best.”
“My best?” My eyes widen. “I didn’t do my best. What I did… it’s damn near criminal. Everything that happened to him is my fault. They should lock me up for murder and throw away the key.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The leg! The fever. The fear. All of it.” I hunch in on myself. “If I’d just let him go at the beginning, he’d have been spared weeks of pain and suffering.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re right, I don’t. I don’t know anything. Maybe that’s the point I’m trying to make here.” My words are thick with disgust. “I’m selfish. I see something I want and rush at it with blind conviction, regardless of who I hurt in the process.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it, though?” My tone is bleak. “My mom didn’t want me to go on this trip. My friends were unbelievably pissed when I said I’d be gone for our last summer before college. My ex-boyfriend tried to talk me out of it on more than one occasion. Did I listen? Nope. Violet does what she does, damn the rest. And look where we are. Look at the consequences.”
“Princess… you may be all powerful, but I don’t think even you can take credit for our plane crashing, unless you’re going to tell me you’re some kind of sea goddess who summoned the storm that night.”
His soft words work their way under my skin like a healing salve, soothing me, easing some of the blame from my shoulders. I feel the self-loathing slipping out of my hands, and clutch ever tighter rather than feel the other emotions crowding in behind it, eager for their chance to occupy my mind.
The sadness. The grief. The pain.
Can’t I just stay numb?
“Well?” Beck prompts impatiently. “Are you a descendant of Poseidon or not?”