I sighed. Fine.
I reached up my other hand and grabbed the rope a little higher up—then I pulled my body out of the cold water. My arms burned; my fingers were numb from the cold.
Other arm.
Other arm.
My muscles screamed at me. Maybe I was screaming too, out loud, I don’t know. But the air was beginning to warm my skin, I was starting to feel less like I might shiver out my teeth.
“Not far now,” said the voice. “Not ****** far now.”
Dear Manager,
I am writing to you because I am interested in the position of teller at your South Side branch. I am a good team player with
Sorry, Dad came in.
So.
Where was I?
Oh yes, I was climbing the rope.
My legs were out of the water; I could feel the moist air on my skin; my clothes were plastered to my body. I wrapped my feet around the rope, chafing my ankles—one of my Converses had come off and was sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic, where I would have been if not for the voice.
“Two feet now,” said the voice. And it was true; the pier, what was left of it, was just above. “Come on, you ******.”
But I couldn’t. My arms wouldn’t work. It was like something had been cut between my head and the muscles. Snipped.
“*********, come on,” said the voice. “You can ******* do it. You can do it. You can do it. You can do it.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You can do anything. We can do anything. Come on.”
“Okay,” I said. I was just pain, all over. My head, my arms, my throat where the cold water had burned it.
And then suddenly there was more strength flowing into my arms; that’s what it felt like, hot liquid flowing; lava.
“We’re ****** doing this,” said the voice. “We’re not ****** dying in the ******* ocean.”
One arm went up; the fingers were gone, I mean I didn’t feel them anymore, but somehow they gripped onto the rope and … and then slid … but then they caught, found purchase, and again that’s what it felt like—
—like I had to buy every inch, pay dearly for it. But I was moving again, moving up the rope, even if I felt something tear in my shoulder, and in my forearm. Something detaching from the bone, a tendon maybe, I didn’t know.
Then.
Then a miracle. I was by the side of the pier, hooking my knee over it, and then I fell, hard, and sprawled on the wooden top.
Tears filled my eyes, blinding me, as if the water was still trying to get me, as if the ocean had gotten in behind my eyes, as if it didn’t want to let me go.
Let me go, I thought.
“No, I’m staying with you,” said the voice.
“Not you,” I said.
“Oh,” said the voice. “Well, then move. You keep still, you’re going to die of hypothermia.”
“Okay.”
I could see the knots in the wood of the pier below me. I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. Rain no longer seemed to be falling, and the sky was lightening, a fast wind somewhere far above scouring the clouds, scrubbing them away, so that it almost seemed like the daytime that it really was.
Ridiculously, I began to crawl. I didn’t have the strength to stand. I crawled along, and splinters from the wood cut into my hands, and I was glad because it meant I was alive; we can only be hurt when our hearts are beating.
I don’t know how long I crawled along the pier for. A ray of sunshine illuminated my hands. I was shivering so hard my teeth were rattling. I didn’t realize that was a thing; I thought it was made up, for stories.
Then I heard footsteps, and a black boot stopped in front of me.
I looked up. A policeman stood there in his uniform, looking down at me with a worry that didn’t seem totally about my safety, the concern you see in the eyes of someone who thinks you might be crazy. He had a mustache, but a trendy hipster one, not an old-guy one. He was maybe thirty.
“You fall in, ma’am?” he said.
“Yes,” I said. My voice came out tattered, like there were knives in my throat that had cut it into ribbons. “I thought I saw Paris in there, and I leaned down … to … look. And I fell in, and she wasn’t there.”
A pause.
“Right, ma’am. Come on. Let’s see if we can help you up. Aaron, you got the blankets?”
He pulled me to my feet.
“You’re lucky. Neighbor called. Said there was a girl—”
But after that I don’t remember anything.
After that, it’s not even black. It’s just nothingness.
Until …
INT. A HOSPITAL. DAY. A TEENAGE GIRL IS LYING ON A BED. THERE ARE FLOWERS ON A NIGHTSTAND NEXT TO HER. HER FATHER IS STANDING BY THE BED, HOLDING HER HAND, HE HAS BEEN HOLDING IT FOR HALF AN HOUR; HE DOESN’T WANT TO LET IT GO.
THE GIRL BEGINS TO CRY. SHE CRIES LIKE IT’S NOT OKAY. BUT IT IS; IT’S JUST SAD. THAT’S THE THING ABOUT LIFE. SOMETIMES IT’S SAD, AND YOU DON’T GET TO KNOW STUFF, BUT YOU JUST HAVE TO ACCEPT IT.
AND CLING TO THE PEOPLE WHO ARE LEFT.
MINUTES PASS.
HER FATHER: I’m proud of you, Cass.
THE GIRL: Thanks, Dad.