The Guilt Trip(25)

It’s as if the cycle will never stop spinning, for as quickly as her eyes catch sight of one of them, the other disappears. She imagines them trying to come up for air, but having it snatched away from them as the current whips them back under.

Will is frantically paddling toward them, yelling something that Rachel can’t hear over the deafening roar of the next wave crashing onto itself.

A head finally pops up through the foam, but it’s impossible to tell who it is. And in that moment, Rachel realizes that it really doesn’t matter, as she feels the same intensity of fear for whoever’s yet to surface.

“Is that Noah?” screeches Paige, holding a hand to her forehead.

“I … I…” stutters Rachel, rendered speechless.

“Fuck!” says Ali, as Will pulls a deadweight body onto his board.

Rachel’s legs wobble beneath her as she attempts to run along the shoreline to where they’re coming back in. Other surfers are selflessly making their way toward Will, all of them no doubt aware of the next swell that’s building behind them.

“Jesus Christ,” says Paige. “They need to get out of there.”

The lifeguard, who Rachel hadn’t even noticed before, jumps down from his white-painted tower and tears off his yellow sweatshirt as he races into the sea.

Rachel can’t help a sob escaping from her throat as she watches helplessly as a group huddles around Will and push him clear of the wave.

“Is it Jack?” cries Paige.

Adrenaline floods Rachel’s body as a sense of urgency descends onto the beach.

“Alguem precisa tirá-lo de lá,” someone shouts. “Chama uma ambulancia!” yells another.

The more Rachel tries to focus on who the lifeless body draped across Will’s surfboard is, the more she realizes that she can’t breathe. She imagines a life without Jack and the air rushes from her body. If it’s Noah who’s in desperate trouble, she’ll collapse. The loaded gun spins around and around in her head, waiting for someone to pull the trigger to see if there’s a bullet in the chamber.

The water laps up around her knees as Will comes toward her, his soft features twisted into gnarled terror. There are faces everywhere and she searches them, desperately looking for someone she recognizes.

“What the fuck?” is the first thing she says as Will comes into earshot. But he’s not listening; he and the lifeguard are laying the limp body onto the dry sand. Her eyes still won’t allow her to distinguish the pallid features of the man lying on the ground.

“Oh, Jesus!” comes a voice just a split second before a body slams into her, crushing her with an embrace.

“Jack?” she says questioningly, having to pull away to make sure it’s him.

“Oh, God,” he chokes.

“What the…?” She starts looking from him, to who she now knows is Noah, lying motionless on the ground. “What the hell happened?”

“We … we just got caught out,” he gasps. “It came from nowhere and it just … it just…”

He watches, dumbstruck, as the lifeguard blows air slowly into Noah’s mouth.

“Noah!” cries Paige. “Noah!”

Hearing his name called so desperately paralyzes Rachel. She can’t move, talk or feel anything apart from a hole opening up inside her chest. A hole so vast that it feels as if it will engulf her.

She wants to go to him, to tell him that everything will be all right, but that’s not her place. Paige is with him, as she should be, so why can’t Rachel help feeling that it should be her?

Twenty years have passed, and Noah has no doubt developed a whole heap of idiosyncrasies that she knows nothing about, and enjoyed experiences with Paige that she’ll never have a window onto, yet, for some reason, she still feels she knows him better than anyone else.

They’d shared so many dreams and been on so many adventures, supporting each other as they negotiated the choppy waters of living away from home for the first time. They’d smoked their first joint together, been chased out of an illegal rave by the police, and been one another’s relationship gurus.

Noah has shaped her, made her the person she is today, and without him …

There’s a splutter, and a collective sigh of relief, as Noah is turned on his side.

“Thank Christ,” says Jack, as a sob escapes from Rachel’s throat. She throws a shaking hand to her mouth as Jack turns to look at her.

“What the hell happened out there?” shouts Will, getting up to face Jack. “I told you not to drift. I told you to stay close to me.”

“We didn’t realize…” starts Jack.

“There’s no we in this,” argues Will. “You know what to do. He’s the rookie.”

“Noah!” calls Paige. “Noah, darling, can you hear me?”

“Did he get taken out by his surfboard?” asks Ali.

“It looks like it,” says Will.

Noah opens his eyes and tries to sit up. “Oh, thank God,” cries Paige.

“I…” Noah coughs, looking around him in confusion. “I’m okay.”

Rachel’s heart feels as if it’s about to burst out of her chest and she can’t stop a tear-stained grin from spreading across her face.

“He’s going to be okay,” says Paige.