The Art of Not Breathing(15)

Poseidon_Seagod: Hey, scubasam69! It’s totes safe, man. I tried for the first time last year, and now I can go to about fifty meters. Never blacked out.

Pixie2Pink: Don’t do it! Freediving is NOT safe. I urge you: do not do this dangerous sport. People die every year. EVERY year. You people are so stupid. Can’t you just think of the poor ones who have to go and get your body from the bottom of the friggin’ sea!?

Freer-diver1: Pixie2pink, get your facts straight. Freediving is no more dangerous than football or rugby. It’s less dangerous than cycling or mountaineering—if you are measuring by deaths. Freediving is as safe as you make it, like any other sport or activity. Follow the rules. Know what you’re doing. Never dive alone. Freer-diver.

scubasam69: Thanks, Freer-diver1 and Poseidon_Seagod. None of my mates are up for doing it, so I don’t have much choice about not going alone. I reckon I can practice in my local pool, though. The lifeguards will save me! Ha ha! Happy diving.

Freer-diver1: scubasam69, don’t make me swear on a public forum. Read this link: Rules. Thanks, Freer-diver.

I don’t click on the link—rules are for losers, like shoes. I think of Tay’s bare feet in the cold, the way the pebbles must have dug into his soles.

Eddie wriggles about inside me. His vibrations are gentle at first, but they become heavier and louder until it feels like he’s pounding on the inside of my skin for me to let him out.

I close everything down. Not now, Eddie, I plead with him silently. He is under the table, grabbing my legs, begging me to play hide-and-seek with him. But he doesn’t want me to find him—he wants me to hide too. “No one will find us in here,” he says. Even though lunch is over, I stay for a while—until the librarian finds me and gives me a detention for missing my English class.





13



“HOW’S YOUR GIRLFRIEND?” I ASK DILLON WHEN HE SITS down at the kitchen table that night. I’m cooking dinner, and we’re alone—a rarity lately. Instead of waiting for me after school, he wandered off with Lara and left me to deal with Ailsa and her sidekicks, who spat at me and called me poodle face. It’s not fair that Dillon gets to go and have fun without me.

Dillon looks sulky and picks at a stain on the table.

“Spending a lot of time with her these days, aren’t you?”

My father comes in and interrupts us.

“You’ll burn the sauce,” he says to me as he scoops a bit of macaroni from the pan to test it. He sits down next to Dillon, fanning his mouth.

“You’re not wasting your study time, are you, pal? I know you’re an adult and you can do what you want, but you don’t want to throw your life away on a wee lass.”

Dillon looks up at him apologetically. It makes my blood boil. Dillon should just tell him where to stick it.

“She helps me study,” Dillon says. “She’s more mature than other girls in her year,” he goes on, looking right at me. Lara is actually nearly a year younger than me, due to me repeating a year. I roll my eyes, probably entirely proving his point, but I don’t care.

“Well, as long as you keep on top of your schoolwork. I trust you,” my father says.

He says it in that way that means, “I’m saying I trust you, so you must obey me.”

Time to play a game. I want to wind Dillon up, but I’m also testing the water for myself.

“Where do you go with Lara? To her house? Doesn’t she live right on Rosemarkie beach?”

Dillon glares at me. My father gets all jumpy.

“But you stay inside the house, right? You don’t go to the beach, eh?” he asks.

“Yes, Dad. Don’t worry. I don’t go to the beach.”

“Okay, good.” He scratches his ear. “I mean, it’s okay, that stretch of beach, but the water there can still be treacherous. Not quite as bad as Chanonry Point, I guess.”

He winces when he says “Chanonry Point.” There’s a short but very deep pause before Dillon replies.

“Dad, I haven’t been swimming for years.”

“Yes, I know,” he says. “Right. Where’s that macaroni, Elsie?”

I place the macaroni on the table as Mum comes in, and my father dishes up. Dillon hardly eats anything, stirring the macaroni and scraping the sauce off it onto the plate. It’s not actually burnt, so I don’t know what his problem is. He can’t seem to take a joke these days. It’s not like I would have actually told our parents that he goes to the beach. The message from my father is clear, though. Rosemarkie beach is okay, as long as we don’t go in the water. And if Rosemarkie is fine, then the harbor must be too. And aside from that, what he doesn’t know won’t kill him.





14



THE DAY AFTER EDDIE DISAPPEARED, DILLON AND I WENT DOWN to the Point to look for him. Dillon told me to wait on the beach, but I followed him into the water. He swam so fast, I couldn’t keep up with him, and we were against the tide. I was afraid of how deep it was farther out, but I didn’t want to stop until we found Eddie.

“Can you see anything?” I kept calling to Dillon, but he was too far away to hear me, and the rain was creating a mist on the surface of the water, making it even harder to see.

Every time I got out to the big waves, they dragged me back and I had to start again. My hands were numb and useless at pulling me through the water, and I became so exhausted, I couldn’t keep my head up. Large bits of kelp drifted around my neck, and every time I brushed a piece away, another would attach itself to my skin. The water closed in around my head, and it was so cold, I felt like my head was being crushed. For a few seconds I thought I’d never come back up, and I thought to myself, I deserve this. But then the water pushed me up and I tumbled onto the beach. When I looked up, I saw my father running toward me, shouting, his face raging with anger. He grabbed me around my neck and pulled me back onto the beach. My fingers were blue.