The Art of Not Breathing(18)

I’m on fire.





16



INSIDE THE CLUBHOUSE, WE SIT AROUND THE TABLE BY THE FIRE. My skin is hot, but I keep shivering. Mick brings a blanket and drapes it across my shoulders. A steaming cup of hot chocolate is on the table just in front of me, but I’m too tired to reach for it. The boys are quiet, muttering among themselves, glancing at me.

“How long was I under for?” I ask, looking at no one.

It’s Tay who answers. He coughs first. “Not long. Maybe ten, fifteen seconds. We got to you quite quickly.”

I look at him and he’s frowning. I’m taken aback by his answer; it felt like so much longer. Just like when Eddie went down and the seconds seemed to slow to minutes, and the minutes felt like hours.

Danny pokes a white contraption in my ear, and it makes a beeping sound. I flinch.

“Relax,” he says briskly. “I’m just taking your temperature.”

Tay watches me the whole time.

“You’ll be okay.” Danny scrapes his chair back, and the noise makes my teeth tingle. “You haven’t got hypothermia. Where do you live? I’ll drive you home.”

My mouth is still not working, my jaw feels numb, and I can’t form the words.

“McKellen Drive,” Mick says. “The house by the cemetery.”

My body slumps down in the chair, and a feeling of dread passes over me. I have been stupid to think that Mick doesn’t know who I am. Everyone knows who the Mains are. Our house was on the local news during the search for Eddie. My face, too—my parents gave the police the first photo of Eddie they could find. It was a slightly out-of-focus picture of the two of us on the beach, my arm around him, Eddie holding a pebble out to the camera, grinning with his wonky smile, his face ghostly white in the overexposure. At first they showed the full picture on the news, but after a few days they cut me out. All that was left of me were my fingers, pressed tightly into Eddie’s arm.

I see a flicker of fear in Danny’s eyes. He storms over to the bar and rubs his face, as though he’s trying to work out what to do. I’m confused. Most people go quiet when they realize who I am, but then they’re immediately nice to me, as though I might break if they raise their voices. They don’t usually seem afraid or angry.

I want to close my eyes and disappear, but I can’t help glancing at Tay. His mouth is slightly open, like he’s thinking too hard. He can’t possibly know. He wasn’t even here when it happened. Or was he? Danny marches back over to us and grabs my arm. It hurts, but I don’t say anything. I guess he’s just annoyed that he’s got to deal with me.

“Come on, Elsie,” Danny says. “I’ll drive you home.”

“I’ll come with you.” Tay stands and moves around the table, but Danny pushes his palm firmly into Tay’s chest.

“You’ve done enough damage.”

“Sorry, Elsie,” Tay says. “Get home and warm up, eh?” He smiles, and I feel a hot rush of blood. Already, I forgive him.

Danny drives smoothly and slowly, both hands on the steering wheel. He’s like an older, stronger version of Dillon, with a long neck and blond stubble on his chin. He even sounds like Dillon as he lectures me.

“You could’ve got yourself into some serious trouble.”

“I’m fine.”

“Look, I don’t think you should come back to the harbor. I’m guessing your parents wouldn’t be too happy if they knew you were jumping into the sea.”

“Well, they don’t have to know about it, do they?” I say.

He purses his lips. “It’s hard to keep secrets around here.”

It sounds like a threat. I run my hand through my frizzing-up hair in a way that I hope shows him I’m not bothered by empty threats. It’s not like he would have the guts to turn up at my house and tell my parents that he let me jump off the harbor wall into ice-cold, life-sucking water, right?

“Why have I not seen you around before?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he replies. “Maybe you just weren’t looking.”

“You didn’t go to school here?”

“Inverness. I lived with my mum before but spent most weekends here. Only moved to the Black Isle when my dad decided to open the diving club.”

When we pull up outside the house, he stares at our front gate for a while. Then he unbuckles my seat belt for me and reaches right over me to open the car door. It makes me feel claustrophobic. He stares at me as I gather the strength to move.

“Stay away from the harbor, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

My eyes feel heavy and I fight sleep. I don’t tell him that for a few seconds down there, for the first time in five years, I stopped feeling any pain at all.





COLIN: What did one tide say to the other tide?

CELIA: I don’t know, what did one tide say to the other?

COLIN: Nothing. It just waved.





1



I PAINT MY MOTHER’S NAILS MOCHA TO MATCH MINE. We sit at the kitchen table, both glancing at the window, waiting for my father to come home from his Saturday meeting. Lots of people want to discuss loans on Saturdays, but I’m pretty sure most banks close at two p.m., and it’s already five. Beads of sweat break out on Mum’s forehead every now and then. I’m still feeling hot and cold after idiotically hurling myself into the North Sea.