The Art of Not Breathing(60)

“Listen to me. Eddie’s T-shirt is out there somewhere. Tay thought I had it—he wanted to know if I’d destroyed it, but I never found it. I looked everywhere, for months after, but it was gone. You need to talk to Tay and find out what happened to it. And if he knows where it is, you need to find it and burn it.”

It must be the drugs he’s on. Or he is dying. People say crazy things when they are about to die. Why would Eddie’s T-shirt be anywhere, and why would Dillon want to burn it? I hold back tears. My brother has gone mad.

“Dil, do you know where you are?”

He stares at me vacantly. I panic. What are the other questions to ask to find out if someone is okay or not?

He refocuses.

“I’m serious. Tay has it—ask him about it. The red T-shirt Eddie was wearing that day.”

“Red? No, you’re wrong. Eddie was wearing a blue T-shirt that day. Don’t you remember? He had a tantrum about it. And recently I was starting to think that Dad was holding it and then he dropped it on me when I collapsed. I kept seeing this blue material in my dreams and flashbacks. But now I know it wasn’t the T-shirt. It was Mum’s coat. And that’s another weird thing, because why was he holding her coat? It was freezing. Why wasn’t she wearing it?”

Dillon pulls me even closer.

“No,” he cries. “You’ve got to believe me on this. Eddie wasn’t wearing blue. Don’t you remember? He changed right before we left the house. The phone rang as we were about to leave, and he ran upstairs and changed. He put the red one back on, the one that had the rip in it.”

Colors whiz through my mind. The blue haze before I passed out, the gray pebbles, the white froth, Eddie’s red T-shirt with the yellowy-gold lion logo on it, Eddie wearing it, splashing in the water.

The red against the misty gray water.

I remember him wearing it.

Dillon is shaking me.

“Elsie, will you find out where he hid it?”

I tear myself from Dillon’s grip.

A flash of red. I think of the jasper quartz and the other stones—the ones the boat boys take to the Grotto for luck, and then I know where Eddie’s T-shirt is.

“I don’t understand,” I stammer. “Why has Tay got Eddie’s T-shirt? And how did you know?”

“He wrote me a note. For five years I’ve been waiting for someone to find out what we did. And now it’s all going to come out.”

“What did you do?” I whisper, and my words feel as though they are thousands of miles away.

“It’s my fault. I could have saved him but I didn’t.”

“What did you do?” I repeat. “Who’s ‘we’?”

Dillon starts tugging at his tube. The thick vanilla liquid squirts all over the bed as he wrenches it from his nose.

“No visitors today, please,” he shouts.

“What else do you remember?” I plead. I can hear the nurse coming.

“Nothing.”

“What else?” I shout.

“Dad found Mum’s coat on the beach when he was asking everyone if they’d seen anything. I told you. She was there.”

A nurse comes in and leads me out of his room.





4



THE REVOLVING DOORS TAKE YEARS TO GET ME OUT OF THE HOSPITAL. I take two steps and sit on the wall, the note from Dillon’s sock drawer in my hands. My whole body shakes as I unfold it.



D,

I need to talk to you about what happened that day.

I’ll be at the Point tomorrow at six. Please come.



I turn the note over.



PS—Destroy this letter.

Tay



The words scream at me.



D,

I need to talk to you about what happened that day.

Tay



I tell myself that there is another Tay, that this is all a misunderstanding. But I recognize the writing. The note is written in the same loopy writing that’s on all of Tay’s notes to me. It doesn’t make any sense. All I know is that I have to go and find Eddie’s T-shirt, right now. I’ve got to get all the way to Sandwich Cove and go down into the cave, and it’s almost dark already.





I get a taxi home using money I’ve stolen from Mum’s purse and get my headlamp and my watch. There’s no time to fetch my wetsuit from the boathouse. I run the whole two miles to Sandwich Cove without stopping once. When I get there, I’m exhausted but I don’t wait to recover. I strip down to my top and underwear and brace myself for the pain of the freezing water. The rocks spike into my hands and feet as I crawl over the rock pools. The sky is clear and there’s a chill in the air even though it was so warm before the sun went down. I comfort myself by reciting Eddie’s jokes. I remember one about angelfish—it keeps me motivated and helps ease the pain. Finally I’m underwater. I can’t feel a thing. My headlamp flickers, lighting up the mollusks on the walls for a second before plunging me into darkness. Damn. The battery is dying. I wiggle the lamp and the light comes on again. I just need it to last a few more minutes. My brain is telling me to swim fast and get the T-shirt, but I go carefully so I don’t bump into anything. My heartbeats slow down as I count them. Navigating my way in is easy. I know that once I get around the corner, I have to force myself down another meter and then kick hard to get to the top. When my ears pop, I know it’s time to kick. One, two, three, four, five—and I’m bursting through the surface.