The Art of Not Breathing(71)

She says it like she’s joking, but deep down I know she’s still afraid. Instead of leaving from the harbor, Dad transports the boat down to the Point by trailer, and we set off from the beach where Eddie went missing.

Dillon hands me the remote and tells me not to drop it.

And then it’s just me and Dad and the water. Dad rows us all the way out to the buoy. He huffs and puffs with every pull—he must be getting old—and I sit there thinking that I could do it without even breathing. In the ten minutes it takes us to get there, I breathe in only twice. I can do over four minutes easily now.

We sit back for a moment and look to shore. I can just about make out Mum’s blue coat. I can’t understand why she still wears it. Perhaps she’s not ready to let go yet. She and Dillon stand side by side. The lighthouse looks small from out here, with its black turret like a small black curtain across Chanonry Point. I take the small red stone from my coat pocket and place it on the model sailboat, on top of the bed of fresh pine needles Mum collected.

“What’s that?” my dad asks, pointing to the stone.

“It’s jasper quartz,” I tell him. “It’s very rare.”

I kiss the boat, and then I place it on the water. It wobbles and then steadies itself.

Dillon said the range was about two hundred meters, so I keep my finger on the button until we can no longer see it.

The clouds roll in, and the rain makes tiny wet dots on my jacket. Dad pulls out a packet of cigarettes.

“What are you doing?” I ask, a strange air of authority in my voice.

He looks at me sheepishly as he puts one in his mouth. “Don’t tell Mum,” he says.

When he’s finished smoking, he lets me row back.





Later, I take Tay’s sixth letter from under my pillow. I haven’t replied to any of his letters yet. I’ve tried, but every time I start with a blank piece of paper, it just ends up covered in doodles of ocean waves and ripples and storms. My whole body aches when I think about him. It’s an ache that’s so deep inside me, I wonder if it will ever work its way out. I open the envelope.



There’s one more thing I have to tell you. Here goes . . .



I read the letter over and over again until my eyes are so blurred that the words just quiver before me. When I fold it up again, it has my tears inside and I slip the damp piece of paper back under the pillow along with all the others.

I wipe my face and wander into Dillon’s room. He closes his biochemistry book.

“Happy New Year, Els.”

His beautiful blond hair has grown long again.

I show him the picture of the dolphin I’ve just adopted.

“Meet Mischief,” I say. The picture shows Mischief jumping high out of the water, the light reflecting from his shiny skin, and a backdrop of the North Sea. “I used my Christmas money.”

“That’s very cool, Els. Eddie would have loved that.”

I rub my finger across Mischief’s nose and hear Eddie laughing somewhere in the distance. Can’t believe I didn’t think of this years ago.

“I’m spending the day with Dad tomorrow,” Dillon says. “Do you want to join us?” He looks hopeful.

“I’ll come,” I say. “But only if we can go into town and get burritos.”

“It’s a deal,” he says, and goes back to his book. He looks nervous. If he eats half of one, I’ll be happy.

Outside, the sky is completely black. It’s a new moon. The only color out there is the silver handle of our back gate. And then I know what I have to do.





9



THE HANDLE IS COLD IN MY PALM. I TWIST IT AND STEP OUT into the cemetery. It’s not as eerie as I imagined it would be. Even in the dark, I can make out the flowers surrounding the headstones. The frosty grass crunches beneath my feet. The air is still and so quiet, I wonder if I’ve gone deaf. Leaning against Eddie’s headstone with my diving lamp around my head, I write my letter.

Tay,

In response to your first five letters: I’m applying to Inverness College to study marine biology, photography, and maybe sports fitness for my Advanced Highers. I’ll be starting in August, as long as I get through S5 without messing up. I’ve also signed up to do my AIDA level 1 course at the dive center there. Obviously, I could go straight to level 4, but they wouldn’t let me without having the certificates. I’ll soon show them! My parents weren’t very happy about it, but they couldn’t really stop me. My dad said he’d go to the Bahamas to watch me compete in the world championships! I hope that happens one day.

In response to your sixth letter: Thank you. Thank you for finally being honest with me. Here’s the thing. Deep down, I think I always knew—I just couldn’t admit it to myself. I was in my own safe bubble, and I didn’t want to see the things that were right in front of me. I was too busy only seeing things that I didn’t want to see, but my subconscious must have been driving me to find the truth. An accidental detective. Or something. Ha!

I think about you all the time. I think about how brave you were to try to bring Eddie out of the water, and how horrible it must’ve been to live with what happened. I know that you tried to look after Dillon. I often wonder how I would feel about you if I’d known about you from the start. I think I would have tried to kill you. But then I wouldn’t have discovered diving. Or the truth about everything else that day. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I forgive you.