Page 61 of Blue in the Deep Blue Sea

A familiar female voice came from my right. Splashing cut through the darkness.

“Fucking1squalo! Come here!”

“No, Isabella! Are you crazy?” Oliver shouted.

My breaths came in shallow gasps as panic wrapped around me again. I turned my head.

Isabella was clinging to a piece of floating plastic barely a meter from the sinking yacht. She looked at me, her lips trembling, her lower lip quivering as tears filled her eyes. She didn’t raise her voice.

“Save him.”I read the words on her lips.

Then, in the space of a heartbeat, the shark dragged her beneath the sea.

This time, the shock forced my eyes open. Quiet sobs escaped me as I shook, leaning against the tree beneath me. Until then, I hadn’t even realized I had been floating on the door the entire time. My face trembled, my head slowly shaking from side to side, while the tears could no longer fall.

My gaze drifted across the depths, the horizon, and the sea I feared. It was no longer blue. It was stained with blood. Another person had just been torn from my life.

I blinked twice, as if dragging myself out of the shock, when her body, cut in half, floated to the surface of the sea. Then reality crashed into me, and I screamed.

“No!” Was all that came out.

I collapsed back onto the door, which rocked beneath me as I cried. My palms covered my face, and I wept into them, unable to stop. You tell yourself you’ll go numb, that no pain can reach you because you’ve grown used to it. But you can never get used to loss.

I was completely and utterly shattered. She was gone. And this time, the last piece of my heart went with her.

Everything was different now. Before, whenever I lost someone, I somehow gathered the broken pieces of myself and kept moving, even though I carried that pain every single day. But now… now I had to survive. I had to pull myself together all at once, stand face to face with my greatest fear, and fight for my fucking life. And I had no strength left.

There was no time to grieve. No time to sit in shock, to cry, to bury her, or to visit her grave whenever I needed to talk to her. This time, she floated like a discarded piece of nothing in the open sea while my worst fears circled beneath her. This time, I couldn’t hold her one last time and carry that memory with me. All I would remember was how she risked her life to save ours, and how a monster from the deep blue sea tore her away from me.

In such a short time, she had found her way under my skin. She gave me everything she had, even the little hope she carried for Gianni. Without ever knowing it, she had saved me twice. Not just now, but back at the farmers’ market when she handed me that pink flip phone.

I felt so useless. Like a piece of nothing that couldn’t do a single thing.

And through all that pain, even though it would’ve meant she had risked her life for nothing, I rolled off the door and let myself fall into the sea, my numb hand slipping away last.

But once again, Oliver caught it.

He pulled me onto the orange raft.

It wasn’t even a meter and a half long, barely big enough for two people, yet he still made room for me.

Him.

Out of everyone in the world, I was stranded withhim.

“Why?” I cried as he held my wrists against his chest. “Do you hate me that much that you had to save me?”

He stayed silent, his expression empty. His jaw was clenched, his pupils dilated.

“Why?” I shouted, struggling against his grip. “Why, Oliver?”

He didn’t answer. He just pulled me closer.

One hand still held both of my wrists while the other wrapped around me so tightly it felt as though he was afraid I’d slip away. There was barely enough room to breathe, and I used every shallow breath to cry. To let go of every scream I’d kept trapped inside for far too long.

Helet me scream.

Helistened.