Page 126 of Summer Love

The pressure comes back in my thigh. The twisting motion when the shark shook its head. My screams.

I’m still under the cliffs. Day’s barely breaking. The water is black, and red too, and I...

Arms wrap around me and pull.

The surface. The air, the noise, the music, the voices, the light above the water—it all hits me at once. I cough. I spit. I don’t understand where I am.

“Miles!”

Summer’s voice, high, breaking. She’s in the water with me. I feel her hands on my shoulders, her fingers gripping my soaked T-shirt.

She jumped in.

A splash. Someone dove in. Other arms, stronger, hook under my armpits and pull me backward. Miles. His voice, somewhere above my head:

“I’ve got you, Jace. Hang on.”

The edge of the pool scrapes my back, my elbows. They haul me out of the water—Miles on one side, Summer on the other, and other hands I don’t recognize. The wet tile under my shoulder blades. The night air on my soaked skin. The cold.

I’m shaking all over—my hands, my legs. My teeth chatter.

“Move along, nothing to see here!”

Evan’s firm voice, somewhere to my right. His cop tone, even in flip-flops on a Friday night by a pool.

“Come on, back up. Give him some room.”

Noah’s there.

I didn’t see him come. But his hands are on my face, he lays me down, he sets my head on his lap and holds me. His fingers in my wet hair, his other hand on my shoulder, firm enough that I feel the pressure through the T-shirt.

“Jace, look at me!”

I can’t. My eyes find the sky between the string lights, the red LED glow staining the faces bent over me—still red, still...

“Jace. Look at me.”

Noah’s brown eyes.

His hands don’t shake. He’s done this before.

“Breathe.”

I can’t. My chest heaves, locks, heaves.

“I’m here,” Noah says. “You’re safe.”

My fingers close on his T-shirt. I grip, because otherwise I’m gone again.

“I saw... I saw...”

The words strangle in my throat, garbled, broken.

Noah leans in and whispers in my ear:

“No. It was just some stupid toy.”

Toy.