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“How many times has this happened?”
“Hundreds of times.” Hundreds of deaths. Hundreds of reluctant resurrections. “I’ve lost count.”
“Is there anything that helps?”
Yes. There is. But how am I supposed to ask her for it? How am I supposed to ask anyone but my brothers? They’re the only ones who know, and they know it in spite of me. I’m not telling her how much it hurts. How two fists are squeezing the life out of my heart. Fuck. I can’t get a deep enough breath. Blades at the bottoms of my lungs.
I know there’s nothing in here with us. Nothing in the ocean that will wander inside. All that intellectual knowledge is useless in the face of this. I might as well stand up and take a few steps off the rock ledge, into the deep water. Just for a minute. Just for a moment. I wouldn’t lose my bearings in the dark. I could get home. I could do it. And if I died trying, it would be all right. No one would mind. She wouldn’t mind. She’d be happy. She could paint the wave that kills me. That would be a masterpiece, wouldn’t it? I should give it to her. I should. I should.
My mind is splintering under the stress. I push down at my knees to keep myself from running. That’s happened before. Animal instincts take over and you can’t do anything against those. Humans are animals. Oh, they make art and hang it up in pretty rooms and sell it for money, but we are animals. All the systems that keep us human are just inventions of the mind. Nothing serious. Nothing worth staying here for. Nothing.
It’s so horrifying that I could scream. I won’t. I never do. But it feels like I could. Anything to release the pressure.
It’s not screaming I need, however. It’s counterpressure.
My vision is next. I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose that. Follow the sound of the water, perhaps. Follow it all the way to the bottom. I don’t know. I’m out of options. I can’t breathe. I’m going to drown here in the air. There’s no house. Not even any sky. It’s the worst of all worlds, caught in this cave like a closet. The only thing outside is an ocean-sized threat. The only thing inside is a girl I’ve kidnapped. The only person I want to keep with me. There are no other choices.
Frames come off the walls. They’re not frames anymore. They’re twisted metal. The canvases are alive. They have claws and teeth to tear at my skin. That’s what this does, in the end. It puts me in the middle of all those emotions. And when I can’t fit them into frames, they sound like howling. They feel like being punched in the face. Like breaking bone. Like fists against wood. Light from around a door, growing wider and wider until it’s just open, until the world is inside and there’s no getting it back out.
I reach for Daphne’s wrist without thinking, practically blind.
She lets me take it and pull her around behind me. The silver blanket flutters to the rock. I don’t know how to explain this so I won’t. She settles against my back and I fold her arms in front of me. It’s an awkward hug, but I press her hands into my chest.
“I’m afraid to hurt you,” she says, her breath warm on the shell of my ear.
“You’re not hurting me.” I don’t know why she would think that. Why it would even come to her mind.
“Are we going somewhere? Are you going to swim?”
“I’m trying to stay here. We have to stay here until the tide goes out, Daphne. I’m trying to stay. Hold on.”
Hold on tighter.
Hold on with everything you have.
Finally, finally, she understands. Daphne’s grip tightens but it’s not tight enough. I need it to be tighter to survive this. I push at her hands and she digs them in. I know how ridiculous this is. I know that it’s ironic that I would need someone to crush my ribcage in order to breathe.
“I just.” Before my heart gives out. “Need some air.”
Daphne doesn’t argue with me. Doesn’t point out all the foolish, embarrassing ways that this makes no sense. She curls up against my back and nestles her head against my shoulder. I hate, with everything I am, that she can feel every tremble in my hands and every shake in my muscles, but I can’t stop them. It’s too late to stop her from seeing.
She’s here.
She’s too small for this. Too sweet. She shouldn’t have to do this at all. No one should. But she doesn’t seem afraid. It’s a secondary, less urgent fear. That this will be too much for her. That I will be too much for her.
“Is it worse because of me?” This question, whispered, almost disappears into the surge of the ocean. “Because I’m here?”
“I thought you were lost to me.”
“I wasn’t, Emerson.”
When I saw her in the water, I felt pure, unadulterated terror. There was no space between me and the emotion. No way to hold it at a safe distance. No frame. No gallery. My body jerks against her arms. It’s still trying to get into the water to swim away. To escape.
Daphne holds on.
Air creeps back into my lungs bit by bit. Every breath contains slightly more oxygen than the one before. The black recedes from my vision.
“Don’t leave me here,” Daphne says.
