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But seeing her go back to that girl shocks me to my core.
It’s like she was the sun and now she went back to being a starless night.
I blink again and that ghost of a girl is gone. But I can see the struggle it takes for her to snap out of the past and into who she has now become. I see the tension in the soft curve of her jaw, in the whitening of her knuckles. I cover them with my hand and she shivers.
I see the strength it took to come back from that.
I see her.
“If you want to jump in,” I tell her, “I’ll jump with you. I won’t let go of you for a second.”
“Why would you care if I jump in or not?”
“It’s so beautiful in the water,” I reply. “I wouldn’t want you to miss it.”
She looks down, her face a mix of terror and longing. “I have missed too much,” she muses, and I wonder what she means. “But you don’t have to jump with me.”
“Oh, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because.” What else can I reply but repeat what I told to her in that lake? “I lost you once. I’m not losing you again.” She looks away, not knowing what to say. “Please feel free to tell me to get lost if I’m invading your privacy.”
“Um… I…” She swallows. I wait. I don’t mind waiting for her. I never have. “I’m wearing my swimsuit underneath.”
I turn around and, in an instant, I hear fabric brushing against her silky skin as she removes her top and jeans. I swear, it is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life not to look at her. I have to clench my fists, because even though my head is trying to be a gentleman, my body is fully aware that she is next to me, undressing, and it can’t take it.
Don’t look don’t look don’t look.
But I look. I look. God help me, I look. She is wearing a different swimming suit, and it’s even worse than the previous one. It’s enough to make me want to jump in right now, ahead of her, just so that the freezing water will save me from my own misery.
“Ready,” she says when I’m about to die, and her voice sounds breathy. Scared and excited at the same time.
I blindly grab her hand, trying not to think too much of the feeling of her cool fingers against my burning skin or the flash of bare skin on her stomach or how the sun hits her bare, rosy skin, turning it…
“One, two, three!” I yell.
She screams.
We’re in the air, hands clasped tightly.
Then we’re in the water.
I look for her underwater, worried in case she’s scared or panicking. She isn’t. She sinks a bit at first, but then she starts kicking, and I let her rise to the surface on her own, staying close, but not touching her.
She’ll be proud of herself if she does this on her own.
She bursts out of the water, silver droplets flying around her head, the sun setting her wet curls on fire as if she is some sort of ancient goddess. She screams at the top of her lungs in triumph.
Meanwhile, my body keeps on burning underwater.
She looks at me, and I see in her eyes that she’s fighting against the fear, so I cut through the water and swim towards her. I wrap my arm around her waist, hoping to ease her panic of swimming in such deep, clear waters for the first time. But the minute my arm closes around her bare skin, I am lost.
I am never going to recover from this, ever.
I am going to keep on burning until I die.
“Having fun?” I ask her, gasping, and not because of the cold water.
